Sequences

Sometimes things need to be enumerated. Say you have a bunch of images and want to add descriptions for them, as to be found in certain books. You could do this like this:

    \CENTER<\IMAGE{...}>
  
      Image 3.
  
    ...
  
    \CENTER<\IMAGE{...}>
  
      Image 4.

Of course this is not applicable for larger documents - and it becomes impossible if parts of the document are written by others. Each new image would require to recheck all those descriptions.

Automatic enumaration can help here. By having a possiblility to insert the next number of a numerical sequence for a certain category, and by using this generic feature in image descriptions, one can achieve a maintenance free but ever correct numbering. Such auto numbers are available with the \SEQ tag.

    \CENTER<\IMAGE{...}>
  
      Image \SEQ{type=images}.
  
    ...
  
    \CENTER<\IMAGE{...}>
  
      Image \SEQ{type=images}.

The category of a sequence number is assigned by option type. The first time \SEQ is used for a certain category it evaluates to 1. Each subsequent use for this same category will increase the number returned.

    ...
  
    1: \SEQ{type=number}
  
    2: \SEQ{type=number}
  
    3: \SEQ{type=number}
  
    ...

Sequences are counted throughout the whole document. They are never reset, so all parts can safely rely on them - even in projects with many authors. Just make it a convention which category names should be used for images, tables, bookmarks, footnotes or whatever you need.

The number of categories is not limited. By defining different categories you can number everything you want.

    ...
  
    ... image \SEQ{type=images} ...
  
    ... table \SEQ{type=tables} ...
  
    ... book \SEQ{type=books} ...
  
    ...

Further more, by using an additional feature of sequence numbers, each of them can be individualized by a name. It is assigned by option name and can be used to refer to a certain sequence number item via \REF.

    Table \SEQ{type=tables name="special table"}:
  
    @|
    item | description
    bla  | bla bla
  
    ...
  
    ...
  
    ... please see table \REF{name="special table"} ...

And yes, the reference can be a link.

    ... please see table  \REF{name="special table" type=linked} ...