Re: [Texmacs-dev] Creating styles

[Nix N. Nix]

On Fri, 2003-05-09 at 03:27, David Allouche wrote:
> On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 12:24:10PM -0600, Nix N. Nix wrote:
> > Is there a simple way to create new styles, or to override existing ones
> > ?  I have tried looking at the various .ts files, but the syntax seems
> > prohibitive.  Is there an example stylesheet somewhere, that shows me
> > how to override, say, a numbered style, such as a section header ?  That
> > is, suppose I want my sections to be numbered using roman numerals and
> > their title written using italicized text.  How would I go about saying
> > that in the preamble ?
> 
> Short of a really helpful answer (which would take quite a lot of time
> to figure out), the basic answer is:
> 
>   Do not edit .ts file using vi or emacs, but use TeXmacs. The
>   preamble mode is not really nice, but you will avoid many file format
>   related pitfalls.

Done that - got confused :o)

> 
>   About example stylesheets, well... not much out of the distribution.

*sigh* ... all that assign function stuff is still very new to me.  All
I ever did was <assign|blah<macro|...>>.

> 
>   Generally, the core stylesheets use a heavily modularized (and
>   almost undocumented) organization. The best way to do what you
>   request would probably be to figure out how the whole mess work and
>   copy-paste the inner structure which can do what you want to a
>   personal package and then hack around.

Yes, I noticed that but, for example, for "author", I couldn't figure
out where the string "BY " gets added.

> 
>   Create an example document which use your package and edit the
>   package in the same texmacs process. When you save your package,
>   your document will be automagically updated. Nice feature for
>   incremental development.

I know that - I already have a package which has stuff like

<assign|overbrace|<macro|x|<wide|<arg|x>|^>>>

in lieu of the over/underbrace that will follow in the future.

> 
>   Beware of the std--before.ts and std--after.ts packages which are
>   evaluated at the start and at the end of the creation of the initial
>   environment. One thinng std--after.ts does is created theorem-like
>   enviroments, that is why you must define them in a package and not
>   in the document itself.

I see.

> 
>   Any contribution to improve the modularity and customuzability of
>   the standard styles is welcome. Well, I do not have Joris word for
>   it, but my opinion is that things are not flexible enough yet. One
>   or two years from now, DRD might make us all happy, but in the
>   meantime things can be improved in the current framework.

Perhaps documenting the various preamble constructs would be a good
idea.  That way, people can just make their own, and use as much of the
TeXmacs pre-defined stuff as they want, and no more than is necessary.

> 
> 
> > I know this is sort of off-topic, but I don't think I can ask anywhere
> > else.
> 
> Not at all off-topic, since the reply is just another variant of "read
> the code" and "patches welcome" :)

:o/

Nonetheless, thanks for the help :o)