[OS X TeX] Survey about TeXShop feature use.

[John Rawnsley]

On 30 Jun 2007, at 14:28, Herbert Schulz wrote:

> As an incentive to get started on an attempt to put together a
> ``manual'' on TeXShop I'd like to conduct a little survey of the list.
>
> 1)What features of TeXShop do you use? I know we edit source files
> and compile files, I'm interested in the helpful (or not so helpful?)
> extras like Panels, Macros (text or Applescript), Command Completion,
> Auto Completion, Specialized Engines. special keyboard assignments
> (via System Preferences or other Key Binding methods) that you use to
> help you in your work. You can also include things like using the
> BibDesk InputManager for references/citations within TeXShop.

My first choice is BBEdit for editing TeX files. Typing out the
incantations longhand gives my slow brain time to think so the
only automation I do is through TeX macros.

> 2)How long have you been using TeXShop and your experience level
> (approximate) with using TeX.

I am a light user of TeXShop and have been so since its public debut.

On the other hand I also supply TeX to a number of friends & colleagues
in my university and elsewhere. I used to install OzTeX plus gwTeX
but even before OzTeX began to have increasing limitations as the OS
changed, people were moving from mainly paper to mainly PDF output
especially for use in their presentations so I have been switching them
to TeXShop. Almost universally they have taken to TeXShop, find it easy
to use and like its integrated IDE. I point out the more advanced
features but have no feel for how many are using them. None have needed
to come back for help which I take to be a good sign, but a manual I
could also point to for more advanced features would be a boon.

As for my level of experience, I began using TeX on a Vax 750 in the
early '80s and then Textures on a Mac which was dumped very quickly in
favour of OzTeX with its greater compatibility with my mainframe usage.

I have written some classes and templates for our departmental  
letterheads
and exam paper production (which is quite formal in British  
universities),
and use TeX for just about all my printed output. I wrote our in-house
system for production of undergraduate handbooks in LaTeX and web forms
from a single source (HyperCard stacks :). I've been the technical  
editor
on a number of conference proceedings published by Kluwer and CUP with
authors submitting their contributions using any TeX format which I then
converted to LaTeX -- surprisingly easier to do than I had expected.

I hope that helps,

John

--
  John Rawnsley * <http://go.warwick.ac.uk/jhrawnsley>



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