Subject: psne, find-pspage, xrdb, TeXBook, LaTeX source, etc
Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.eev.devel
Date: 2005-06-13 10:01:14 GMT (2 years, 47 weeks, 5 days, 11 hours and 56 minutes ago)
Hi all! If you download the new version of eev-current and install it you'll notice that an old feature is back: psne. I just wrote a section about it for the article (at <http://angg.twu.net/eev-current/article/>): Local copies of files from the internet --------------------------------------- Emacs knows how to fetch files from the internet, but for most purposes it is better to use local copies. Suppose that the environment variable S is set to ~/snarf/; then running this on a shell mkdir -p $S/http/www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ cd $S/http/www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ wget http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html # (find-fline "$S/http/www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html") # (find-w3m "$S/http/www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html") creates a local copy of emacs-paper.html inside ~/snarf/http/. The two last lines are hyperlinks to the local copy; `find-w3m' opens it ``as HTML'', using a web browser called w3m that can be run either in standalone mode or inside Emacs; `find-w3m' uses w3m's Emacs interface, and it accepts extra arguments, which are treated as a pos-spec-list. Instead of running the `mkdir', `cd' and `wget' lines above we can run a single command that does everything: psne http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html which also adds a line with that URL to a log file (usually ~/.psne.log). It is more convenient to have a `psne' that changes the current directory of the shell than one that doesn't, and for that it must be defined as a shell function. Eev comes with an installer script, called eev-rctool, that can help in adding the definitions for eev (like the ``function ee () { source ~/ee.sh; }'' from the section ``Making programs receive commands'') to initialization files like ~/.bashrc (such initialization files are termed ``rcfiles''). But eev-rctool does _not_ add by default the definitions for `psne' and for S to rcfiles; however, it adds commented-out lines with instructions, which might be something like: # To define $S and psne uncomment this: # . $EEVTMPDIR/psne.sh # (find-eevtmpfile "psne.sh") Hyperlinks to PostScript, PDF and DVI documents ----------------------------------------------- Buried inside the source code for eev.el lie some functions for creating links to PostScript, PDF and DVI files; of those, `find-pspage' and `find-dvipage' are the easiest to understand. Running, say, (find-dvipage "$S/http/foo.org/bar.dvi") (find-dvipage "$S/http/foo.org/bar.dvi" 99) (find-pspage "$S/http/foo.org/bar.ps") (find-pspage "$S/http/foo.org/bar.ps" 99) just write, respectively, xdvi +1 $S/http/foo.org/bar.dvi & xdvi +99 $S/http/foo.org/bar.dvi & gv --page=1 $S/http/foo.org/bar.ps & gv --page=99 $S/http/foo.org/bar.ps & to $EE (i.e., to ~/.ee.sh). The code for find-dvipage and find-pspage is very simple, and if we run `ee' in a shell after running these hyperlink functions either we get an xdvi or gv process running or we get an error message straight on our face. Note that gv can handle (well-behaved) pdf files, and that in many distros both xdvi and gv can handle compressed files. `eebg-xdvi' and `eebg-gv' are similar to `find-dvipage' and `find-pspage', but they make Emacs launch _immediately_ an xdvi or gv process in the background, without using an external shell. With these functions we can pop up an xdvi or gv window with a single `M-e'! Note that we don't even need an external xterm listening on a communication channel... One drawback: the messages from the process appear in the buffer *Messages*; if you run an `eebg-xdvi' or `eebg-gv' link and no xdvi/gv window appears then you have to switch to the buffer *Messages* and check what has appeared there. I have just added aliases for `eebg-xdvi' and `eebg-gv': `find-dvipagenow' and `find-pspagenow', and I may drop the names `eebg-xdvi' and `eebg-gv' in the future. These aliases with nice names indicate that these functions are being promoted from uglyhackland to respectablefunctionland. If you feel comfortable enough with `find-dvipagenow' and `find-pspagenow' you can copy them onto `find-dvipage' and `find-pspage', with: (defalias 'find-dvipage 'eebg-xdvi) (defalias 'find-pspage 'eebg-gv) Short Hyperlinks to PostScript, PDF and DVI documents ----------------------------------------------------- These calls (code-dvi "bad" "$S/http/foo.org/bar.dvi") (code-ps "bap" "$S/http/foo.org/bar.ps") define functions find-badpage and find-bappage, that can be used as: (find-badpage) (find-badpage 99) (find-bappage) (find-bappage 99) These short calls correspond to the `find-dvipage' and `find-pspage' calls above; if you have replaced them with their "...now" variants the "...now" variants will be used. Also, these things work: (code-c-d "fooorg" "$S/http/foo.org/" :xdvi :gv) (find-fooorgxdvi "bar.dvi") (find-fooorgxdvi "bar.dvi" 99) (find-fooorggv "bar.ps") (find-fooorggv "bar.ps" 99) Changing xdvi's and gv's defaults (everywhere) ---------------------------------------------- Both xdvi and gv ask the X server for the values of certain defaults, like the initial magnification scale. One easy way to change these defaults is through the "resources" database of the current X session; the listing below is an abridged version of my ~/.Xdefaults file: ! (find-man "X" "\nRESOURCES") ! (find-man "X" ".Xdefaults") ! (find-man "X" "xrdb program") ! (find-man "xrdb") ! Run this to reload .Xdefaults after a change: ! (find-sh0 "xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults") ! (find-man "1 xdvi") ! xdvi*geometry: 730x750 xdvi*expert: on xdvi*thorough: yes ! For 1280x1024: ! xdvi*shrinkFactor: 6 ! For 1024x768: xdvi*shrinkFactor: 9 xdvi*topMargin: .92in ! (find-man "1 gv") ! (find-node "(gv)Resources of gv" "*scale*") gv.scale: -2 If gv and xdvi are not set to the ideal magnification/zoom/scale then for each gv or xdvi that is opened by a hyperlink we have to type a few more keys ("+" and "-" on gv, "<number> s" on xdvi) to adjust the zoom level, which is distracting, annoying, and eats up precious seconds. The TeXBook and the source code of LaTeX2e ------------------------------------------ I've added a few new blocks to the examples/tex.e file of eev-current: (find-eevex "tex.e" "texbook") (find-eevex "tex.e" "find-texbookpage") (find-eevex "tex.e" "source2e.dvi") (find-eevex "tex.e" "find-source2epage") "find-texbookpage" and "find-source2epage" implement the Lisp functions (hyperlinks) with these names, and "texbook" and "source2e.dvi" produce the .dvi files that are used by the `find-texbookpage' and `find-source2epage' functions. The online version of TeX source of the TeXBook says "you should not typeset this"; I don't know what to say about that. The TeXBook (in its hardcover edition, even!) is a must-have for anyone who uses TeX or LaTeX, and an online version of it for quick reference is not a substitute for the real book - it's a complement for it, and I hope that the publishers will not get angry with us for using it. Anyway: The source code for LaTeX2e is written on a "literate programming" language; DocTeX, I think. By running latex on source2e.tex the many .dtx files that comprise the source of the "base" of LaTeX2e are TeXed into a nice .dvi file called source2e.dvi. A problem: suppose that we want to create a link to the 4th page of ltlists.dtx in source2e.dvi. A link like (find-source2epage (+ 9 245 3)) is not expressive enough - it's ugly, it can't be interpreted immediately by humans, it can break when the LaTeX version changes, etc. A solution: make `find-source2epage' smarter; make it interpret some symbols as names of packages, i.e., as specific pages. So: (find-source2epage 'ltlists) (find-source2epage 'ltlists 3) (find-source2epage 'ltlists 3 "\\list{LABEL}{COMMANDS}") (find-source2efile "ltlists.dtx" "\\list{LABEL}{COMMANDS}") (find-source2efile "ltlists.dtx" "\\def\\list#1#2") The first link above points to the first page of the section corresponding to ltlists.dtx, the second one points to the first page plus 3, the third too (the other arguments are ignored), and the other two links point to the .dtx file itself. The table with the names of sections and their pages (a plist) was built by hand from the .toc ("table of contents") file. There's something similar for the TeXbook: (find-texbookpage 'appendixI "Index") (find-texbookpage 'appendixF "Font Tables") (find-texbookpage 'chapter21 2 "\\boxit") (find-texbookfile "texbook.tex" "|\\boxit|") Cheers, Edrx -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Choose from over 50 domains or use your own