[texworks] Hello and a few suggestions

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hi,

I've sent this to the list, but it went (mostly) unanswered.  I don't
want to be a nuisance, but I'd *really* like to see these ideas
implemented, so I resend this (I won't do this again, don't worry;)).
If this is a problem, I might try to implement them myself (although I'm
not really a programmer, so any hints are welcome).

Regards
M.

Dnia Fri, May 22, 2009 at 09:25:27AM +0200, Marcin Borkowski napisał(a):
> Hi,
> 
> I've recently looked at the TeXworks application.  I find it a very
> nice thing - although I will most probably not switch to it, being a
> long-time Emacs user;).  (But, who knows; emacs has poor support for
> ConTeXt, which I happen to use more and more...)  Definitely I will
> recommend TeXworks to people new to the TeX world.
> 
> I have, however, a few suggestions and remarks.
> 
> 1. The "tags" option doesn't work for me.  (I used r290.)
> 
> 2. I think that two options could be added without cluttering the UI;
> they are present in Emacs with AUCTeX and *very* useful:
>   (a) it would be nice if I could select (highlight) a portion of text,
>       then select some option (called, let's say, "apply command to
>       selection"); then a dialog appears where I can write a command or
>       environment (using autocompletion), and after confirming, the
>       selected portion of text is enclosed as the #INS# part of the
>       completion code.  This way, I could easily
>       italicize/emphasize/boldify/index/flushleft/anything a word or a
>       part of the text.
>   (b) Similarly, it would be nice to be able to *change* the "nearest"
>       (i.e., the smallest-scope enclosing one) environment (or, e.g.,
>       font changing command).  (In AUCTeX, this is triggered by C-u C-c
>       C-e or C-u C-c C-f.)  Despite sounding complicated, this is
>       extremely useful.
> 
> 3. In general, I would love to have more text-changing and cursor-moving
> commands bound to different keystrokes, possibly configurable.  Maybe it
> could be a plugin, so that novices wouldn't be surprised by pressing
> something accidentally.
> 
> 4. Last but not least: I think that autocompletion needs a bit of
> rework: I think that the markup with the #...# and the bullet sign is
> not really a good idea.  It would be better to stick to ASCII.
> Personally, instead of #RET#, I would choose, say, ^^J (which is
> consistent with low-level TeX and even more unlikely to appear in TeX
> documents than #RET#); instead of #INS# and bullet I would use the
> syntax <some text> (as in vim's LateX-suite).  The rationale is:
> 
> (a) it is unlikely that someone actually uses such a character string in
> a TeX document; usually, you either want "\langle ... \rangle", or (in
> maths) "... < ... < ..." (with both signs having the same "direction").
> 
> (b) after pressing c-tab, you might just find the next occurence of
> <[a-z ]*> in the document and highlight it; it would be better than a
> bullet, because inside the "angles" you might put a short explanation
> what goes here; for example, you could put this into the template set:
> 
> \begin{tabular}{<format>}^^J  <first row>^^J\end{tabular}^^J<>
> 
> The idea is that you could put just <> if explanation is not needed (in
> this case, after the \end{...}, so that it's easier for the user to jump
> there after finishing the tabular).  Also, the first <...> could play
> the role of the current #INS#.
> 
> I think this would enhance the usability: this way, the templates could
> be more self-explanatory.  On the other hand, accidentally leaving a
> bullet and LaTeXing a document seems to be harmless; maybe the "typeset"
> option could issue some kind of warning if a regex <[a-z ]*> is detected
> somewhere in the document...
> 
> Hope this helps - and please keep up the good work!
> 
> Regards
> 
> -- 
> Marcin Borkowski (http://mbork.pl)

-- 
Marcin Borkowski (http://mbork.pl)

Subject: The World Creation and Maintenance Project
Dear User,
you might want to know that we are steadily coming closer and closer to the
"omega" development stage.
Sincerely yours,
God