Re: [AUCTeX-devel] An exercise in folding...

[David Kastrup]

Ralf Angeli <address@hidden> writes:

> * David Kastrup (2007-02-25) writes:
>
>> TeX has a rather verbose output when one uses \showbox.  In many
>> cases, one would rather want to see a much more compact rendition.
>> Here is typical output:
>>
>>> \box255=
>> \vbox(397.39815+3.04161)x401.18385
>> .\vbox(395.43976+5.0)x401.18385
>> ..\glue 0.0 plus -6.0
>> ..\glue 0.0 plus 6.0
>> ..\glue 0.0 plus -6.0
>> ..\glue 0.0 plus 6.0
>> ..\glue(\topskip) 2.572
>> ..\hbox(7.428+1.91037)x332.89726, glue set 0.88617
>> ...\kern-0.39247 (left margin)
>> ...\T1/mgm/m/n/11.54312 V
>> ...\kern-0.86574
>> ...\T1/mgm/m/n/11.54312 e
> [...]
>> Verhältnisses bilden die ersteren, die von der Scholastik nach Inhalt und
>> Zusammenhang endgiltig herausgearbeitete Kirchenwahrheit. Hierin darf
>> die Ge
>>
>> This would make the reading of such output _much_ more readable, and
>> much easier to compare with the corresponding material in the
>> TeX/DVI/PDF files.  So basically, one would fold one line into a
>> single character (when in hboxes).  One could still walk through in
>> unfolding mode in order to get the details.
>
> This will likely require support for regular expressions which TeX
> Fold mode does not provide.  This was a deliberate decision in order
> to keep the customization interface for the user as simple as
> possible.  One could probably add such possibility besides the current
> interface, though.

Pretty pointless for this purpose since the above does not appear in
TeX buffers, but in TeX output buffers.  It would also be ok to fold
such a dump only on-demand with a key sequence, or only as part of a
C-c ` display.  Since the vertical/horizontal arrangement of display
is context dependent (are we in a hbox or vbox?), a normal
context-insensitive fold mode would not actually help.

This sort of stuff might possibly use the kind of overlays
TeX-fold-mode employs, but hardly the matching code actually producing
it.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum