FR: Add HTML partial for Appendix.

[cscheid]

Discussed in #8632

^{Originally posted by batpigandme February 7, 2024}

Description

A bit related to #6552 in terms of wanting more cutomization, but a bit more minimalistic (i.e. would still be an html partial): Would it be possible to have an HTML template partial for the Appendix (the current <div id="quarto-appendix">)?

I find myself wanting to make slight changes to that section, similar to the kind of tweaks I've made with the title-block.html partial, but, since the appendix is in $body$, I don't have easy access to the variables used.

For example, I'd like to employ the wording from distill's reuse-note, but I think I'd have to make an entirely new template in order to do so right now.

Thanks for your consideration, and/or any workarounds that currently exist but I haven't figured out!

[cscheid]

I thought this would be easy, but it turns out it's tricky. The appendix div is currently generated in our HTML postprocessor:

quarto-cli/src/format/html/format-html-appendix.ts

Lines 398 to 400 in f74552d

	if (appendixEl.childElementCount > 0) {
	mainEl.appendChild(appendixEl);
	}

What we could do is make it so that the appendix is either added to mainEl, or to a different element that might be present in the document.

@batpigandme can you give a more concrete example of how you'd want the HTML to look like?

[cderv]

To add to the context, for reference, the Apprendix term is used in Quarto for this feature : https://quarto.org/docs/authoring/appendices.html

We move there References and footnotes in some cases, and allow custom content by adding a class to a section, or some content passed in configuration to go there (like licence). Style of appendix can also be changed. So I guess this is what currently justify the post processing part.

What we could do is make it so that the appendix is either added to mainEl, or to a different element that might be present in the document.

Seems a good idea. We just need to make sure the appendix-style and other configuration still works

For example, I'd like to employ the wording from distill's reuse-note, but I think I'd have to make an entirely new template in order to do so right now.

Currently customisation of the appendix can be done through options. For example @batpigandme for this reuse part, you can modify the text to use with the Licence (https://quarto.org/docs/authoring/front-matter.html#license). This will be use in the "Reuse" section of the appendix. We could try to make that more friendly if it is not enough. Did you try using this configuration already ?

[batpigandme]

Currently customisation of the appendix can be done through options. For example @batpigandme for this reuse part, you can modify the text to use with the Licence (https://quarto.org/docs/authoring/front-matter.html#license).

Works for my use case! Thanks