How to \maketitle (and others)

[josephwright]

In bemear, the 'preferred' way to insert a title frame is using \titlepage, though \maketitle is still available. The latter can be used inside or outside a frame and works equally well either way. On the other hand, \titlepage is documented always inside a frame env.

At present, I'd implemented only \maketitle as that matches the LaTeX standard approach, but I wonder what is best overall. There's also things like \sectionpage in beamer, which we will need to consider and which might influence thinking. (I'm not that happy with page in those names, BTW.)

Thoughts?

[cfr42]

Does it make tagging easier to have only one? (Though I believe environments are easier to tag generally.)

It has never really occurred to me to try \maketitle in a beamer document (unless the UK TUG slides you gave me use it, in which case I probably use it there). Is the idea that you might want \maketitle to do something significantly different from \titlepage?

I agree page isn't great. Do you have an alternative?

[samcarter]

I didn't actually do the statistics, but I think I've seen way more questions with \maketitle in their beamer code than \begin{frame}\titlepage\end{frame} (although I prefer the later as this makes it easy to switch to plain frames etc.)

[samcarter]

About the beamer \sectionpage: in the current beamer implementation, I think the macro isn't as useful as it could be.

There are two possible use cases:

• automatic section frames. In this case the theme and/or user could just as well use the template in \AtBeginSection{\begin{frame}\usebeamertemplate{section page}\end{frame}}
• only use for some sections. In this case the user will still have to warp the \sectionpage in a frame

---

Just thinking out loud for ltx-talk. How about

• using latex templates to hold the information for part/section/subsection/whatever frames
• provide \sectionframe etc macros, which work like \maketitle and check if they are inside or outside of a frame. An optional argument can pass options like plain to the frame.
• users/themes can then either use these or the latex templates in \AtBeginSection{...}
• if a user only wants section frames for some sections, they can then directly use \sectionframe

[jasperhabicht]

I like the idea of having the \section command create a full frame using a template such as \AtBeginSection{\begin{frame}\usebeamertemplate{section page}\end{frame}}. I mean, why not? Think of a \chapter command that may create a full chapter page in an article or report document.

[samcarter]

I'm not that happy with page in those names, BTW.

If you are going to rename these, maybe also rename the titlepage latex template etc. in ltx-talk to match?

[Skillmon]

Revisiting this: In standard classes there's \maketitle (and I agree that we should have that as the supported way to create the title frame outside of a frame environment). But standard classes also have the titlepage environment that allows custom titles to be easily created without hooking into \maketitle. Something similar to this in ltx-talk would be nice, I guess. Names could either be titlepage to follow standard classes (but clashes with beamer's usage of it) or titleframe.

[cfr42]

do you mean for the environment to go inside a frame environment or to create a frame environment? if the second, titleframe seems clearer; if the first, titleframe seems misleading.

[Skillmon]

I meant as a standalone environment.

[cfr42]

I guess I wouldn't call it <something>frame if it doesn't create a frame ...

[Skillmon]

@cfr42 misunderstanding :) I meant titleframe should be a standalone environment that creates a single frame in which the user can hand-craft their title frame. titleframe shouldn't be nested inside of frame!