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

[Arash Esbati]

Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> writes:

> For instance, tex-mode and latex-mode do provide a preview tool that uses
> "prettify-symbols".

I don't understand how the sentence above fits to the next one.  The
feature "prettify-symbols" is there and working, so what do you want to
change?

> 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.

This is admittedly a nuisance: If you want to use the stock tex-mode
with cdlatex and you install AUCTeX via ELPA, AUCTeX will take over.
Maybe the solution is to provide texmathp.el as an ELPA-package without
AUCTeX.

> 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.

You want to duplicate the code and/or functionality?

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

I can't tell for cdlatex since I've never used it, but I don't consider
many features provided by AUCTeX as exotic.

> 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).

Personally, I think that ship has sailed; one could define some aliases,
but I'm not sure if that is going towards a replacement.

> 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.

This is what AUCTeX does with tex.el and plain-tex.el, latex.el,
context.el etc.

> 2. Reevaluate the preview tool that uses prettify-symbols, to see whether
>    there exists possibility of improvement by looking how auctex does
>    things.

AUCTeX is really dumb in this regard.  From tex.el:

  ;; Prettify Symbols mode
  (require 'tex-mode)
  (setq-local prettify-symbols-alist tex--prettify-symbols-alist)
  (add-function :override (local 'prettify-symbols-compose-predicate)
                #'TeX--prettify-symbols-compose-p)

and

  (defun TeX--prettify-symbols-compose-p (start end match)
    (and (tex--prettify-symbols-compose-p start end match)
         (not (let ((face (get-text-property end 'face)))
                (if (consp face)
                    (memq 'font-latex-verbatim-face face)
                  (eq face 'font-latex-verbatim-face))))))

Best, Arash