[Axiom-developer] RE: [Texmacs-dev] Axiom and TeXmacs

[Bill Page]

On Thursday, November 21, 2002 11:30 AM Joris van der Hoeven
address@hidden wrote:

> [Tim] 
> > Norman's noweb wraps code in the sequence, causing a
> > "definition"  <<some identifying string>>= code
> > ...
> > code
> > @
> > where everything outside the <<>>= ... @ is considered
> > text. Code between the boundaries is basically a verbatim
> > environment.
> > 
> > Code definitions are "used" by specifying:
> > <<some identifying string>>
> > Notice the lack of trailing equal sign.
> 
> Maybe we should preprocess the pamphlet file using Perl
> before doing the conversion. I think that Stéphane
> Payrard might be willing to help us with that.
>

If I understand you correctly, I do not think a Perl
filter is a good approach. I have nothing against Perl
as such, its just that I think the goal should be more
than loading a pamphlet file into TeXmacs in a readable
manner.

I think there should be a new File->Import->Pamphlet
option for this case. The result of importing a pamphlet
should be a TeXmacs document with a folded structure.
The code chunks should appear folded into the document so
that when viewed or printed with a style called "weave"
for example, the result would be the same as the output
of

 noweave | latex

A different style which displayed the contents of the
folded chunks could be used for editing. Code chunks
have to be named and will also have references to
other code chunks embedded in them.

Perhaps it would be nicer if TeXmacs was able to
expand and collapse folds on demand. It is not really
clear to me hold folding is intended to work in TeXmacs.
I wasn't able to find any documentation about it and
my experiments with it so far have not produced a clear
picture. Perhaps it is still largely in the planning
stage? 

Finally there should be an new File->Export->Tangle
menu option that would generate code and be equivalent
to

  notangle

which expands the code chunks starting with the root
<<*>>= and including all the referenced code chunks
in the whole tree structure.

We could also have a Tools->Selections->Export->Tangle
option that applies notangle starting with a selected
code chunk instead of the root.

What do you think, Tim?
 
> > Joris, can you point me at some specific part of
> > the TeXmacs docs that will help us develop a pamphlet
> > "style" file. A style file that properly handle
> > noweb vanilla output would be quite useful.
> 
> Help -> Styles
> 
> Unfortunately, the documentation is very incomplete,
> because the support for writing style files will be
> much improved at a not yet specified date...
> 

Perhaps it would help to be able to look at some
existing styles that do something similar to what
we want. What would you recommend?

Regards,
Bill Page.