[Vimoutliner] vo_latex? vo_tex?

[Steve Litt]

On Wednesday 20 February 2008 00:46, Ben Martin wrote:
> On Feb 19, 2008 11:38 PM, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > LyX isn't floating my boat the way it used to.
> >
> > Anyone use LaTeX or TeX? Would a VO front end for LaTeX (and therefore
> > TeX) be something you might find interesting?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > SteveT
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm currently writing my dissertation in LaTeX using vimlatex and
> vimoutliner.  I manually edit the outline while editing the chapter
> files in another window.  I thought about writing a quick script to
> translate back and forth, but the complications stopped me.  I just
> joined the list, so I apologize if I repeat something.
>
> I've been using vimlatex for a while now, but it's mainly useful for
> the syntax highlighting and semi-automatic folding.  I don't tend to
> make much use of it's advanced features because they don't quite fit
> with how I use LaTeX or vim (except for ",rf", which is needed with
> their funky folding).  Vimlatex is so smart that it's a real pain to
> just get it behave.  It took me over an hour to figure out how to make
> it use my Makefile by default.
>
> I thought of two ways to implemented a scheme for automating the
> translation:
>
> 1. otl file as master document
> All editing would happen in an otl file (prehaps .otltex or something?).
> My makefile would run a script that removed initial colons from the
> file and possibly added % in place of non comment lines to get the tex
> file.
>
> example.otltex:
> -----------------------------------
> headers
>
>   : \documentclass{blah}
>   : \blah
>   : \begin{document}
>
> intro
>
>   : \section{blah}
>   : blah blah
>
> conclusion
>
>   : \section{blah}
>   : blah blah
>
> footer
>
>  : \end{document}
>
> -----------------------------------------

Here's another way it could be described:
example.otltex:
-----------------------------------
headers
	\documentclass{blah}
	\blah
	\begin{document}
intro
	: blah blah
	Summary of info
		: blah blah
conclusion
	: blah blah
	Feelgood subsection at end of conclusion
		: blah blah
footer
	\end{document}

-----------------------------------------

Hierchical environments needn't have a begin or end, because the indentation 
implies them, when crossreferenced to the documentclass. Other environments 
can assume their own line and not have a colon. The conversion program will 
assume that any line beginning with a backslash is an environment or a 
command. Putting commands within text would be harder and might require a 
special syntax.

What I think would be absolutely necessary for fast work would be a facility, 
within Vim, to list all environments and have the user choose one. The same 
should be true of commands. This implies vo_latex would be able to, to some 
degree, parse the document preamble (headers) and any included layout files 
or style files.

Or else make the user create files listing useable environments and character 
style commands and have VO dropdown and select those. That would be much 
easier, and I think would be acceptable for the first few versions.

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: Universal Troubleshooting Process books and courseware
http://www.troubleshooters.com/