Re: About LaTeX/TeX modes

[Arash Esbati <arash@gnu.org>]

"T.V Raman" <raman@google.com> writes:

> Not quite.
> Getting auctex-mode defined modes to become operational feels more
> complex than it needs to be

For me, AUCTeX always inserts the mode into the local variables block
when I open a new file like:

  %%% Local Variables:
  %%% mode: latex
  %%% TeX-master: t
  %%% End:

or

  %%% Local Variables:
  %%% mode: latex
  %%% TeX-master: "other-tex-file"
  %%% End:

so the complexity behind the scenes shouldn't be visible to the users.

> and I've never understood (30+ years and counting) as to why Emacs
> hasn't yet just made Auctex the default Tex editing package for emacs;
> I note that we have adopted far newer packages as the default in more
> recent times.

Getting AUCTeX into Emacs is still a mission statement in the RELEASE
file[1] which says:

  Future development and additional information
  ---------------------------------------------

  AUCTeX is proceeding as a GNU project with the long-term intent of
  merging it into Emacs.  For that reason, all new contributors need to
  assign copyright to their contributions to the FSF (the usual
  procedure for Emacs contributors).

My personal view on this is that ELPA works fine for AUCTeX and the goal
above isn't high on the todo list anymore.

> Many years ago I made the following my default first line in .tex files:
>
> % foo.tex: -*- mode: LaTeX -*-
>
> and it works as in gets the mode from auctex -- but asking 
> describe-function about the mode still shows the one from the emacs
> install, not from auctex.
>
> latex-mode is defaliased to 
> LaTeX-mode in tex-mode.el
> Library is file
> /usr/local/share/emacs/29.0.50/lisp/textmodes/tex-mode.elc

See above, a prop-line shouldn't be needed.  But yes, AUCTeX loads
tex-mode.el and builds its functionality on top of it.

As a side note: I think tex-mode.el has still a user base, so replacing
it maybe upset some people.

Best, Arash

Footnotes:
[1]  http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/auctex.git/tree/RELEASE#n194