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From: woo@ornl.gov (John W. Wooten)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Indenting first paragraph
Message-ID: <1991May17.171537.17685@cs.utk.edu>
Date: 17 May 91 17:15:37 GMT
References: <1991May17.153059.24466@csrd.uiuc.edu>
Sender: usenet@cs.utk.edu (USENET News Poster)
Organization: Univ of TN, Knoxville - CS Department
Lines: 61

In article <1991May17.153059.24466@csrd.uiuc.edu> eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu  
(Victor Eijkhout) writes:
...stuff deleted
> Very cute. \section sets up conditions so that the first
> following paragraph will not be indented, and all after that
> will be. Now giving \noindent followed by an empty line (which is
> a \par, remember?) gives an empty paragraph (nothing to be seen),
> and you next material will be indented.
> 
> Unfortunately this is all quite deplorable. The idea behind
> documentstyles is that they implement a layout. If you want
> a different layout you should not fiddle around but just write a
> new document style, or if your change is just small, add an option.
> 
> Here is the definition of the primitive command behind sectioning.
> 
> % \@startsection {NAME}{LEVEL}{INDENT}{BEFORESKIP}{AFTERSKIP}{STYLE} 
> %            optional * [ALTHEADING]{HEADING}
> %    Generic command to start a section.  
> %    NAME       : e.g., 'subsection'
> %    LEVEL      : a number, denoting depth of section -- e.g., chapter=1,
> %                 section = 2, etc.
> %    INDENT     : Indentation of heading from left margin
> %    BEFORESKIP : Absolute value = skip to leave above the heading.  
>      ^^^^^^^^^
> %                 If negative, then paragraph indent of text following 
>                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> %                 heading is suppressed.
>                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> %    AFTERSKIP  : if positive, then skip to leave below heading, else 
> %                 negative of skip to leave to right of run-in heading.
> %    STYLE      : commands to set style
> 
> and here is the \section command in the 10pt style
> 
> \def\section{\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}{-3.5ex plus -1ex minus 
>  -.2ex}{2.3ex plus .2ex}{\Large\bf}}
> 
> If you change that into
> \def\section{\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}{+3.5ex plus +1ex minus 
>  +.2ex}{2.3ex plus .2ex}{\Large\bf}}
> 
> the first paragraph will be indented.
> 
> Now take this definition and put it in an option file
> indpar.sty and give \documentstyle[indpar]{article},
> or maybe make a whole new style file.
> 
> Victor "always out to edify" Eijkhout.
> 
> (maybe I should save this msg and repost it whenever this
> topic comes up. Hm. maybe I can even write a Un*x shell script
> that will just go ahead and post it every two days :-)

I don't entirely agree with you statement about making a new style.  I tend to  
try to always use the standard distributed styles with minor over-rides in the  
document itself.  Then I can send it to someone else and expect it to work.   
When I've tried new styles, etc.  the problem of configuration managment comes  
up.  I don't always remember to send the new styles or remember to reinstall  
them for awhile after a new system installation.  So my comment is, be careful  
about new styles and mods to the standard stuff.  It can bite you later :-)