mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Andrea Gamba<address@hidden>]

>I would like to use some references with a bibliography file (.bib)
>It works well when the bib file and the tm file are together in the same
directory.
>But if I put the tm file in a sub-directory, it doesn't work !!??

You should specify the whole path for the .bib file, such as
/home/Stephane/BIB/biblio.bib. For me, just a relative path such as
../biblio.bib does'nt work because apparently texmacs does not take the
directory where the text file is as the basis of its path (which is strange,
since TeXmacs finds the biblio.bib file when it is in the same directory as 
the
.tm .)

I remember having been confused by things like this in the beginning (it was
not the path, but the fact that one had to omit the .bib extension; now it is
apparently no more the case). It made me almost abandon the idea of using
TeXmacs.

I suggest that the .bib file be assigned as is done with figures, just 
browsing
through some directories in a menu.

The fact that texmacs is a bit "for geeks" in my opinion slows down the
adoption of the program, which in itself has an enormous potential. It would 
be
good if there could be a single developer committed only to make the interface
more user-friendly, which is quite a different task from adding (extremely
appreciated!) innovative features and extending the logic of the program. 

Someone else should possibly contribute to the documentation with some more
short "unoffficial" documents. I will try myself to do something if I find 
time
for that. 

I tried for instance hard to understand how it was possible to easy type in
multiple bibliographies, such as [15,16]. I was not able to find it in the
manual, although a posteriori I understand that something was written in
general about "structured editing" (section 6.5 of the manual). I also got no
help on this forum.

Then almost by chance I discovered the following way: just type \cite, then 
add
new entries with Alt - >. Now I am happy with that and routinely use it.

I would suggest that this information be added in the manual where
bibliographies are described, so that it can be easily found: 

"To type in multiple bibliographies such as [15,16], Insert->Link->Citation 
(or
just type \cite), then add new entries with Alt -> (cf. Section 6.5,
'Structured editing')."

Also the information about the path / absolute path of the bibliography file
should possibly be added, so people don't lose time thinking that the program
is broken because it does not show bibliographies (this is unfortunately how
the common user reacts when things don't work):

"At the place where your bibliography should be compiled, click on
Text->Automatic->Bibliography. At the prompt, you should enter a
bibtex style (such as plain, alpha, abbrv, etc.) and your .bib file. 
Note that the full path of the .bib file (such as 
/home/user/biblio/biblio.bib)
has to be specified if the .bib file and your text are in different
directories."

Possibly one should also think of adding a menu entry for the "Appendix"
environment: at the moment the only way I know to create and appendix is to
create a section and then edit the source code to substitute "section" with
"appendix". Well it's ok if you know that it can be done, otherwise you think
that TeXmacs is just incapable to manage appendices.

So somebody should possibly list the common tasks a common user tries to
perform and do the small effort of streamlining them so that the user does not
think that the program is just incapable of doing what Word (I say this with
horror :=) ) does.

For JC (about shortcuts), have possibly a look at this:
http://lists.texmacs.org/wws/arc/texmacs-users/2008-11/msg00051.html
For me, the file my-init-texmacs.scm with the shortcuts has to be created in
the directory .TeXmacs/progs/ .

This is actually explained in Section 11.4 of the manual, however it would be
good to remind at the end of the section that the commands described have to 
be
inserted in a newly created my-init-texmacs.scm in .TeXmacs/progs/ , otherwise
the common user is probably lost.

Consider that the user is going to browse the manual, not to study any single
row of it (at least in the beginning). Moreover, he will often not understand
(at least in the beginning) the underlying logic (here, that all commands,
pertaining shortcuts or other, have to be inserted in the initialization file
my-init-texmacs.scm, and that they are written in a dialect of Lisp.)

Andrea