Re: [Vim-latex-devel] Symbol visualization in vim-latex

[Aditya M. <ad...@um...>]

On Mon, 17 Apr 2006, Srinath Avadhanula wrote:

> Hi Fabio,
>
> On 4/14/06, Fabio Stumbo <f.s...@un...> wrote:
>>
>> 1)Using gvim to edit a tex file, is it possible to have in some way
>> a previsualization of the output of a math symbol?  The menus under
>> Tex-math let you see only the name of a macro, not the actual symbol.
>> Or, for this, am I forced to use other editors like kile?
>
> Well, at one time I seriously thought of including the functionality of
> unilatex.vim:
>
> http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=284
>
> into latex-suite. However, I never found the time or inclination. The
> problem is that working with a non-compilable version of the file always
> and only writing out the actual compilable version during a :write
> seemed to be somewhat risky. What if Vim (or latex-suite or the terminal
> or the remote connection or any number of things) crashed in the middle
> of the edit session. In this case, the file is effectively tainted...


There are other things also which can go wrong. I had a file where I 
had defined a command \PM for something. I also had set ignorecase 
option. So, unilatex, changed all \PM to +- and then wrote back \pm to 
the file. Took me a while to get everything back. unilatex should 
specifically set noignorecase while doing its substitutions.

However, visualizing math is not so easy, especially, since vim only 
displays text. For complicated mathematics, the unilatex is not that 
helpful. I wish vim could incorporate something like preview-latex. 
But, that is not going to happen anytime soon.

However, if you just want to know what a symbol looks like, get a copy 
of 
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/symbols/comprehensive/symbols-a4.pdf 
and keep it with you. It is more useful than the limited menus for 
maths on other editors.


Aditya

-- 
Aditya Mahajan, EECS Systems, University of Michigan
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~adityam || Ph: 7342624008