[texworks] Early thoughts

[Will Robertson]

On 18/09/2008, at 10:56 PM, Jonathan Kew wrote:

> Sorry! (It's mentioned on the texworks pages both at TUG and Google,  
> though.)

:) Quite all right.
I just get a shock sometimes when I find out that I'm not always on  
the bleeding edge!
There are faults in my communication lines!

>> (1) The UI can be simplified! The following items should be dropped
>> from the "Format" menu since they're already (rightly) included in  
>> the
>> preferences:
>>   - "Font…"
>>   - "Wrap lines"
>>   - "Syntax Coloring"
>
> Well, they're not the same thing. The Preferences dialog sets the  
> defaults for newly-opened editor windows; the Format menu items  
> affect the current window only.
>
> Now maybe that's not necessary or helpful; maybe these settings  
> should be "global", not set for individual windows at all. Anyone  
> have thoughts on this?

Why would you want to change the font or syntax highlighting  
individually?
Word wrap I can see a slight use for, but, well, is it worth  
cluttering up the menu with a rarely used feature? :) (this is a hard  
game, I agree)

>> (2) I'd really like the Find/Replace panels to be merged :)
>
> Could do, though some apps that do this end up with rather a lot of  
> options and buttons in the resulting dialog.
>
> Care to come up with a proposed design? :)

No comment :)
But sure, broadly speaking I'd be more than happy to help.

> This would have problems, though, with a doc that does something like
>
> \usepackage{ifxetex}
> \ifxetex
> \usepackage[no-math]{fontspec}
> \setmainfont{Times-Roman}
> \else
> \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
> \usepackage{times}
> \usepackage{microtype}
> \fi
> % ....etc
>
> But it's probably worth trying to do something, anyhow.

I think matching the \usepackage only if there's no whitespace before  
it (i.e., at the beginning of the line) will help that a fair bit. And  
detecting *both* fontspec & microtype is a give-away, too. So there's  
another big chunk.

Yeah, you'll never be able to get 100% of the cases but I *believe*  
(at least) you'll be able to get a fair majority.

> (Might also want to detect \usepackage{pst*} and default to using  
> simpdftex.)

Unless (auto-)pst-pdf is loaded :)

Thanks again!

Will