[texworks] Early thoughts

[gkv1 at mac.com]

All,

I use command completion type commands in TextMate all the time, but I  
can customize them to my heart's content, and typically they only  
happen when I press 'tab'.  I would be happy for the TeXworks editor  
not to have things like that, provided that I can use my own editor  
and sync with the TeXworks PDF preview window. Without that option, I  
would much prefer to have the option of customizable command  
completion, auto indent, snippets etc.  Maybe you just need to be able  
to disable such things as a whole, in order to keep the purists happy,  
but allow them for those who need them.

Geoff Vallis


On Sep 18, 2008, at 9:07 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote:

>
> On Sep 18, 2008, at 7:54 PM, Bruno Voisin wrote:
>
>> Le 18 sept. 08 à 14:26, Jonathan Kew a écrit :
>>
>>> On 18 Sep 2008, at 1:17 PM, Will Robertson wrote:
>>>
>>>> (5) As well as command completion, I'd like automatic trigger  
>>>> stuff.
>>>> E.g., typing \begin{ on an otherwise empty line would immediately
>>>> insert an \end{ on the next line and then fill in both environment
>>>> delimiters at the same time as you typed the name of the  
>>>> environment.
>>>> Editing one of them would edit the other, simultaneously.
>>>
>>> Yes, that'd be slick.
>>
>> Please don't. Don't turn the TeXworks editor into some beast that  
>> tries to be clever, that tries to guess what the user is willing to  
>> type. Don't turn the editor into another Word, that considers every  
>> time you type a bullet you're willing to create an itemized list,  
>> that doesn't allow you to select exactly the piece of text you want  
>> to select and that instead adds to/suppresses from the selection  
>> spaces, punctuations, additional pieces of words.
>>
>> Don't. Or at least provide the user with a single switch to  
>> suppress all these clever additions.
>>
>> There are users who like such additions. But there are also old- 
>> style users like me who want an editor to type exactly what they  
>> instruct it to type, no more no less, to select exactly what they  
>> used their mouse to select, no more no less.
>>
>> Please no automatic indentation, no command completion, and the  
>> like. That an editor highlights pieces of input (like syntax  
>> coloring) is fine, because that doesn't alter the input in any way.  
>> But have an editor create input, which the user hasn't explicitly  
>> requested (by typing it) is to me properly unacceptable. To make a  
>> more modern analogy, such "input help" feels to me as annoying and  
>> as counter-productive as the dreaded iPhone auto-correction.
>>
>> Similar features, called "Electric Aliases", are precisely what  
>> made me ditch Alpha (a Tcl-based Mac text editor "à la Emacs")  
>> which I had switched to when an OzTeX user for some time. It was  
>> always possible to disable these Electric Aliases, but that  
>> required hunting the app preferences and disable them one by one,  
>> which was a nuisance.
>>
>> Bruno Voisin
>
>
> Howdy,
>
> I agree with Bruno here. I worked on expanding command completion in  
> TeXshop simply because I get to control when it happens; you've got  
> to press ESC so nothing happens automatically. Many of the  
> abbreviations in command completion come from the FasTeX set that is  
> used by TypeIt4Me which drove me crazy because expansions are done  
> automatically.
>
> Good Luck,
>
> Herb Schulz
> (herbs at wideopenwest dot com)
>
>
>