[OS X TeX] Various TeX programs on Mac

[m]

Am 07.05.2004 um 10:09 schrieb Jérôme Laurens:

> 2 - write a new app, with the minimal user interface, something like 
> TextEdit + a View menu à la preview.app, a TeX menu, pdf windows, 
> terminal windows.
> In the TeX menu, there should only be
> - a typeset menu item
> - items for standard examples (using the included poor man 
> distribution only), for sectionning, fonts, maths, graphics, all in 
> different read only tex files.
> - some templates
>
> Maybe one button in the text editor window to typeset...

Quick hack:

<http://www.das-dock.de/TeXinOne.jpg>

Really, *quick*, haven't given the interface -- especially buttons and 
such -- much thought (I'm too busy getting another app out).

But what confused ME a lot when I started with TeXShop were all those 
different windows and the fact that all I saw first was en *empty* 
document. I didn't know what would happen when I hit "Typeset", didn't 
know that another window would pop up with the finished pdf, where the 
pdf went when I closed the editor, what all these files were that were 
put next to my document, and so on.

By integrating typesetting and preview in one window and optionally 
hiding the console, one can actually see how things are interconnected. 
It's much closer to an actual typesetting job.

This *may* go a bit against the "one document needs one 
window"-guideline, but let's face it: Beginners most certainly don't 
fully understand the fact that input and output are seperated *that 
much*. Especially when one gives examples a la "it's like HTML", since 
HTML is one file, and one file only -- it only gets interpreted 
differently depending on the app you're in (editor, viewer).

This concept would work pretty well with the idea of packaged tex-docs, 
and would also work *very* well with the ideas of "click on the pdf and 
jump to that place in the source". And if the pdf-view is set up 
"intelligent" enough to, for example, also allow for page-jumps 
depending on which line I'm in in the editor, you'd probably even beat 
those WYSIWYG-editors.

But it still is a quick hack. ;)
It doesn't seem to work well with \include and stuff, but then again 
neither do the current editors (e.g., I can't typeset a file I'm about 
to include).

Any thoughts?

m


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