mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

Text archives Help


Re: [TeXmacs] A simplified mode that minimizes "focus" for new users?


Chronological Thread 
  • From: Massimiliano Gubinelli <address@hidden>
  • To: Frank <address@hidden>
  • Cc: address@hidden
  • Subject: Re: [TeXmacs] A simplified mode that minimizes "focus" for new users?
  • Date: Thu, 30 May 2019 16:17:24 +0200

Hi Frank,

On 30. May 2019, at 11:06, Frank <address@hidden> wrote:

I am sure that I was only writing math formulae. The lag was insignificant, but since it was slower than my typing hence noticed. It seems better to ask others about their experience of the performance.


I do not doubt it can be made faster, but currently is not clear to me what are the main bottlenecks, one should do some profiling in order to identify precisely what causes the slow responses.

For the porting, I don't know whether it would be a good idea to write a "translator" to compile Guile 1.8 codes to Guile 2+ (It should be something similar to the syntactical analysis in a compiler, but much simpler). Or it seems that we need to split the code complying standards (such as R6RS or R7RS) from compiler-specific codes making further portings easier.


Actually right now things are going forward quite well. On my github repository I’ve ported TeXmacs to Guile 2 (and the upcoming Guile 3) also turning on the compilation. Small things need still some tuning. Since is a very delicate change this new version will require a lot of testing before going in production, but it does not seems we are far from the goal as it seemed only few months ago.

Best
Max

Best wishes,

Le 29/05/2019 à 17:28, Massimiliano Gubinelli a écrit :
TeXmacs has to run many involved computations and it really depends on what documents are you editing. For example I have some documents where many small images are used in math formulas and this slow down TeXmacs, but it is also not a very common situations. I would be interested in understand other causes of slowing down, maybe we can do something.

As far as Scheme is concerned, is indeed something which could be improved. I’m currently working in porting TeXmacs to Guile 2 and 3 and this should mean also some improvement in speed since they are compiled schemes. However is really difficult to predict since TeXmacs the code is quite involved and many nontrivial computations have to take place while typing. I would really like to have some concrete examples to be able to understand where relevant bottlenecks are. 

Best
mg


On 29. May 2019, at 16:42, Frank <address@hidden> wrote:

I run TeXmacs on Debian Linux. Sometimes I notice delays while typing. I am not able to figure out the exact circumstances. Since while typing I am more concentrated on the contents - the delays of TeXmacs are usually shorter than that of my mind to formulate correct formulae.

I heard that there were some attempts to migrate TeXmacs to other Scheme compilers/interpreters, but I don't know whether the performance played some role in it.

Best wishes,

Le 29/05/2019 à 14:51, Massimiliano Gubinelli a écrit :
None of these optional features should impact performance in any way. As far as efficiency is concerned, I feel that TeXmacs is quite fast, the only source of irritation I have is that the color menu opens up with a small delay, this maybe could be improved. Also the menu for bold characters in math mode is a bit too slow, but these are really minor issues. What is your experience? Which operation feels too slow for you? 
Optimization is always welcome, but it also adds more code and less maintainable one, so one should carefully consider if it overall could pay out at the end.

Best
mg



On 29. May 2019, at 13:43, Frank <address@hidden> wrote:

Hello,

I don't know whether these features will slow down the performance of TeXmacs? By the way, I don't know the main obstruction of the efficiency: the scheme compiler (interpreter) etc?

Best wishes,

Le 29/05/2019 à 09:28, Massimiliano Gubinelli a écrit :
Dear Amir,


On 23. May 2019, at 21:57, Amir Michail <address@hidden> wrote:


On May 22, 2019, at 9:16 AM, Massimiliano Gubinelli <address@hidden> wrote:

I do not agree with you. The fact that is unfamiliar does not mean it is useless or irrelevant. Texmacs is a structured editor, and the focus box reflect this, if a user fail to understand the structure then you do not understand why TeXmacs behaves in the way it does. I think is dangerous going too in the direction of pleasing the user. This would produce a crap UI. The user has first to understand the principles, after that all TeXmacs operations are quite uniform and nicely designed, in my opinion.


I am convinced now that the focus box is a good way to learn how TeXmacs works.

As for advanced users who want something less distracting, maybe only show the focus when your cursor is at the start or end of an environment. 

If at the start, your cursor would look like “|_” and there would be a corresponding “_|” cursor at the end of the environment.  A similar thing would happen when you are at the end of an environment.

I think this would be less distracting than the focus box, especially if the other cursor color is not as noticeable as your actual cursor.


Interesting suggestion. Another possibility would be to make the focus box disappear after a short time (or any structure box). Or just leave the option to the user, like for the status bars or the menu bars, maybe bound to some key. 

Anyway configuration of the colors should be possible. I also find the current colors not quite right on darker backgrounds.

Best
Max


Amir

Maybe you could try to explain better your point of view, I’m not sure I get it completely.

I can understand that sometimes you want to hide the focus, maybe while doing a presentation, for example.
Indeed the focus is hidden when you are in full-screen mode.

Best
Max


On 22. May 2019, at 08:02, Amir Michail <address@hidden> wrote:



On May 22, 2019, at 1:52 AM, Basile Audoly <address@hidden> wrote:

Hi Amir,
what is the point of getting of the focus box in a first place? To me, it is both non-invasive and incredibly informative. Without the focus box, it becomes quite difficult to understand TeXmacs' logics.
Basile


Focus is an unfamiliar concept to new users. Moreover, when writing, one would generally like to concentrate on the content rather than on the document structure.

Of course, revealing the document structure is at times important, but I don’t think you need to do that constantly.

Amir

Le 21 mai 2019 à 23:58, Amir Michail <address@hidden> a écrit :

Hello,

Why not have a simplified mode that does away with the focus almost entirely?

For example, maybe only show the focus box when the user is making a selection.

Moreover, instead of having focus operations and format operations, just have the latter. If the user wants to format an entire focus environment, then he/she can select it first (using the temporary focus boxes that appear during selection) and then use a format operation.

Amir






-- 
Best wishes!
Yours,

-- 
Best wishes!
Yours,

-- 
Best wishes!
Yours,




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.19.

Top of page