Guy Worthington
I think I'm using the wrong tool. I want a description environment, slightly narrower than the main text, and separated from the main text by a hairlines.
I would use the textbackground feature: \definedescription [Note] [headstyle=\sc, style=small, width=fit, distance=10pt, hang=20, before={\startnarrower\starttextbackground[NoteA]}, after={\stoptextbackground\stopnarrower}] \definetextbackground[NoteA][frame=off, topframe=on, % does not work... location=paragraph] [...] How to get top and bottom frame only is left as an exercise to the reader(*). (*) Well, I gave up on this. Perhaps we should convince Hans to make options for this like in \framed: frame=off,topframe=on as above... I did not feel like hacking TeX *and* metapost. Almost there: \startuseMPgraphic{mpos:par:columnset} path p; for i := 1 upto nofmultipars : p := multipars[i]; if multilocs[i] = 1 : % top draw topboundary p; elseif multilocs [i] = 3 : %bottom draw bottomboundary p; fi endfor ; \stopuseMPgraphic (just copy this peace of code into your tex file and you'll see) We desperately need the issplit boolean there! :) Patrick