code.delx.au - gnu-emacs-elpa/blob - packages/auctex/doc/preview-todo.texi

   1 @ifset rawfile
   2 @include macros.texi
   3 @chapheading Future Development of @previewlatex{}
   4 @end ifset
   5
   6 @itemize @bullet
   7
   8 @item Support other formats than just @LaTeX{}
   9
  10 plain @TeX{} users and Con@TeX{}t users should not have to feel left
  11 out.  While Con@TeX{}t is not supported yet by released versions of
  12 @AUCTeX{}, at least supporting plain would help people, and be a start
  13 for Con@TeX{}t as well.  There are plain-based formats like MusiX@TeX{}
  14 that could benefit a lot from @previewlatex{}.  The main part of the
  15 difficulties here is to adapt @file{preview.dtx} to produce stuff not
  16 requiring @LaTeX{}.
  17
  18 @item Support nested snippets
  19
  20 Currently you can't have both a footnote (which gets displayed as just
  21 its footnote number) and math inside of a footnote rendered as an image:
  22 such nesting might be achieved by rerunning @previewlatex{} on the
  23 footnote contents when one opens the footnote for editing.
  24
  25 @item Support other text properties than just images
  26
  27 Macros like @samp{\textit} can be rendered as images, but the resulting
  28 humungous blob is not suitable for editing, in particular since the
  29 line filling from LaTeX does not coincide with that of Emacs.  It would
  30 be much more useful if text properties just switched the relevant font
  31 to italics rather than replacing the whole text with an image.  It
  32 would also make editing quite easier.  Then there are things like
  33 footnotes that are currently just replaced by their footnote number.
  34 While editing is not a concern here (the number is not in the original
  35 text, anyway), it would save a lot of conversion time if no images were
  36 generated, but Emacs just displayed a properly fontified version of the
  37 footnote number.  Also, this might make @previewlatex{} useful even on
  38 text terminals.
  39
  40 @item Find a way to facilitate Source Specials
  41
  42 Probably in connection with adding appropriate support to
  43 @code{dvipng}, it would be nice if clicking on an image from a larger
  44 piece of source code would place the cursor at the respective source
  45 code location.
  46
  47 @item Make @file{preview.dtx} look reasonable in @AUCTeX{}
  48
  49 It is a bit embarrassing that @file{preview.dtx} is written in a manner
  50 that will not give either good syntax highlighting or good indentation
  51 when employing @AUCTeX{}.
  52
  53 @item Web page work
  54
  55 Currently, @previewlatex{}'s web page is not structured at all.  Better
  56 navigation would be desirable, as well as separate News and Errata eye
  57 catchers.
  58
  59 @item Manual improvements
  60
  61 @itemize @minus
  62 @item Pepper the manual with screen shots and graphics
  63
  64 This will be of interest for the @acronym{HTML} and @TeX{} renditions
  65 of the texinfo manual.  Since Texinfo now supports images as well, this
  66 could well be nice to have.
  67
  68 @item Fix duplicates
  69
  70 Various stuff appears several times.
  71
  72 @end itemize
  73
  74 @item Implement rendering pipelines for Emacs
  75
  76 The current @file{gs.el} interface is fundamentally flawed, not only
  77 because of a broken implementation.  A general batchable and
  78 daemonizable rendering infrastructure that can work on all kinds of
  79 preview images for embedding into buffers is warranted.  The current
  80 implementation has a rather adhoc flavor and is not easily extended.
  81 It will not work outside of AUCTeX, either.
  82
  83 @item Integrate into Ref@TeX{}
  84
  85 When referencing to equations and the like, the preview-images of the
  86 source rather than plain text should be displayed.  If the preview in
  87 question covers labels, those should appear in the bubble help and/or a
  88 context menu.  Apropos:
  89
  90 @item Implement @LaTeX{} error indicators
  91
  92 Previews on erroneous @LaTeX{} passages might gain a red border or similar.
  93
  94 @item Pop up relevant online documentation for frequent errors
  95
  96 A lot of errors are of the "badly configured" variety.  Perhaps the
  97 relevant info pages should be delivered in addition to the error
  98 message.
  99
 100 @item Implement a table editing mode where every table cell gets output
 101 as a separate preview.  Alternatively, output the complete table
 102 metrics in a way that lets people click on individual cells for editing
 103 purposes.
 104
 105 @item Benchmark and kill Emacs inefficiencies
 106
 107 Both the @LaTeX{} run under Emacs control as well as actual image
 108 insertion in Emacs could be faster.  CVS Emacs has improved in that
 109 respect, but it still is slower than desirable.
 110
 111 @item Improve image support under Emacs
 112
 113 The general image and color handling in Emacs is inefficient and partly
 114 defective.  This is still the case in CVS.  One option would be to
 115 replace the whole color and image handling with @acronym{GDK} routines
 116 when this library is available, since it has been optimized for it.
 117
 118 @end itemize