[Discussion]: Inline macro with \macro style

[boltlessengineer]

I'm opening this issue as discussion instead of suggestion because it is incomplete proposal. I want to share some idea to implement inline macro.

I know, it smells like LaTeX.

Idea

Inline macro syntax needs macro identifier and list of arguments.
We already have good way to represent key-value arguments inline with attached modifier extensions; (key value;key;key). So we only need syntax to represent macro identifier.

In v1 spec, escaped normal character (not whitespace nor punctuation) doesn't have any additional meanings.
We can use that.

\macro-name(key value;params)

As some inline macros might need raw markup text as an argument, we an provide that with existing [...] grammar:

\macro-name[*markup* argument](key value;params)

I'm not sure if [...] should be free-form or not.

If it is free-form, we can replace $...$ syntax with this:

\latex[c = \sqrt{a^2 + b^2}]
\typst[c = sqrt(a^2 + b^2)]

If it is not free-form, we can nest the inline macros:

\my-macro[some text with \emoji(thinking)]

2nd case also shares same syntax with anchor

Example

\u(1f600) -> (unicode 1f600)

\gh[neovim/neovim] -> {https://github.com/neovim/neovim}[neovim/neovim]

\nvimhelp[:h 'shiftwidth'] -> {https://neovim.io/doc/user/options.html#'shiftwidth'}[`:h 'shiftwidth'`]

\latex[\alpha + \beta = \gamma] -> (Abstract Object representing LaTeX math equiation)

Cons

• While \u is ok, \t or \n might confuse users.
• How to handle _\m_ or -\m-? Macro name can conflict with underline/strikethrough closing modifiers.
  • This wouldn't be a problem with [Suggestion]: Generalize link-modifier to work everywhere #49