Re: [AUCTeX-devel] Default settings

[Mosè Giordano]

Hi Florêncio,

2014-03-16 18:06 GMT+01:00 Florêncio Neves <address@hidden>:
> There are quite a few settings in AUCTeX that one needs to discover
> and customize before getting a reasonable environment.

I agree.

> I think the
> following settings should become the default:
>
>   (add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook 'turn-on-reftex)
>   (setq reftex-plug-into-AUCTeX t)
>   (setq-default TeX-PDF-mode t)
>   (setq TeX-parse-self t)
>   (setq TeX-source-correlate-mode t)
>   (add-hook 'TeX-mode-hook '(lambda () (LaTeX-math-mode t))

I  definitely second enabling `TeX-PDF-mode', I believe few people
still use DVI nowadays.  Self parsing is disabled by default because
parsing of large documents takes a while and this can be annoying for
occasional LaTeX users.  On the other hand, most AUCTeX users aren't
occasional ones: AUCTeX is builtin only in Aquamacs, with other
Emacsen one has to install it on purpose.  Regarding forward/inverse
search, Kile, Texmaker, TeXstudio, and TeXworks (these are the editors
I have installed) all enable it by default, so why not?  RefTeX is
builtin in GNU Emacs but I don't know what's the situation in XEmacs.

> Also, dollar signs should automatically become electric if
> `electric-pair-mode' is active (I think currently one has set
> TeX-electric-math manually).

I like electricity, but I have no strong opinion here.

> I was also going to add (setq TeX-master 'dwim) to the above list, but
> it didn't do what I meant (I am using ELPA's version, 11.87.3).  Was
> this setting supposed to discover if the current file requires a
> master, and try to find it?

Actually I've never set `TeX-master' to `dwim' because it isn't
documented in the manual.

> Finally. instead of enabling LaTeX-math-mode by default, it might be
> even better to always show the "Math" menu, so that LaTeX-math-mode's
> only function is to turn on and off the backtick shourtcuts.

If I were a new user I'd love having `LaTeX-math-mode' on by default
with its backtick shortcuts, but I don't know what could be the best
default for other people.

Indeed, with your suggestions AUCTeX could show its power from the
beginning, for the time being one has to discover it step by step.

Bye,
Mosè