mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Henri Lesourd <address@hidden>]

Ralf Hemmecke wrote:

> Hi Henri,
>
> I tried your little example, but I am completely helpless.
>
> So I start with a new buffer. Let me give here the exact keystrokes.
>
> \assign ENTER
> italunder ARROWleft
> \macro ENTER
>
> -- Here i am already a bit helpless how to enter a parameter name.
> -- .. after lot's of trying
>
> ALT-ARROWright text ARROWleft
> \em ENTER
> \underline ENTER
>
> -- After pressing ENTER I did not see the tag anymore which
> -- made me believe that I did something wrong.
>
> My text is here ARROWleft ARROWleft ARROWleft ARROWleft ENTER
>
> -- Let's try the macro.
>
> \italunder ENTER
> Superman ENTER
>
> --------------------- END ----------------------
> Then I saved the file and got the following (see end of mail).
> Not only do I see on my screen
>
> <italunder|Superman>
>
> litarally with a red "italunder", but I would actually have liked 
> "text" after "My" to be the argument. (So finally replaced by 
> "Superman".)
> Looking at the resulting file, it is clear that I do something wrong, 
> but it is frustrating that I cannot easily find out myself.
>
> In order to learn TeXmacs, one needs to sit together with an 
> knowledgable TeXmacs user and have the flow explained.
>
> I cannot always invest so much time to write such an email.
> TeXmacs makes me feel stupid and helpless. :-(
>
> I would feel much more confident if I had a clear definition of the 
> TeXmacs style language at hand and I could type everything in by hand. 
> Yes everything, including < an | and >. I have the impression you 
> could win a lot of users if you allow that, parse the string and 
> complain (with an appropriate error message) if something is wrong. 
> Currently, the cursor simply refuses to go to this or that place 
> without telling me why. That makes me helpless.
>
> The frustrated TeXmacs (not yet) user
A lot of your frustration comes from the fact that (as the example file
you had the good and appropriate idea to attach to your email showed
it clearly to me, i.e., the fact that there is an <inactive|...> tag in your
markup), you do not know the difference between the Source editing
mode and the wysiwyg mode (where macros are *hidden* most of
the time).

Sorry if this point is not made clear in my tutorial, or if I did not
insisted sufficiently HEAVILY on this. I know pretty well that
these kind of stupid little details are exactly the thing that stucks
people who do not yet know a software.

==>
(1) most of the markup examples in my tutorial are intended
 to be inputted when inside the *Source editing mode*, otherwise
 one can understand nothing to what's happening ;

(2) to go in the Source editing mode, select :
 << Document->View->Edit source tree>>
 in the << Document >> menu. Do the same
 once more time to go back to the wysiwyg
 mode ;

==>
I read the rest of your email & send other answers in some
dozens of minutes.


Best, Henri