[OS X TeX] WinEdit for Mac

[Charilaos Skiadas]

On Mar 29, 2006, at 11:16 AM, Gary L. Gray wrote:

>
> On Mar 29, 2006, at 11:37 AM, George Gratzer wrote:
>
>> On Mar 29, 2006, at 10:22 AM, Victor Ivrii wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> How did you tell TeXShop that you want to use TextMate as an  
>>>> external
>>>> editor?
>>>
>>> You can tell TS (Preferences > Document > Use External Editor)  
>>> that you want an
>>> external editor. You cannot specify it. So you open foo.tex in both
>>> Editor and TS (then TS' editor window does not show up) and save
>>> before each typeset (in editor)
>>>
>>
>> What does TextMate do for you that you need in everyday routine  
>> work? Is it worth the effort to learn it?
>
> We tried it for a few days but didn't find the value added by  
> TextMate to be worth the loss of sync as well as the effort to have  
> to write scripts. We went back to TeXShop.
>
I actually use TeXniscope as my previewer, and syncing with TextMate  
works fine there.
As to what TextMate does for me, the list is too long, and most of it  
doesn't necessarily apply to all people, but here are some of my  
reasons:

1. It "feels right". It's that same feeling I got when I first moved  
to the Mac platform from PC.
2. I use it for a number of editing tasks, from posting to my blog  
via Markdown syntax, to preparing the HTML files for my classes,  
hacking it with Ruby and Shell scripts etc. So it is a nice, common  
interface for everything, that does not get in your way and lets you  
do stuff.
3. It is very easy, if you know about regular expressions and have  
very rudimentary programming skills, to customize what parts of the  
syntax get highlighted, and how. I have full control over it and  
could easily change it if I want to. In fact, there is an extensive  
collection of "bundles" for various languages, with a lot of useful  
functionality already built in.
4. Same for writing commands to do stuff. Basically if you know any  
scripting language, you can bend TextMate to do what you want it to.  
This has actually gotten me to learn a lot more about the shell in  
the process.
5. The developer is extremely responsive and open about how and where  
the project is going, and the whole community around it is wonderful,  
both the mailing list and the irc channel. I can basically walk into  
the channel, and ask the most stupid question, about anything, and  
chances are it will be answered in a nice way.

ok, I better stop soon, I could go on forever and I really shouldn't.  
I'll just finish by saying that it personally has changed my life,  
and has made me a lot more productive, but most importantly it is a  
pleasure to use and tinker. At this point, for me, it is reason  
enough to stay with the Mac platform, as if there weren't already a  
million other reasons.

Of course, it is not for everyone. Btw, the learning curve is really  
not that long at all, IMHO.

You can watch the screencasts I've made on how to use TextMate for  
LaTeX, and some of the things it is offering, at: http:// 
skiadas.dcostanet.net/afterthought/category/mac-os-x/textmate/

Haris

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