Re: [Vim-latex-devel] Changes for vim7

[Andreas W. <A.W...@st...>]

Hello Srinath, hello list,
it took me some time and I still cannot be as elaborate as I would have 
liked to be, but anyway, here goes:

* Srinath Avadhanula wrote on Apr/06/2006:
> There are potentially a number of things I can think of:

> 2. Adapt vim-latex to vim7. Vim7 introduces the concept of the autoload 
>   directory which has the potential for making vim-latex more modular and 
>   also load faster at the same time.

I don't think speeding up the loading of vim-LaTeX should be of great 
priority. After all, the main delay happens when you load a tex/bib 
file, and not when you actually work with it.
As for other advantages of vim7, I can't tell. I have dl'd it, but not 
yet checked it out.

> 3. Introduce some cool new features, or make some presently 
> implemented feature more usable. I really cannot think of too many at 
> this point.

One feature which could be imroved upon, IMHO, would be handling of 
packages. I have recently mailed about defining which options are 
possible for commands that new packages bring with them (like you can 
define which options they accept with \usepackage[x]{y}). Another thing 
would be auto-navigating to the correct place and handling necessary 
square brackets ('[', ']') correctly when the user selects among the 
package-loading options, so that one can select package options no 
matter where one is in the document. OTOH, selecting package is probably 
not something that needs to be done frequently during normal work, so it 
might not be needed.

> Any other thoughts/ideas? I'm also open to general usability complaints. 
> One more thing which would be invaluable for me is if I can get an idea of 
> what portions of vim-latex are actually being actively used. I know that I 
> personally only use maybe 40% of vim-latex's code.

Here is a bit about what I am using mostly, then. It's probably not even 
40%...
I am using (vim-)LaTeX for my studies in the humanities, and I don't 
have very much use for maths, figures, tables, pstricks and the like -- 
wich might be not very representative. What I am using mostly is this:
FEM, FIT (and the corresponding `em and `it), EQN, EQE. I have made 
mappings to insert a footnote and footcite (see below) on EFN and EFC, 
and I am using these extensively, too. Also, I am trying to get used to 
using F5, F7 (how many entries can one have there?) and most importantly 
F9 (both bib and reference completion) more regularly.

- I often need \frqq{} as opening and \flqq{} as closing quotes, so I 
    have mapped these to `CC and `CT respectively and additionally I have
    defined Tex_Env_citation accordingly and added it to 
    Tex_HotKeyMappings, so I could quickly insert them with Shift-F1. Only 
    recently I have found out that by now it's working fine when I just 
    define them as Tex_SmartQuoteOpen and -Close in my ngerman package 
    file, therefore I now have this in my ngerman package file and do 
    hardly need the other ways anymore (although typing `CC and `CT is 
    happening pretty automatically now):
      let b:Tex_SmartQuoteOpen = "\\frqq\{\}"
      let b:Tex_SmartQuoteClose = "\\flqq\{\}"

- I often need jurabib's (http://www.jurabib.org) \footcite and have 
    mapped it to EFC. (I have also defined a Tex_Env_Footcite.)
    (Unfortunately the mapping doesn't even work when I put it in 
    vimfiles/after/ftplugin/tex.vim, so I have to manually re-enter it 
    after opening my tex file. Luckily vim has a command history ;) When I 
    get to it, I will try to put up some jurabib (and hopefully other) 
    package support files.

- A similar issue to the problem Vaidotas has mentioned with double 
    brackets '((': I often use manual folding but freak out everytime I 
    have to enter '% {{{' (would it maybe be possible to disable the 
    expansion in a comment?)

- I've tried to add additional (optional) bibentry fields: crossref (x), 
    gender (g) and shorttitle (l), but I think I lost the code which 
    really integrated them into the bibtex-ftplugin routines, so that they 
    would be included upon entering BBib, BBL etc. Is there a way to 
    outsource some more of the relevant bibtex settings instead of messing 
    around in LaTeX-suite/bibtex.vim after each download of a new 
    release?

- what I'd /like/ to do would be a way to handle a couple of search and 
    replace runs more easily which I always have to do when finishing some 
    text. Like for example this one:
      :%s/\(\a\)\.\(\a\)\.\_s/\1.\\,\2.\~/gc
    (replacing e.g. or ie. with e.\,g.\~ and i.\,e.\~) Right now I have a 
    list of all those replacements but no cool way of performing them. Any 
    hints would be appreciated.

- pdfsync (http://itexmac.sourceforge.net/pdfsync.html) support would be 
    cool, I think -- pdf being a portable format and currently the only 
    one to benefit from pdfetex's microtypographic extensions. Only I 
    haven't got it working myself in a way that I really can tell much 
    about it. It's supposed to offer functionality comparable to 
    UseEditorSettingInDVIViewer, but I don't even know how I would get 
    back from xpdf to vim...


I think that might be enough food for thought for now. I hope it is of 
some use for you.

Cheers,
Andreas

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