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Implement better tools for debugging
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* Mechanism to recover all scheme error messages in a dedicated
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TeXmacs buffer, together with foldable backtraces.
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* Provide correct locations for the "texmacs-error" primitive.
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* Provide a clean exception semantics for all routines in the basic APIs.
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* Clean exception semantics for C++ routines which are exported to Scheme.
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* Emergency saving of modified buffers on fatal_error.
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* Throw-catch mechanism in C++ code when compiling with enable-debug
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and replacement of fatal_error when possible.
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* Test-suite of TeXmacs documents for different features and
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automated checks for certain types of correctness.
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Hunt down memory leaks
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* Implement marking algorithm
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Internal plug-in for Guile
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Integrate menus in new GUI system
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* Rename "drd-" -> "logic-" for routines from kernel/drd.
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* Appropriate naming convention for routines which operate on markup:
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when to use tmconcat-, concat-, concat/, tree-concat-, ...,
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especially for tags like "tree" which are also used as data types.
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More systematic preservation of locality
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* Replace dispatch tables by contextual overloading where possible
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===============================================================================
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===============================================================================
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* Equivalent of TEX \topsep
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In TEXMACS, the \topsep always equals 0.75em. It should be possible
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to modify this. For symmetry, we might also introduce a ``bottom sep''.
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* Resizing macro expansions
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When attempting to resize a macro application to become smaller than
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the ``x'', the invisible markers may have undesirable side-effects.
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Separate environment variables for ``typewriter'', ``sans serif'',
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``small caps'', ``slant'', etc.
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Find rendering font as a function of selected font and language.
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* Simplification of page parameters
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Should we still reorganize? It should be easy to access to
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the page width and height and some other parameters.
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* Introduction of the paragraph tag
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Distinguish between paragraphs and paragraph units.
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* Page decorations (headers and footers)
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Should the corresponding environment variables become macros?
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* Fine-grained baseline skip
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Associate baseline skip (or ascent and descent) to each individual box
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in concatenation. Next compute maximum over each line. Take maximum of
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maximum after first line and maximum before second line in order to
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obtain final value. Also for other parameters such as baselineskip?
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* Precise scope of variables which affect paragraph layout.
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* User-defined hyphenations of words.
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* Cursor movement is extremely slow for oriental languages.
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* Horizontal grouping instead of \bigop ... \big.
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Introduce grouping primitives in which expressions with big operands
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(and maybe large delimiters) can be encapsulated. The advantage is that
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this eases parsing and an indicative bounding box is shown.
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* Scripts to large delimiters produced by macros
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Such scripts are not put at the right positions
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* Macro for fractions in continued fractions.
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* Less vertical spacing in text style between numerator/denominator and bar.
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* Left-numbering of equation arrays
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Should be possible now using the extern primitive.
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* Consider fractions and scripts as operators
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Consider fractions as operators => spaces before and after.
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Similarly for scripts => small space before left scripts and
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Determine spacing between two mathematical boxes as a function of
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the rough semantics of the boxes. Application: no need for operators
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* Introduce a style options mechanism
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Option -> call back macro which can be enriched by several packages
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Call back macros called at end of reading style files when option selected
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Selected options postpended to name for style-file caching
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* Grey menu entries for parameters which cannot be changed in style
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For instance, a style might provide a limited number of font base sizes.
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Boxes should not have origins; its children should have positions instead.
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* Temporarily inccorect markup
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When pressing A-backspace inside a surround tag, we first remove
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two children of the surround tag (so that it obtains arity 1) and
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next remove the tag itself. The temporarily inccorect surround tag
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of arity 1 may cause bridge_surround to crash.
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Temporary fix: add extra nodes in the bridge.
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Better fix: implement an elementary modification assign_label
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which allows to change the surround tag into another tag like tuple
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before performing incorrect operations.
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* Icon menu for font size.
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* Buggy title environment: remove author, transform selection
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* Strong inside strong, "with color red" inside "with color red", etc.
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* "with color black" at the left/right extreme of "with color red".
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* Remove "document" when applying "strong" to a single paragraph.
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* More generally: automatically turn block content into inline content
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* User-defined macros can be turned into a compound using the backspace key,
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builtin macros can't. Why is that? How do I change the name of the
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call to a buildin macro? Can I avoid removing it and creating a new one?
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* If the first argument of a call to a user defined macro contains a
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<document> tag, I cannot turn it into a compound any more. Why that?
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* There seems to be no way to manually create or remove <document> tags.
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* Edit the "init" part of a file in source code form.
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A facility "Edit as" to convert a selection into any other format and
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put the result in an "edit-as" tag for manual editing. When pressing
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return, reconvert back into TEXMACS.
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* More customizable presentation of source tags
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Make the presentation of source code more customizable by user macros.
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Done for syntactic highlighting, but should also be done for special
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rendering of certain primitives and the rendering of tags.
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* Primitive for block arguments
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Currently, we may stretch tags. We also need a primitive for stretching
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Tags for short commands inside the program.
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Display informative flags at places where tags have been stretched or
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a modification to the source style has been applied.
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* Assistant for creating your own styles.
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===============================================================================
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TOOLS AND FREQUENTLY USED SUBROUTINES
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* Implement different routines for quoting and quote/unquote
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using the appropriate routine.
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General caching mechanism
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* Optimize performance as a function of cost of recomputation and
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* Avoid name-clashes with built-in commands
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Importation of LATEX macros whose names coincide with built-in
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commands may lead to incorrect documents (e.g. the point macro
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in publs/1998/zeta.tex). We should probably post-correct imported
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* Better parsing of verbatim arguments
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Some commands, like cite, documentclass, etc. take verbatim arguments,
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which should not be parsed in the generic way. The string_arg function
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is a temporary remedy.
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* Better looking icons.
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* Explanatory messages on the status bar
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* Better "mouse button layout": do as much as possible with left mouse
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button only and reserve right button for contextual menu.
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* Compatability with pen-based devices.
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* Fine-grained resizing using keyboard (also allow modification of grain?).
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* Resizing using mouse.
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* Automatic detection of simple types of curves when dragging
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* Automatic detection of simple ornaments (arrows, dots).
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* Cairo plug-in for nicer looking graphics.
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* Graphical macros and constraint-based drawings.
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* Documentation, reference guide (markup specification) and tutorial.
200
Reorganization of Scheme code
201
* First rough reorganization of code.
202
* Clean API for graphical objet and current decorations:
203
1) remove/restore one object (while preserving z-order).
204
2) remove/restore a selection of objects (while preserving z-order).
205
3) specify decorations for current graphical object.
207
* Clean API for setting/retrieving graphical attributes
208
(color, line width, line style, fill color, etc.).
209
1) Selecting the value of a given attribute.
210
2) Retrieving the value of a given attribute.
211
3) Apply attributes to one or more objects.
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4) Retrieve attributes from one (or more) objects.
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* Clean API for global attributes of the entire graphics
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2) Retrieve an attribute.
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* Clean API for simple object construction
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1) Different types of arguments: point, length, content, etc.
218
2) Adding an argument to the current object.
219
3) Removing an argument from a current object.
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4) Event handlers and how to map mouse buttons to different actions.
221
5) Computation of decorations.
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* Clean API for groups.
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1) Adding an object / region.
224
2) Removing an object / region.
225
3) Geometric transformations.
229
7) Computation of decorations.
230
* Documentation of all APIs.
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UPCOMING STYLE REWRITING TOOL
234
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237
* Attention to implicitly changed variables, such as the-tags,
238
the-label, etc., which may cause the entire document to be retypeset.
239
* Attention to base-file-name, cur-file-name, current-part.
240
Also put these variables in vars.hpp.
241
* Replace "arg" primitive by quasi-quoting mechanism.
242
This seems to be quite necessary: consider <assign|foo|<macro|body|...>>
243
and a document piece <\foo>...</foo> with a large body. When making
244
changes to the body; the environment for typesetting the body
245
also changes, because we need to store the body in the "foo" environment
246
argument variable. For this reason, we implemented an alternative
247
mechanism, which is enabled using #define ALTERNATIVE_MACRO_EXPANSION.
248
* More systematic usage of symbols instead of strings.
249
* Should BibTeX labels really be prefixed by "bib-"?
250
* Links and multiple views: which view should be selected when
251
following a hyperlink. More generally: refine criteria for
252
automatically preferring one locus over another one in presence
255
Problem with auxiliary data in hidden markup (eg. labels, loci, links, indexes)
256
* Analogy: hidden markup <-> loaded file which is not in a buffer.
257
We might want to associate auxiliary data to tree nodes instead of files.
258
Notice that there are different types of hidden structures:
259
1) Contents should *not* be evaluated when hidden, but we need to
260
keep track of auxiliary data. Example: a hidden chapter.
261
2) Contents are evaluated but not typeset: auxiliary data may
262
be kept in macro expander. Example: fold.
263
3) Contents are not evaluated, not typeset and no auxiliary data
264
are attached to the contents. Example: a comment or any piece of
265
markup which has to be completely ignored.
267
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268
UPCOMING MARKUP-BASED GUI
269
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272
* Attach the action to be applied after popup input to a specific buffer.
273
* Cleaner implementation of read-only parts in documents.
274
* Cleaner implementation of size computation of widget.
275
Also: notebooks and folding constructs, which may require
276
to update the size later on.
277
* Cleaner implementation of widget fields (i.e. the way we associate
279
* Don't require the specification of a body for hidden input fields.
280
* Argument history and browsing suggestions using keyboard.
281
* Destroy call backs associated to a widget when the corresponding
282
window is closed using another method than "dismiss".
283
Idea: potentially associate a dismiss routine to each buffer.
285
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286
MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION
287
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292
* CVS mirror at Savannah and automatic update scheme.
293
* Also search for other mirror sites (increases availability and
294
visibility on the web).
296
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297
TUTORIAL OR SERIES OF INTRODUCTORY ARTICLES (E.G. FOR LINUX MAGAZINE)
298
===============================================================================
300
General introduction/quick overview
301
* Different purposes of TEXMACS
302
* Writing a simple text
303
* Style-sheets and writing a simple macro
304
* Running a computer algebra system
305
* Inserting an action tag which launches an xterm (and mutator tag?)
307
Writing simple structured texts
308
* Why are structured documents useful?
309
* How to enter structure into TEXMACS, redundancy of the interface
310
* Understanding the visual indications, cursor movement
311
* Editing the structure (removing structure, improper nesting, variants,
313
* Exploiting structure: spell checking, searching
314
* Reminders about correct typography
316
Writing mathematical texts
317
* Entering math mode, equations, equation arrays
318
* Simple mathematical formulas, recall cursor movement
319
* Mathematical symbols, variants
320
* Semantics of multiplication, function application and
321
other implicit semantics
322
* Simple matrices and other tabular environments
324
Writing simple macros and style-sheets
325
* Rendering of source code, what is source code?
327
* A simple style package
328
* Customization of some existing macros