Suggestion (was Re: [Texmacs-dev] Interactive feedback)

[Álvaro Tejero Cantero]

I believe I don't fully understand your proposal, since e.g. I don't
know what continuations are. But as I had a precooked suggestion on
aiding user input without resorting to new widgets (i.e. inside the
document), I'll post it in this thread for the record.

The idea comes from the realization of the following:

- LaTeX has ordered arguments, but not named. This makes it fast to use
but poorly self-documenting and a bit cryptic.

- XML has keyword (named) arguments (the attributes), which makes it
clumsy (lots to type) but very self-documenting.

- TeXmacs is interactive, which means we can have the best of both
worlds, and let the user choose. I am thinking of having two ways to
display "hungry constructs" (aka. argument-eating macros).

[... stands for the user input, everything else is typeset by TeXmacs]


first way (current): 

                        <reference|...>

second way (proposed, perhaps as a "variant" for inactive content):

                        <reference|label name?...>

that is: we get something from the source code definition of the
reference tag and use it to better inform the user. That would also
render semi-useless a "tag manual", since every tag is self-documenting,
as should be in a really good good system (i.e. no need to read
manuals).

The <reference|> is really a dummy example, but think of the
<postscript|||||||>. Everybody complais they don't understand the
expected options.... well that should be like:

<postscript|filename?...|scale?...|crop?...|your-option-here?...>

[whether it's better that all the "hints" (attribute names) appear
simultaneously or not could be discussed]

I think this proposal explores the possibility of a very helpful
interface independent of but compatible with the "dialogs" today so
favored. In fact, this is for me the kind of help that would fill the
gap between newbies and advanced users, since it would be very easy for
newbies to learn to use TeXmacs in an advanced way, by knowing which
options there are and slowly memorizing in which order they come. 

The proposal can also be coupled with the use of a part of the
minibuffer to print the help texts while in inactive elements or while
being asked inside the minibuffer for input.

I would like to know what do you think,
á.

-- 
Álvaro Tejero Cantero

http://alqua.com    --  documentos libres
                        free documents