[texworks] Unwanted side-effect of <tab> : how to avoid ?

[Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

> Even if you specify a particular engine, it's still not clear which
> type of file you want to process.  Suppose you select "plain TeX" but
> the file contains the line "\input texinfo.tex".  After loading this
> file, the escape character is "@" instead of "\".  This breaks command
> completion and syntax highlighting and it's extremely difficult for an
> editor to find out what to do.
>
> The problem you reported is a good example.  Plain TeX can more or
> less considered as a programming language, whereas LaTeX is supposed
> to be a markup language, i.e. a file format.  One would expect then
> that it's easier to support command completion and syntax highlighting
> in LaTeX.  This is definitely true, but Beamer re-defines standard
> LaTeX list environments.  Hence, if you want to provide proper command
> completion and syntax highlighting, you have to evaluate the whole
> file.

Yes, I agree that no matter which engine you select, you /may/
have a pathological file that does not follow the normal markup
pattern for that engine, so in an ideal world you could then
switch auto-completion on the fly.  But a default behaviour that
uses the engine to determine which set of auto-completes is
most likely to be relevant is surely not an unreasonable
behaviour, is it ?

** Phil.