Anything better than these macros?

Dear all,

a user would like to have captions in the list of figures different from 
the captions under each figure; this is because if there are citations 
in the captions, the citations being in the list of figures would 
scramble their order. I suggested these macros 
http://forum.texmacs.cn/t/optional-caption/750/9, but I did it by 
guessing. I think an intervention by one of the developers could help: 
we do not want the user to have to write their thesis in LaTeX because 
TeXmacs cannot satisfy their reasonable demand (which is the demand of 
their thesis advisor :-)). Please see details at 
http://forum.texmacs.cn/t/optional-caption/750

Giovanni