[aspell] Aspell now had TeX Support (... well almost)

[Kevin Atkinson]

I have just uploaded a prerelease of aspell .29 at
ftp://aspell.sourceforge.net/pub/aspell/aspell-.29pre1.tar.gz

This version has many noticeable features, including TeX support. 
Unfortunately I myself do not edit raw (La)TeX documents so I would
really appreciate it if a few of you could download it and torture test
the TeX mode.  

To use text support add the option --add-filter=tex.  For example to
check a document use "aspell --add-filter=tex check <doc>".  Unlike the
current version of ispell this version gives you the ability to select
what commands's parameters skip over.  It has the ability to skip some
parameters of a TeX commands but not others as well as the ability to
skip over optional parameters.  However, this version does not have the
ability to skip over regions of text in math mode.

As a bonus it will also skip over URLs, email addresses, and host names.
You can turn this off with --rem-filter=url

This prerelease version will abort will an assertion if you document has
more '}' than '{'.  The final version won't do this.  If you get the
assertion "stack.size()" failed with a legal TeX document please let me
know.

Here is the relevent part of the manual on TeX filters:

The tex filter (all lowercase) skips over TEX commands and parameters
and/
or options to certain command. It also skips over TEX comments by
defalt.
The option [dont-]tex-check-comments controles wether or net aspel will
skip over TEX comments. The option add|rem-tex-command controls which
TEX
commands should have certain parameters and/or options also skiped over.
The format for each item is

     command  a list of p,P,o and Os 

The first item is simple the command name. The second item controls
which
parameters to skip over. A 'p' skips over a parameter while a 'P' won't.
Similar an 'o' will skip over an optional parameter while a 'O' won't.
The
first letter on the list will apply to the first paramter, the second
letter will apply to the second parameter etc. For example the option

    add-tex-command rule pp

will skip over the first two parameters of the ``rule'' command while
the
option

    add-tex-command foo Pop

will check the first parameter of the ``foo'' command, skip over the
next
optional parameter, if it is present, and will skip over the second
paramter -- even if the optional parameter is not present.

To remove a command simple use the rem-tex-command option. For example

    rem-tex-command foo

will remove the command foo, if present, from the list of TEX commands.

END

The current defaults are:
begin p, newenvironment poPP, renewenvironment poPP, end p,  vspace p,
hspace p, cite p, ref p, parbox p,label p, input p, nocite p, include p,
includeonly p, documentstyle p, documentclass op, usepackage
p,selectlanguage p, pagestyle p,  pagenumbering p, hyphenation p,
pageref p, psfig p, rule pp, setcounter pp, addtocounter pp,setlength
pp, addtolength pp, settowidth pp

Let me know if you think other commands should be included are if a
command should also has some optional parameters that should be skipped.

Because this is a prerelease of an alpha version of aspell I STRONGLY
recommend that you do not install it over an older version.  Instead use
./configure --prefix=<dir> where dir is say /usr/local/aspell-.29pre1/
to install it in its own subdirectly where it can be uninstalled by just
typing "rm -r ...".

Thanks.
Have fun with the new TeX mode and be sure to give me feedback.

I am hopping to release aspell .29 in a week or so.

---
Kevin Atkinson
address@hidden
http://metalab.unc.edu/kevina/