mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Joris van der Hoeven <address@hidden>]

Dear Norbert,

On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 12:09:00PM +0100, Norbert Nemec wrote:
> I'm just struggling with the intricacies of editing TeXmacs source 
> within TeXmacs.
> 
> In particular:
> 
> * User-defined macros can be turned into a compound using the backspace 
> key, builtin macros can't. Why is that? How do I change the name of the 
> call to a buildin macro? Can I avoid removing it and creating a new one?
> 
> * If the first argument of a call to a user defined macro contains a 
> <document> tag, I cannot turn it into a compound any more. Why that?
> 
> * There seems to be no way to manually create or remove <document> tags. 
> Quite often (e.g. within tables), there is a difference between a 
> single-line <document> tag and inline content without the <document> 
> surrounding. However, the creation and removal of those tags happens 
> somehow automagically without a direct way to influence it.

Yes, you are right; these are the main current inconsistencies in
source mode. There are a few others related to the presentation of tags.

> Generally, I have the feeling that all the built-in intelligence is 
> rather getting in the way when editing TeXmacs source. Very often, even 
> though I know exactly what the source-code should look like in the end, 
> I really have to use odd tricks to produce that source-code within 

Yes, this is not often the case, but when it is the case,
it is true that one is rather stuck. I agree that I have to
correct the above bugs. At least, it should be reasonably easy
to construct any kind of source and get around the "built-in intelligence".

On the other hand, I do think that the current philosophy for editing
source code is very interesting and new. It does provide higher
control on presentation, allows you to perform certain operations
just as if you where in the normal editing mode, it provides some
consistency for arities and document structure, etc.

So, please keep me informed about the kind of bugs you mention above.
I put them on the TODO list and will hopefully have some time soon
to correct them. I personally suffer from them from time to time,
so there is some hope that this will really be done...

Best wishes, Joris