Re: [AUCTeX-devel] Feature Request

[Mosè Giordano]

Dear all,

2015-12-18 23:05 GMT+01:00 Mosè Giordano <address@hidden>:
> 2015-12-18 22:53 GMT+01:00 Tassilo Horn <address@hidden>:
>> Tassilo Horn <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>>>>    > I have been recommended to mail the list with a feature request, I
>>>>>    > hope this is the right place.
>>>>>
>>>>>    > Currently if file.tex has \cite{ref2} and ref2 does not exist in the
>>>>>    > bib file, it displays no differently to \cite{ref1} which does.
>>>>>
>>>>>    > Is it possible to get some sort of visual indication that ref2
>>>>>    > does not exist in the bib file? A red squiggly line, highlight,
>>>>>    > different colour, something?
>>>
>>> This would be a very nice feature.  RefTeX basically has the
>>> functionality to know which citations are available in the bib file(s).
>>> See `reftex-extract-bib-entries' and
>>> `reftex-extract-bib-entries-from-thebibliography'.
>>>
>>> So we could add some variable like `reftex-known-bibtex-entry-keys'
>>> containing all known reftex entry keys.  I guess a hash-table would be
>>> best because we need a fast contains-check.
>>
>> I just had a better idea: We could just collect the _undefined_
>> references and citations in `TeX-LaTeX-sentinel' and friends.  We
>> already parse LaTeX output of these forms
>>
>>   LaTeX Warning: Reference `foolabel' on page 1 undefined on input line 6.
>>   LaTeX Warning: Citation `barcite' on page 1 undefined on input line 8.
>>
>> just don't do much with that information except for noticing that we
>> have to run bibtex and latex again.
>>
>> Then we could have that feature also without font-lock.  We know the
>> undefined labels and citations and the lines they are in, so we could
>> just use overlays (which would make the feature Emacs-specific) and
>> update them after a LaTeX run (or the last LaTeX run in
>> `TeX-command-run-all').
>
> Actually, something like this is one of the entry of the wishlist:
>
>     Improvements to error reporting
>     Fringe indicators for errors in the main text would be nice.
>
> That is, something like flymake/flycheck, but builtin in AUCTeX.  Ok,
> it won't be on-the-fly,[1] but when I look for errors/warnings after
> compilation I often miss this feature.

I thought about this feature, but I came to the conclusion it isn't
easy to realize with the current implementation of error and warning
parsing.

In addition to fringes, it would be useful to have the offending code
underlined, because in *TeX, contrary to common programming languages,
we can have very long lines, in that case just a fringe indicator would be
almost pointless.  However, now we get the whole error/warning
message, but for all kinds of known errors/warnings we need to extract
the actual code to be highlighted.  Moreover, a better parsing
function is needed, file supp-pdf.mkii pops up every now and then in
my error/warning lists.

This isn't something I'm going to fix for the time being, but
volunteer would be warmly welcome.

Bye,
Mosè