mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Joris van der Hoeven <address@hidden>]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2001, Christopher Lee wrote:

> I'm determined to use TeXmacs for my "real-world" work, but, I'm
> having trouble: I'm trying to figure out how to adjust column widths
> and placement in texmacs.  In LaTeX I'd fool around with the various
> tabular or array environments, but I can't quite see how to get what I
> want in texmacs.
> 
> 
> I'd like for each row of the table to look like this:
> 
>                           
>                  white
>   column 1 text  space                  column 2 text
> |---------------|.........|----------------------------------------|
>  [right aligned]                     [left aligned text]
>        text               ^ 
>                           |
>              I'd like this start point of column 2 to be fixed with a
>              space separating column 1 and column 2
> 
>              The cells of the table will include multi-line text.
> 
> 
> 
> Could someone explain to me if this is possible and, if so, how to do
> it?

I think that what you really want is some kind of "list" environment,
not a table-like one. Indeed, tabular structures are more powerful and
complex, whence slower. If you want to produce long lists, that might
become a problem. Therefore, I think that you should start by having
a look at the definition of the 'description' macro in list.ts
(C-x C-f l i s t . t s RET). You probably want to do something similar.

The idea is to have the main text (second column) being indented
by a certain amount (3fn for instance; TeXmacs uses fn instead of quad).
You next need to redefine the item* macro (inside your personal
list macro) for items with text inside them (this corresponds to the first
column), by appropriately resizing the argument and adding white space.
You might for instance take 'r-2fn' for the new left limit of the box
and 'r' as the new right limit (this corresponds to aligning to the right)
and add 1fn of white space.

You put your macro in a personal style file and you are done.
I actually recommend you to base your personal style file on
the empty style and use your style file as an additional package
on top of standard style files. My personal style file vdh.ts
in the distribution may serve as an example.

Best regards,

Joris

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Joris van der Hoeven (address@hidden)
http://www.texmacs.org: GNU TeXmacs scientific text editor
http://www.math.u-psud.fr/~vdhoeven: personal homepage
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