[Texmacs-dev] Re: TeXmacs

[Joris van der Hoeven]

Hi,

Thanks for your nice, long email.

> I'm a software developer,  I  develop both integrated solutions for a living 
> and Free Softfate in my spare time.  I use LaTeX as often as I can, yet 
> sometimes I prefer a program like yours to do simple-structure documentation. 
> 
> I've contemplated using  TeXmacs as a documentation tool ,and as a matter of 
> fact, I've used it this week to make the draft of a report on a project I'm 
> working on.  The program is very nice and I see you are willingful of  user 
> input.  So, count me as a  "user" , rather than  a developer (sorry, little 
> spare time to work on another project, I have my own - 
> http://dia2code.sf.net).  I want a program like yours that let me do a nice 
> LaTeX-style document in as little time as possible, that's the reason I've 
> been a LyX user for some time.  Lyx just went bananas as the last release 
> didn't import my old LyX documents nicely - they were full of errors.  Maybe 
> I was a little lazy, but that, mixed with the fact that you have to work 
> around too many things in Lyx (it's very strict) to do some simple formatting.
> 
> TeXmacs, I've found, gives the possibility to do low-level formatting easily 
> and  can export some nice LaTeX (it's not perfect, I know :-)) and I'm 
> looking forward for the HTML export facility.  Yet I've found some quirks to 
> work on this release (1.0.0.1) that I'm willing to tell you.
> 
> First, not a quirk but a (maybe) major issue is key bindings.  I'm a vi man 
> and I've never used Emacs before.  It is hard for me to get used to the emacs 
> key bindings and I'd prefer them to be customizable.  Maybe not completly 
> customizable, but with a few profiles: vi, Emacs and Redmond (ctrl-c, ctrl-v, 
> etc).  I use KDE so I'm used to copy with C-c and paste with C-v, I know vi 
> bindings by heart, so it won't hurt anyway.    Not that it is vital, as I can 
> point-and-click but this is rather time cosuming.

We plan to implement a user preference facility in the near future.
Other keyboard settings should become available then.
Notice that you can already write a vi style yourself in a few hours:
look at the files in progs/keyboard.

> Text style formatting.  I've found myself to format a paragraph with a 
> different font family and size.  I do this:  select the text with 
> shift-cursor keys (a *very* nice addition to this release), then with the 
> text highlighted, click on Text->Font->Family->Typewriter and that gives me a 
> paragraph with monospaced letters.  I want to change also the size, I have to 
> re-select the text and do Text->Font->Size->Small to do it.  Couldn't it be 
> possible to leave untouched the highlight over the text after the first 
> operation?   That way I can apply any changes I want to it.

Hmm, that might be a good idea.
Can someone put this on the wish list?

(see http://alqua.com/tmresources/wish%20list)

> A nice feature I found on LyX was that one could hightlight some text and 
> change the environment the text was into.  Like: I have a "section" with the 
> text: "Introduction"; later I find out that I should change it to a 
> subsection, I have to delete the section, insert a subsection and rewrite the 
> whole text of the description.  Is there a simpler way to do it?

We intend to implement something like that what you wish in the near future.
We also intend to generalize the "variant" scheme for symbols to environments.

> Last but not least, I used WordPerfect a lot (MSDOS, text mode), and I had 
> always the "show codes" activated -  that is the small window that showed the 
> actual  formatting codes together with the text.  I find somewhat difficult 
> to know if I'm inside or outside an Enumerate context, same thing with other 
> formatting contexts - section, chapter, etc.  Some of them make the cursor 
> change, some others no.  I think that maybe an indicator in the status bar 
> (like "Enumeration" or "Section") would be useful, as the font indications 
> (which actually change) are sometimes difficult to decode.

You already have this information on the footer. We will also implement
more structural information facilities in the near future.

> I tried to copy some text and paste it outside TeXmacs, I ended with 
> something like: "<\verbatim> \ \ \ \ address@hidden</verbatim>".  So I 
> can see you use formatting tags.  maybe there is a way to put a window that 
> only shows the codes, like WP?

Look at Edit->export.

> Sorry if I'm not able to contribute with code, as I told you I have little 
> free time.  And as a developer I want to become a better user (of other 
> programs) to understand better the user needs so I can improve my work.

Yes, your comments are very valuable. Don't hesitate to contact us
again for questions, remarks or suggestions.

> What I may be able to do is an Italian translation, as I see you don't have 
> currently one.  I'll check the docs - I saw something about translations - 
> and try to do something in my spare time.

That would be great; Italian is one of the major missing languages
at the moment. Don't hesitate to contact us if something is not
clear in the documentation.

> Well, goodbye and thanks for the nice program. 

Thanks for your time and the nice email,

Joris