Posts tagged detexify

At FOSDEM and on the train ride home I finally had some time again to work for Padre, the Perl IDE. In particular, I worked on the LaTeX plugin I that I started a while ago.

I added a syntax checker:

I edit many LaTeX documents at work, so I am really looking forward to using those features in Padre.

We also have different kinds of code completion.

First of all, the normal one for commands starting with \:

Environments (the things that start with \begin{...}) are also treated nicely:

Finally, the code completion recognizes commands that refer to publications or to objects inside the document, and offers primarily those as targets:

In addition, you can visit Detexify from the plugin menu. Detexify is a nice service that tells you the LaTeX commands for symbols you draw.

I would be happy to hear from people using the plug-in what they think about, and receive complaints, suggestions, patches, translations, etc. ;-).

Of course, the LaTeX support in Padre is far from finished:

• BibTeX syntax highlighting via the Kate plugin is very slow.
• Syntax checking only works for complete LaTeX documents, even though many people split up their files and include them.
• There is no spell checking feature, and only pdflatex is currently supported.

Next thing I like work on is an outline view for LaTeX documents, and a configuration dialog for additional flexibility. And because I promised to myself to document some of things that I learned so far about Padre, my next Padre-related post will be “How to Write a Padre Plugin”.