From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: x-symbol? Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:06:30 +0200 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: <87ocf377xl.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> References: <87pqzka40a.fsf@padme.localdomain> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291838247 13213 80.91.229.12 (8 Dec 2010 19:57:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 19:57:27 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Dec 08 20:57:24 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQQ8f-0001bH-Qx for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 20:57:22 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:32802 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQQ8f-0007eX-26 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 08 Dec 2010 14:57:21 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.arcor.de!newsspool1.arcor-online.net!news.arcor.de.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:h0ZMVf/Mi4oVMUboNTvcnNB7PXE= Original-Lines: 41 Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Jun 2010 11:06:31 CEST Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 86acf1fb.newsspool3.arcor-online.net Original-X-Trace: DXC=h@MXCLa_EHffF8a^:6>b7eMcF=Q^Z^V3h4Fo<]lROoRa8kF5MOK`al0oRjdaQ5b6cAbWaA; XihC]5KUa Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet-abuse@arcor.de Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:179160 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:75933 Archived-At: m_mommer@yahoo.com (Mario S. Mommer) writes: > One of the things I use emacs for is writing LaTeX documents, and > besides auctex and reftex, there is one package that is very important > and useful to me: x-symbol. The bad news is that the package has been > orphaned some while ago, and is suffering from bitrot. This is really > unfortunate, because x-symbol has two features that I have not found > anywhere else: an input method based on shortcuts and modifiers for > quite a few latex symbols, and optic sugar for many symbols, so that > e.g. \alpha appear as the greek letter alpha on screen. For some reason, > I find these two features really help a lot. > > My questions are: > > - does anyone have a version of x-symbol that runs on emacs 23 and is > willing to share it here? > > - Does anyone know of an alternative? With regard to the optic sugar, you might \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc} in connection with some utf-8 special characters, namely let LaTeX cater for the conversion. For the input methods of x-symbol, I have no good substitution to suggest. It would be a good thing if somebody bothered porting them over into AUCTeX. That would require copyright assignments of both porter and the original X-Symbol author (likely sympathetic to the endeavor) to have this accepted there. For the visual component, I consider X-Symbol's approach a bit too invasive on the buffer text: if things go wrong, you lose original input. preview-latex's own way of inserting graphics instead, however, appears like overkill for the same application space. A middle ground would be the use of display properties substituting appropriate Unicode characters, but not graphics. The work still has to be done, but once it _has_ been done, chances are that it will at least be guarded somewhat against bitrot. -- David Kastrup