[OS X TeX] keyboard shortcut for starred version of environments

[Murray Eisenberg]

I know how to insert a \begin{align}...\end{align) pair in TeXShop LaTeX 
source -- by typing "bal" and hitting Esc.

But...

1. How would one insert the starred form of an enviornment, e.g.,
\begin{align*}...\end{align*) ? I tried the obvious thing of typing 
"bal*" (without any quotes) and hitting Esc, but plainly that doesn't work.

Two related questions:

2. Why does the auto-insertion of an environment such as 
\begin{align}...\end{align) automatically insert a place-holder _after_ 
the end of the environment?  That makes not sense to me -- in fact, it's 
an utter nuisance (whereas the placeholder inside the environment is at 
worst a mild irritant in that one has to replace it).

3. Is there some shortcut so that if I type an entire \begin{cmd} 
expression, then I can trigger a matching \end{cmd} after it?

That seems like such a natural thing to have -- you can quickly complete 
_any_ environment with it, including one you yourself defined in the 
preamble, without having to create some new macro just for that one 
particular environment.


-- 
Murray Eisenberg                     murray at math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
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University of Massachusetts                413 545-2859 (W)
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