How to trigger the marginal note in two column layout

Question

I am using marginal note package in two column layout. The below mentioned command does not trigger the two column left and right side.

\ifodd\value{page}
\if@firstcolumn\reversemarginpar\else\normalmarginpar\fi
\else
\if@firstcolumn\reversemarginpar\else\normalmarginpar\fi
\fi

This if then else condition does not working for me.

MWE

    \documentclass[twocolumn]{article}

\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{marginnote}

\makeatletter
\let\oldmarginnote\marginnote
\renewcommand*{\marginnote}[1]{%
   \begingroup%
   \ifodd\value{page}
     \if@firstcolumn\reversemarginpar\fi
   \else
     \if@firstcolumn\else\reversemarginpar\fi
   \fi
   \oldmarginnote{#1}%
   \endgroup%
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\lipsum[1]\marginnote{Odd page left side note}[-50pt]

\lipsum[2]
\lipsum[3]
\lipsum[4]\marginnote{Odd page right side note}[-50pt]
\lipsum[5]
\lipsum[6]
\lipsum[7]\marginnote{even page left side note}
\lipsum[8]
\lipsum[9]
\lipsum[10]
\lipsum[11]
\lipsum[12]
\lipsum[13]
\lipsum[14]\marginnote{even page right side note}
\lipsum[15]
\lipsum[16]
\lipsum[17]

\clearpage

\onecolumn



\begin{multicols}{2}

\section{Multicol environment begins}

\lipsum[10]\marginnote{Multicol left side note}
\lipsum[11]
\lipsum[12]
\lipsum[13]
\lipsum[14]
\lipsum[15]
\lipsum[16]\marginnote{Multicol right side note}
\lipsum[17]

\end{multicols}


\end{document}

Currently i am using manually given \reversemarginpar and \normalmarginpar. My requirement is auto trigger is working if then else condition. Kindly advice.

Answer 1

The multicol package has a colaction option. You can then do column-dependent actions with the \docolaction command. The three arguments are the actions for the first, middle, and last columns.

This is a simple version but it doesn't handle the optional argument to marginnote (which comes after the mandatory argument, not before it).

    \documentclass{article}

    \usepackage[colaction]{multicol}
    \usepackage{lipsum}
    \usepackage{marginnote}

    \let\oldmarginnote\marginnote
    \renewcommand{\marginnote}[1]
         {\begingroup\docolaction{\reversemarginpar}{}{}\oldmarginnote{#1}\endgroup}

    \begin{document}

    \begin{multicols}{2}
    \section{Multicol environment begins}
    \lipsum[10]\marginnote{lipsum 10}
    \lipsum[11]\marginnote{lipsum 11}
    \lipsum[12]\marginnote{lipsum 12}
    \lipsum[13]\marginnote{lipsum 13}
    \lipsum[14]\marginnote{lipsum 14}
    \lipsum[15]\marginnote{lipsum 15}
    \lipsum[16]\marginnote{lipsum 16}
    \lipsum[17]\marginnote{lipsum 17}
    \end{multicols}

\end{document}

To handle the optional argument, we have to dig down inside the package and change the low-level command that actually does the work:

    \documentclass{article}

    \usepackage[colaction]{multicol}
    \usepackage{lipsum}
    \usepackage{marginnote}

    \makeatletter
    \let\old@mn@@@marginnote\@mn@@@marginnote
    \long\def\@mn@@@marginnote[#1]#2[#3]{%
      \begingroup
      \docolaction{\reversemarginpar}{}{}\old@mn@@@marginnote[{#1}]{#2}[{#3}]%
      \endgroup}
    \makeatother

    \begin{document}

    \begin{multicols}{2}
    \section{Multicol environment begins}
    \lipsum[10]\marginnote{lipsum 10}[-30pt]
    \lipsum[11]\marginnote{lipsum 11}
    \lipsum[12]\marginnote{lipsum 12}
    \lipsum[13]\marginnote{lipsum 13}[-30pt]
    \lipsum[14]\marginnote{lipsum 14}
    \lipsum[15]\marginnote{lipsum 15}[-30pt]
    \lipsum[16]\marginnote{lipsum 16}[-30pt]
    \lipsum[17]\marginnote{lipsum 17}
    \end{multicols}

\end{document}

Answer 2

alephzero's answer generally works well (after installing the latest version of multicol), but there was a major problem in my case: with a two-sided document it works correctly on odd pages, but on even pages marginnotes tries to automatically reverse the side it uses, resulting in the notes for the right column showing up on the left and vice versa.

This can be corrected with a \checkoddpage, which is built into memoir or can be obtained from the changepage package – you can simply reverse the opposite column's notes on even pages. I am not using the optional argument of marginnote, so I stuck with the first version and used:

\usepackage{marginnote}
\let\oldmarginnote\marginnote
\strictpagecheck
\renewcommand{\marginnote}[1]
  {%
    \checkoddpage%
    \ifoddpage%
      {\begingroup\docolaction{\reversemarginpar}{}{}\oldmarginnote{#1}\endgroup}%
    \else{%
      {\begingroup\docolaction{}{}{\reversemarginpar}\oldmarginnote{#1}\endgroup}}%
    \fi%
  }

Edit: It's important to declare \strictpagecheck, or captions in the first section of a page may end up on the wrong side.