[Vim-latex-devel] Re: Incorporating new contributions into vim-latex

[Luc H. <her...@fr...>]

* On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 05:08:49PM -0800, Srinath Avadhanula <sr...@fa...> wrote:
> What about just adding them into the ftplugin/tex directory? 

If the script only concerns TeX, of course, this is a good way, may be
the better.  When it is broader than that, {rtp}/plugin or even
{rtp}/macros will be better.

Regarding dependencies aspects, if the script is not meant to be totally
independant, forcing dependencies to be respected is not a very big
issue -- as I guess it is not your main problem, I won't dwell any
longer on this subject now.

> This way vim will take care of sourcing them. This however means that
> these plugins will have to be completely independent of latex-suite. I
> still dont have a good way to get the commands into the menus? Also
> some documentation is required.

If on the long run everybody agrees to converge to one unique big and
wonderful suite (I think it will be the case & I hope it will eventually
happen), the issues will be:
- for the add-on scripts: how to fit in the suite without messing up
  things
- for the suite: how to export interface functions and commands (API) to
  the add-ons.

For instance, I will take an example from lh-tex & my other html stuff:
my suites are build around several commands: 
- MenuMake: that defines here a -nic-menu + 3 mappings for normal,
  insert and command mode to produce DVI documents
    :MenuMake nic 50.305 &LaTeX.Run\ LaTeX\ &once	<C-L><C-O>
      \ <buffer> :wa<CR>:TeXMakeDVI 1<CR>
- MapMenu: that defines a -inv-menu + 3 mappings for insert, normal and
  visual modes to insert TeX commands, here "\emph{}«»" [1](/ "emph{}"
  around current word/selection)
    :MapMenu 50.370.100.400 &LaTeX.&Fonts.S&hort\ Scope.&Emphasize	
      \ ]em	emph

I haven't totaly checked the LaTeX suite, but with similar tools, the
add-ons can easily fit in the suite. All the suite developers have to do
is: propose the commands and suggest places (in menus) to add other
stuff.

A even more advanced (read "smart") mecanism could take care of the
assignment of numbers in the menu -- could be tough to do, but
interresting.

Note BTW: this approach (MapMenu&MenuMake&...) ensures the mappings and
menus are coherent. On this point it seems that mathmacros.vim and
main.vim are not synchronized ; check the greek letters.

Back to the point of beeing independant of the latex-suite. 
Today the agenda seems to be to bring together totally different
features that can be defined in many different ways. The menu problem
may arise. 
Eventually, the latex-suite will a be standard [2]. In other words, the
latex-suite will be the big open IDE. Its role won't be to define menus
for script to-be-written, but to propose API functions/commands that
will be used by the script to-be-written in order to be part of the
suite.

Don't make an independant menus-for-(la)tex module. Instead, propose a
way to define mappings *and* menu in one action, and split the different
stuff according thematics: compilation/viewing, environments, maths,
fonts (if not part of environments), smart chars, ... IMO, it will be
easier to maintain and help on the scalability issue.


Last point, try to not be redundant with other existing plugins. For
instance you use a specialised version of mu-templates for LaTeX as an
ftplugin. Why not using mu-template as a global plugin ? Copying it adds
more work on your shoulders. And I don't see the point of having
mu-templates for LaTeX, mu-templates for xslt, mu-templates for C++,
etc. Don't make it a ftplugin. It is generic, like brackets and markers.

Something like: 
    function s:AddToMyMenu(template_file)
      let short=matchstr(a:template_file, 
	\ 'template[/\\]tex[/\\]template\.\zs.*')
      exe "amenu ".g:Tex_TemplatesMenuLocation.".&".short." "
	\ ':MuTemplate tex/'.short."\<cr>"
    endfunction
    :command -nargs=1 AddToMyMenu :call s:AddToMyMenu("<arg>")
    :SearchInRuntime! AddToMyMenu template/tex/template.*
    " or, with your configuration and more complex regexs:
    :SearchInRuntime! 
	\ AddToMyMenu template/template.tex-*
	\ AddToMyMenu template/tex/template.*
	\ AddToMyMenu ftplugin/latex-suite/templates/template.*
    :delcommand AddToMyMenu
... should do the trick [3] 


Hope this will be of any help.

[1] "\emph{}" only if b:usemarks is set to 0
[2] Which make me think about auctex whose problem is "one monolotical
file". It proposes many very good things, but it is (was?) not really
scalable (neither European/French friendly): changing one little part to
suit our preferences will be eventually problematic for the day a new
version is available.
[3] but: - with a customized version of mu-template that is not aware of
latex, vim, C++, xslt, etc, - and another plugin (searchInRuntime).
-- 
Luc Hermitte