margin notes not appearing where desired

[ericpgreen]

Description

Is it possible to have a margin note appear in the margin at the start of a paragraph, taking priority over margin references cited in the same paragraph?

In the following example, I'd like the note to appear in the position of the reference, followed by the reference.

To reproduce, start a new Quarto book project in RStudio and add two elements:

(1) add the following text to index.qmd file below the pre-existing code block.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque blandit porta massa, eget vehicula est imperdiet ut. Mauris elementum nisi consequat fermentum luctus. Mauris vel arcu vitae nibh molestie porttitor. Integer vel pellentesque nulla. Suspendisse potenti. Donec ipsum turpis, facilisis sed neque ut, congue bibendum erat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed hendrerit turpis nec porttitor bibendum. Aenean vel porttitor neque.

Nam sit amet eros arcu. Mauris vitae sem nisi. Duis interdum mauris vitae varius congue. Curabitur at sem dignissim, porta lacus quis, rutrum urna. Donec tellus lacus, aliquam vitae elit at, pellentesque commodo velit. Sed malesuada velit eget orci rutrum, non vestibulum arcu fermentum. Sed id elit pretium, ultrices nunc eget, ornare lorem. Phasellus tincidunt fermentum justo tempus tincidunt. Suspendisse consequat vehicula lacinia. Etiam pharetra nisl in dui aliquam, vitae porttitor neque pellentesque. Donec et scelerisque ante.[@knuth84]

:::{.column-margin}
I want to put a note level with the start of the paragraph that begins with "Nam sit amet eros arcu".
:::

(2) YAML

Add citation-location: margin to the YAML in _quarto.yml.

ps. In the past, I believe placing .column-margin ABOVE the paragraph led to the desired behavior.

R version 4.3.2 (2023-10-31)
Platform: aarch64-apple-darwin20 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Sonoma 14.1

quarto::quarto_version()
#[1] ‘1.4.555’

Posted originally at https://forum.posit.co/t/margin-notes-not-appearing-where-desired/188317?u=eric_green

[mcanouil]

To be sure I understand. You are placing a custom margin after a reference but want the reference to be after that custom margin text?
To me, everything works as expected and as you "asked" (with the code you wrote).

I don't believe this was ever possible or ever will.

Note that footnotes would behave more like references.

Additionally, instead of using div for margin, you could try with span to make your note tied to the same paragraph. https://quarto.org/docs/authoring/markdown-basics.html#sec-divs-and-spans

[mcanouil]

Are you using the same code?
Could you check what Quarto version was used? (It should at least be in the HTML metadata)

[ericpgreen]

Yeah, same code. I last rendered with quarto-1.2.335. In the second example I shared, the reference does not render today, just the note.

Here's what I'm trying to achieve. I think what you're saying is that this should not be possible. Is that right?

[mcanouil]

If the behaviour was changed, it's likely because of a more important issue.
We'll need to investigate more.
What's certain right now is that the order is defined by the order in which references/notes appear.

[ericpgreen]

Thanks for your feedback.

I'm investigating spans as you suggested. From the docs it looks like [some note]{.aside} should work, but it's rendering in the main column as normal text for me.

Should this get me closer to what I'm looking for?

[I want to put a note level with the start of the paragraph that begins with "Nam sit amet eros arcu".]{.aside}

Nam sit amet eros arcu. Mauris vitae sem nisi. Duis interdum mauris vitae varius congue. Curabitur at sem dignissim, porta lacus quis, rutrum urna. Donec tellus lacus, aliquam vitae elit at, pellentesque commodo velit. Sed malesuada velit eget orci rutrum, non vestibulum arcu fermentum. Sed id elit pretium, ultrices nunc eget, ornare lorem. Phasellus tincidunt fermentum justo tempus tincidunt. Suspendisse consequat vehicula lacinia. Etiam pharetra nisl in dui aliquam, vitae porttitor neque pellentesque. Donec et scelerisque ante.[@knuth84]

[ericpgreen]

I think asides are broken in my version of Quarto per this issue. I will investigate how to update Quarto and try again (I have the version bundled with RStudio).