Re: Page Numbers in @ref

[Gavin Smith]

On Mon, Nov 16, 2020 at 06:42:06PM +0100, Christopher Dimech wrote:
> Some have commented that they did not want the page number to be displayed
> in some documents (e.g. non-printed pdf output)
> 
> For instance, I have used @ref to refer to bibliographic output, where the
> page number is not really important - that is, the user can easily find the
> bibliographic element, without having to absolutely know the page number.
> In other instances, users find the full nomenclature difficult when they have
> multiple references (e.g. in tables) and an abbreviated form would be 
> pleasantly
> appreciated.  It was pointed out to me that users will mistake abbreviated
> versions for a footnote.  However, if the letter 'p' is affixed prior to the
> pageno, the ambiguation is solved.
> 
> The abbreviated form will be
> 
> [Label]\sup{p\pagenumber}

I don't agree with this.  We're not in the business of inventing
typographical conventions, however good your suggestion may be.

> We can have a variable similar to @noindent, where a variable,
> e.g. @refpageno can be set to 'full', 'abrv', or 'none'.
> 
> 'none' will not include  the page number.
> 
> It has been suggested that there would be a global variable for
> the whole document on how references should be displayed.  But I
> claim that users would want the flexibility to switch between
> modes in their documents.  For instance, for long documents with
> tables and bibliographies, one would want the abbreviated version,
> whilst in the bibliographies, one would not want page numbers.
> Whereas in the main text, the author would want to use the full
> reference description.

Yes, if there ever is an option to hide the page numbers this should
be a flag set with @set.