[Mac OS X TeX] AlphaX (was: BBEdit 6.5 & OzTeX 5.0b7)

[Daniel A. Steffen]

At 11:37 +0100 on 25/1/02, Ingo Reich wrote:

>It's a pity that there isn't one editor that (i) has a really nice tex
>mode (like that in Alpha) AND (ii) supports excalibur, eudora etc. AND
>(iii) integrates smoothly with OzTeX/ TeXShop/teTeX AND (iv) enables one
>to re-open a changed pdf-file at the same page (like only (?)
>MacGhostView_OSX does) within TeXShop, isn't it? I'm really looking
>forward to the OSX version of Alpha!

It's coming sooner than you might think...
all of the essential pieces are carbonized now, and we will start 
alphatesting as soon as I can fix one last annoying issue. (1-2 days)

Of course there will be bugs that will need to be worked out, and a 
fair bit of AlphaTcl work is needed, but it's stable enough already 
for me to use AlphaX myself to edit .tex files; so a public beta 
release is not that far away. (People who are very familiar with 
Alpha, AlphaTcl and Tcl and would like to become alphatesters can 
contact me; note that you are expected to spend a certain amount of 
time on useful bugreports, or on improving AlphaTcl for AlphaX; and 
you have to be willing to live with the bugs of course)

I'm also currently working on pdf preview functionality internal to 
AlphaX (using Quartz/CoreGraphics pdf display) and would like to hear 
people's suggestions/ideas for features for such a pdf preview window.

already on my list are:

- refresh display when pdf file changes
- magnification cursor a la textures/xdvi
- keep current viewing rectangle across page changes (maybe only optionally?)
- maybe: display of more than one page at the same time (facing pages)

Cheers,

Daniel
-- 
** Daniel A. Steffen          **  "And now to something completely
** Department of Mathematics  **   different"    Monty Python
** Macquarie University       ** <mailto:steffen at maths.mq.edu.au>
** NSW 2109 Australia         ** <http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~steffen/>

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