Re: Rainbow-delimiters highlighting { and } for tex and latex

[Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com>]

> Sent: Friday, September 09, 2022 at 8:41 PM
> From: "Arash Esbati" <arash@gnu.org>
> To: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>
> Cc: "Alessandro Bertulli" <alessandro.bertulli96@gmail.com>, "Stefan Monnier" <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>, wilnerthomas@tutanota.com, help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Rainbow-delimiters highlighting { and } for tex and latex
>
> Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> writes:
>
> > As all these tools are part of Gnu, it would be more suitable to
> > integrate all the tex and latex functionality in simple way within
> > emacs. [...]  There is good functionality in the auctex and cdlatex
> > modes for emacs that a least the core should be put in just a single
> > mode.
>
> Does it mean you want to create a One-Stop-Shop for (La)TeX writing
> within Emacs, i.e., merging AUCTeX, cdlatex etc. into a core library?
> Or just put part of AUCTeX/cdlatex in core?  If the latter, how do you
> pull the rest?

A One-Stop-Shop.  Not at all.  Just to have some of the essential functionality
as a built-in core at emacs release.  Currently, tex-mode and latex-mode already
includes some functionality that has been considered valuable for some time by
users.

For instance, tex-mode and latex-mode do provide a preview tool that uses
"prettify-symbols".  Being able to introduce keywords rapidly (more efficiently
than can be achieved with text completion) is also valuable for users, currently
provided by cdlatex.  The problem with cdlatex is that it also depends upon
texmathp which currently forces users to either pick the file and add it to their
emacs configuration or install auctex.  Which immediately makes the various CamelCase
version of modes and hooks come up.

cdlatex functionality is great but the design has been found to be fragile.
For instance, even though the following commands share the same structure,
hitting "fr<TAB>", the fr does not expand to \frac{}{}, even though `a expands
to \alpha and equ<TAB> expands to an equation environment as expected.

The cdlatex functionality can be introduced into tex-mode and latex-mode.
Getting the community to improve it would be highly beneficial if the possibilities
are included as emacs built-in.

Auctex and Cdlatex could continue seperately, for more exotic features like as today.

For auctex, the recommendation is to reject TeX-mode and LaTeX-mode (and related hooks),
using instead auctex-tex-mode and auctex-latex-mode (and corresponding hooks).

In summary, the focus is on these things

1. Improve design of tex-mode and latex-mode such that common structures
   are separated into a "core-file" applicable to both, with some minor
   tweaks in tex-mode and latex-mode if requires.
2. Reevaluate the preview tool that uses prettify-symbols, to see whether
   there exists possibility of improvement by looking how auctex does things.
3. Introduce rapid insertion of tex and latex keywords and environments by
   studying the cdlatex functionality.


> > Other major modes do not work in confusing ways like tex and latex.
>
> Does python also fit the bill above?  There is the builtin python.el and
> external packages like python-mode.el which have their pros and cons.

Am not the best person to decide on python, but if users face the same
nomenclature problem, it would be valuable to rethink the design.  But,
one needs the people using the many aspects of python to tell us what is not
working for them.  I can scrutinise only things within my experience,
and have others lead on the implementation details of things like python.