=============================================================================== GENERAL ARCHITECTURE =============================================================================== Implement better tools for debugging * Mechanism to recover all scheme error messages in a dedicated TeXmacs buffer, together with foldable backtraces. * Provide correct locations for the "texmacs-error" primitive. * Provide a clean exception semantics for all routines in the basic APIs. * Clean exception semantics for C++ routines which are exported to Scheme. * Emergency saving of modified buffers on fatal_error. * Throw-catch mechanism in C++ code when compiling with enable-debug and replacement of fatal_error when possible. * Test-suite of TeXmacs documents for different features and automated checks for certain types of correctness. Hunt down memory leaks * Valgrind * Implement marking algorithm =============================================================================== SCHEME INTERFACE =============================================================================== Internal plug-in for Guile Integrate menus in new GUI system Naming conventions * Rename "drd-" -> "logic-" for routines from kernel/drd. * Appropriate naming convention for routines which operate on markup: when to use tmconcat-, concat-, concat/, tree-concat-, ..., especially for tags like "tree" which are also used as data types. More systematic preservation of locality * Replace dispatch tables by contextual overloading where possible (i.e. LaTeX export). =============================================================================== TYPESETTER =============================================================================== General * Equivalent of TEX \topsep In TEXMACS, the \topsep always equals 0.75em. It should be possible to modify this. For symmetry, we might also introduce a ``bottom sep''. * Resizing macro expansions When attempting to resize a macro application to become smaller than the ``x'', the invisible markers may have undesirable side-effects. * Font parameters Separate environment variables for ``typewriter'', ``sans serif'', ``small caps'', ``slant'', etc. Find rendering font as a function of selected font and language. * Simplification of page parameters Should we still reorganize? It should be easy to access to the page width and height and some other parameters. Text * Introduction of the paragraph tag Distinguish between paragraphs and paragraph units. * Page decorations (headers and footers) Should the corresponding environment variables become macros? * Fine-grained baseline skip Associate baseline skip (or ascent and descent) to each individual box in concatenation. Next compute maximum over each line. Take maximum of maximum after first line and maximum before second line in order to obtain final value. Also for other parameters such as baselineskip? * Precise scope of variables which affect paragraph layout. * User-defined hyphenations of words. * Cursor movement is extremely slow for oriental languages. Mathematics * Horizontal grouping instead of \bigop ... \big. Introduce grouping primitives in which expressions with big operands (and maybe large delimiters) can be encapsulated. The advantage is that this eases parsing and an indicative bounding box is shown. * Scripts to large delimiters produced by macros Such scripts are not put at the right positions * Macro for fractions in continued fractions. * Less vertical spacing in text style between numerator/denominator and bar. * Left-numbering of equation arrays Should be possible now using the extern primitive. * Consider fractions and scripts as operators Consider fractions as operators => spaces before and after. Similarly for scripts => small space before left scripts and after right scripts. * Better spacing Determine spacing between two mathematical boxes as a function of the rough semantics of the boxes. Application: no need for operators like the unary minus. Style-sheet language * Introduce a style options mechanism Option -> call back macro which can be enriched by several packages Call back macros called at end of reading style files when option selected Selected options postpended to name for style-file caching * Grey menu entries for parameters which cannot be changed in style For instance, a style might provide a limited number of font base sizes. Boxes * Origin of boxes Boxes should not have origins; its children should have positions instead. Current bridges * Temporarily inccorect markup When pressing A-backspace inside a surround tag, we first remove two children of the surround tag (so that it obtains arity 1) and next remove the tag itself. The temporarily inccorect surround tag of arity 1 may cause bridge_surround to crash. Temporary fix: add extra nodes in the bridge. Better fix: implement an elementary modification assign_label which allows to change the surround tag into another tag like tuple before performing incorrect operations. =============================================================================== EDITOR =============================================================================== Structured text * Icon menu for font size. * Buggy title environment: remove author, transform selection into title, etc. * Strong inside strong, "with color red" inside "with color red", etc. * "with color black" at the left/right extreme of "with color red". * Remove "document" when applying "strong" to a single paragraph. * More generally: automatically turn block content into inline content when appropriate. Editing source trees * User-defined macros can be turned into a compound using the backspace key, builtin macros can't. Why is that? How do I change the name of the call to a buildin macro? Can I avoid removing it and creating a new one? * If the first argument of a call to a user defined macro contains a tag, I cannot turn it into a compound any more. Why that? * There seems to be no way to manually create or remove tags. * Edit the "init" part of a file in source code form. * Edit as option A facility "Edit as" to convert a selection into any other format and put the result in an "edit-as" tag for manual editing. When pressing return, reconvert back into TEXMACS. * More customizable presentation of source tags Make the presentation of source code more customizable by user macros. Done for syntactic highlighting, but should also be done for special rendering of certain primitives and the rendering of tags. * Primitive for block arguments Currently, we may stretch tags. We also need a primitive for stretching tag arguments. * Comments Tags for short commands inside the program. * Visual hints Display informative flags at places where tags have been stretched or a modification to the source style has been applied. Styling * Assistant for creating your own styles. =============================================================================== TOOLS AND FREQUENTLY USED SUBROUTINES =============================================================================== Quoting * Implement different routines for quoting and quote/unquote using the appropriate routine. General caching mechanism * Optimize performance as a function of cost of recomputation and storage requirement LATEX import * Avoid name-clashes with built-in commands Importation of LATEX macros whose names coincide with built-in commands may lead to incorrect documents (e.g. the point macro in publs/1998/zeta.tex). We should probably post-correct imported documents. * Better parsing of verbatim arguments Some commands, like cite, documentclass, etc. take verbatim arguments, which should not be parsed in the generic way. The string_arg function is a temporary remedy. =============================================================================== GRAPHICS EDITOR =============================================================================== Interface * Better looking icons. * Explanatory messages on the status bar * Better "mouse button layout": do as much as possible with left mouse button only and reserve right button for contextual menu. * Compatability with pen-based devices. * Fine-grained resizing using keyboard (also allow modification of grain?). * Resizing using mouse. * Automatic detection of simple types of curves when dragging in drawing mode. * Automatic detection of simple ornaments (arrows, dots). * Cairo plug-in for nicer looking graphics. * Graphical macros and constraint-based drawings. * Documentation, reference guide (markup specification) and tutorial. Reorganization of Scheme code * First rough reorganization of code. * Clean API for graphical objet and current decorations: 1) remove/restore one object (while preserving z-order). 2) remove/restore a selection of objects (while preserving z-order). 3) specify decorations for current graphical object. 4) undo and cancel. * Clean API for setting/retrieving graphical attributes (color, line width, line style, fill color, etc.). 1) Selecting the value of a given attribute. 2) Retrieving the value of a given attribute. 3) Apply attributes to one or more objects. 4) Retrieve attributes from one (or more) objects. * Clean API for global attributes of the entire graphics 1) Set an attribute. 2) Retrieve an attribute. * Clean API for simple object construction 1) Different types of arguments: point, length, content, etc. 2) Adding an argument to the current object. 3) Removing an argument from a current object. 4) Event handlers and how to map mouse buttons to different actions. 5) Computation of decorations. * Clean API for groups. 1) Adding an object / region. 2) Removing an object / region. 3) Geometric transformations. 4) Changing z-order. 5) Group / ungroup. 6) Copy and paste. 7) Computation of decorations. * Documentation of all APIs. =============================================================================== UPCOMING STYLE REWRITING TOOL =============================================================================== Reminders * Attention to implicitly changed variables, such as the-tags, the-label, etc., which may cause the entire document to be retypeset. * Attention to base-file-name, cur-file-name, current-part. Also put these variables in vars.hpp. * Replace "arg" primitive by quasi-quoting mechanism. This seems to be quite necessary: consider > and a document piece <\foo>... with a large body. When making changes to the body; the environment for typesetting the body also changes, because we need to store the body in the "foo" environment argument variable. For this reason, we implemented an alternative mechanism, which is enabled using #define ALTERNATIVE_MACRO_EXPANSION. * More systematic usage of symbols instead of strings. * Should BibTeX labels really be prefixed by "bib-"? * Links and multiple views: which view should be selected when following a hyperlink. More generally: refine criteria for automatically preferring one locus over another one in presence of ambiguities. Problem with auxiliary data in hidden markup (eg. labels, loci, links, indexes) * Analogy: hidden markup <-> loaded file which is not in a buffer. We might want to associate auxiliary data to tree nodes instead of files. Notice that there are different types of hidden structures: 1) Contents should *not* be evaluated when hidden, but we need to keep track of auxiliary data. Example: a hidden chapter. 2) Contents are evaluated but not typeset: auxiliary data may be kept in macro expander. Example: fold. 3) Contents are not evaluated, not typeset and no auxiliary data are attached to the contents. Example: a comment or any piece of markup which has to be completely ignored. =============================================================================== UPCOMING MARKUP-BASED GUI =============================================================================== Remaining issues * Attach the action to be applied after popup input to a specific buffer. * Cleaner implementation of read-only parts in documents. * Cleaner implementation of size computation of widget. Also: notebooks and folding constructs, which may require to update the size later on. * Cleaner implementation of widget fields (i.e. the way we associate data to names). * Don't require the specification of a body for hidden input fields. * Argument history and browsing suggestions using keyboard. * Destroy call backs associated to a widget when the corresponding window is closed using another method than "dismiss". Idea: potentially associate a dismiss routine to each buffer. =============================================================================== MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION =============================================================================== Publicity Mirror sites * CVS mirror at Savannah and automatic update scheme. * Also search for other mirror sites (increases availability and visibility on the web). =============================================================================== TUTORIAL OR SERIES OF INTRODUCTORY ARTICLES (E.G. FOR LINUX MAGAZINE) =============================================================================== General introduction/quick overview * Different purposes of TEXMACS * Writing a simple text * Style-sheets and writing a simple macro * Running a computer algebra system * Inserting an action tag which launches an xterm (and mutator tag?) Writing simple structured texts * Why are structured documents useful? * How to enter structure into TEXMACS, redundancy of the interface * Understanding the visual indications, cursor movement * Editing the structure (removing structure, improper nesting, variants, numbering) * Exploiting structure: spell checking, searching * Reminders about correct typography Writing mathematical texts * Entering math mode, equations, equation arrays * Simple mathematical formulas, recall cursor movement * Mathematical symbols, variants * Semantics of multiplication, function application and other implicit semantics * Simple matrices and other tabular environments Writing simple macros and style-sheets * Rendering of source code, what is source code? * A simple macro * A simple style package * Customization of some existing macros Etc.