[Mac OS X TeX] Re: Trying to get something Alpha-ish in Mac OS X

[Eric Hsu]

I used to use Alpha all the time in OS9 with OzTeX. It was in fact 
the last Classic program I gave up, and only because (at the time) 
there were conflicts between Classic and Palm Desktop.

Anyway, I tried BBEdit for a while, but never quite got the hang of 
the glossary thing. I'm now using Pepper (due to a recommendation on 
this list), and I'm almost very happy with it. (I was happy enough to 
buy it!) I love its flexibility defining keystroke shortcuts, and it 
even includes HTML Tidy.  It works okay with OzTeX.  It's speedy and 
pretty solid.

Things I miss from Alpha:

1. The ability to tab out of parentheses to the big-dots.
2. More pre-built LaTeX templates... I forget options and names.
3. (When it worked,) the nice reformatting and tabbing of code.

Things I don't miss:

1. Loading time of Classic.
2. Difficulty of changing keybindings.
3. Difficulty of changing fonts and line endings (Mac v. Unix v. DOS).
4. Slightly flaky syntax coloring with respect to quoted text.

The tabbing to big-dots is really the only thing I actively miss. 
It's amazing how that small feature can speed up your entry.

Rumor has it that Pepper 4 will be coming out someday. I wonder 
whether it will come out before Alpha X (which I would surely try if 
it came out...).

Let me know if you find something even better!  (I'm not learning 
Emacs... sorry.)

- Eric
-- 
Eric Hsu, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
San Francisco State University
erichsu at math.sfsu.edu
http://math.sfsu.edu/hsu/

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