mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[François Beaubert <address@hidden>]

Hi all,

I'm exploring Texmacs again and must admit that I'm loving it more and
more, especially with it's new qt interface.
Like others in this list I see a huge potential of Texmacs for our
scientific community and I'm rather surprised that this excellent
piece of software is not used so much compared to Lyx and other
Tex/latex IDE. For me Texmacs is much more powerful and sexy. It
perhaps only lacks some features that are present on Lyx or  other
Latex IDE.

Yes, I must confess that I'm coming from the dark side (Latex -> Lyx)
and enjoyed it a lot.
I'm new to Texmacs so forgive me if my questions, suggestions are not
useful or have obvious answers. My only goal is to suggest some ideas
to try to enhance the usability of Texmacs. Maybe you will find some
suggestions useful ...

Before trying Texmacs, I was using Lyx for my daily work. I would like
to share some useful features I found in Lyx that I was not able to
find in Texmacs (I may have missed them) and some suggestion that
perhaps only Texmacs could achieve the right way.

Navigation in the document:
-------------------------------------
Perhaps better than a menu, Lyx has gui widget docked on the left of
the document window which show the tree of the:

o Table of contents
o List of figures
o List of tables
o List of equations
o List of labels and references
o and so on ...

Very, very handy  ... see screenshots
You can even move whole chapters, sections within this docked widget

Labels, References and Citations
----------------------------------------------
o When inserting a label Lyx auto-magically suggests a label based on
the current environment. For example: sec: if in a section
environment, eq: if in an equation, etc ...
o When including  a reference/citation Lyx help the user with a GUI in
which you can sort, filter, group and the select the kind of
reference/citation you would like to have for a label/bib-entry. See
screenshot.

Word Completion and spell check correction
-------------------------------------------------------------
o The completion mechanism in Lyx suggests the possible completion via
a list overlay of the different candidates just under the current
word. I find it better than shell like completion. But the completion
feature of the references for example in Texmacs is indeed very very
handy.
o inline spell-checking with the misspelled word underlined in red,
suggestions could appear in a overlay list with a right mouse click
(like in word, libreoffice and lyx for example)

Multiple documents and multiple views of the same document
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
o Tabs support (like in Firefox, Chrome, etc) could greatly enhance
document switching
o Splitting (vertical, horizontal) the current document view could
allow the possibility of viewing two different parts of the same
document

Emacs like org-mode+babel
---------------------------------------
o For Emacs hardcore users (like me :) ) I see an huge potential in
Texmacs to achieve the same goal:  keeping scientific notes,
spreadsheets tables, ideas and small executable piece of code in the
same environment
o Tag classification support (as in org-mode) enables the user to find
all the notes belonging to a tag.

o http://orgmode.org/
o http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/intro.html

Beamer like document style
--------------------------------------

o the current implementation of the beamer  style looks very powerful
but I was not able to find a good tutorial to really understand all
the concepts and features of the style.
o enhance the current theme with more eye friendly environment like:
   * more kind of frames or boxes: shadow, rounded, color gradient
fill for Title, sections, equations
   * define differents colorthemes for the text, the equation, the
slides/section titles, background, etc
   * logos
   * numbered sections, subsections, etc ...
   * do not mask completely the next switches but instead allow the
user to make them appear in gray or something like
   * the best is perhaps to go to
http://www.hartwork.org/beamer-theme-matrix/ to have a better idea of
what I mean
o possibility to have a compact table of contents in each slide with
hyperlinks capabilities for an easy presentation navigation
o video support inclusion
o export to pdf
   * full version with all the screen switches
   * handout version
o enhance the current drawing capabilities to be able to draw box
around terme of equation, arrows between elements, etc (like pgf/tikz
for Beamer)

Yes I've finished. Sorry for this long list of suggestions. To me the
last two (Org-mode/Babel + Beamer) are perhaps the most interesting
ones.
Don't misunderstood me, Texmacs is for me an excellent software.
Texmacs features are unique in the scientific community. I just want
to try to help with some ideas that may be useful for the project.

Wish you the best and long life to Texmacs !
Cheers

Francois

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