🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <851@mti.mti.com> adrian@mti.UUCP (Adrian McCarthy) writes:

>When a page break occurs in the middle of dialog, the page should end with
>(CONTINUED), and the next page should start with a recapitulation of the
>character speaking.  For example:
>
>   ...
>                           ADRIAN
>                So I was typing along when all of
>                the sudden there was this page break
>                                   (CONTINUED)
>----------[bottom margin, page break, and top margin of next page]-------------
>                           ADRIAN (CONT'D)
>                right in the middle of my dialog.
>    ...
>
>I need something equivalent to ``perform these commands if you do a page break
>withing the scope of this stuff.''  

Well, Aid, I hate to say this, but this is a rather difficult proposition.
Fortunately, since these are screenplays, it should be possible to
simplify somewhat LaTeX's output routine: You'll need to abandon the ability
to do most "float" type operations in LaTeX. (e.g., figures and tables--I
think we can still keep footnotes and marginpars, although they could cause
difficulty).  The "(CONTINUED)" and "ADRIAN (CONT'D)" texts will have to
be treated as floating insertions. At the beginning of a speaker's comments,
they would be added to the bottom of page and top of page insertion lists
respectively, then removed at the end of the speaker's dialogue. However,
if you read Chapter 24 of the TeXbook carefully you will discover that
TeX is sometimes a bit into the next page when it decides to break the 
page. I haven't looked closely at the LaTeX output routine, but you may
need to scrap the bulk of it to get this to work. Essentially, you'll want
to make sure that the output routine gets called at the end of each speaker
and that the extra text is inserted if that speaker's dialogue is split. 
Furthermore, you'll need to guard against a situation where the following
occurs:

                              ADRIAN
                            (CONTINUED)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
                        ADRIAN (CNT'D)
              Hey? What Happened? I was minding my business
              and that crud appeared in my speech.

In short, you do not have a happy task before you. However, it _is_ 
possible (I'd tackle it myself if I had the time).

-dh
-- 
"Odi et amo, quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
   nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior"          -Catullus
D.A. Hosek.                        UUCP: uunet!jarthur!dhosek
                               Internet: dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu