[OS X TeX] TeXShop + external editor of choice?

[Maarten Sneep]

On 22 feb 2005, at 15:11, Johan Glimming wrote:

> Re. Makefiles in TeXShop: now it works perfectly, many thanks for all 
> the advise I received.

(Would you mind sharing what you've learned, so that next time we can 
point to the archives).

> Now that I have gotten TeXShop up and running I want to consider using 
> an external editor. I have been using emacs and vim for quite a while 
> but that piece of software is maybe /Lisp is/ getting a bit old these 
> days? ;-))
>
> So I wonder if there is some suggested editor for TeXShop. A feature I 
> really would appreciate is grammar check and spelling/thesaurus inside 
> my TeX code. Other features are of course syntax highlighting, 
> bracketing, indentation of TeX code, and auto-completion of standard 
> \-definitions and even recurring words such as "automobile" from 
> "au...".

BBEdit is what I use, but it isn't cheap. It gets a lot cheaper though 
if you cross upgrade from the free editor the same company puts out: 
TextWrangler 
(http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/index.shtml). When 
combined with BBAutoComplete (http://c-command.com/bbautocomplete/) it 
provides quite a bit of what you're asking. The auto-completion 
requires hitting a key, so maybe you don't like that, YMMV.

I doubt there is a (useful) grammar check -- according to those 
in-the-know, such a beast does not exist, at least not if you want to 
reduce your writings to the lowest common denominator. BBEdit and 
TextWrangler use the system-wide spelling check, and can use CocoASpell 
(http://cocoaspell.leuski.net/), which is a bit more intelligent when 
it comes to TeX commands.

A system wide thesaurus can be had from Nisus 
(http://www.nisus.com/Thesaurus/) and Apple will add another option to 
Tiger (10.4), if the rumours are correct.

Another option is to use some LaTeX components for Xcode, but I seem to 
have misplaced the link to the extra package that would actually make 
it usable. Anyone?

There are others, http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/ contains a nice list 
of them. Options include: Alpha(X|tk), Carbon Enhanced Emacs, Vim, 
Pepper, jEdit, TextMate, Smultron, SubEthaEdit. Not all are on the 
list, use Google if needed/curious. Alpha seems to be close to Emacs in 
the number of options, has good TeX support, and includes electric 
support (auto indentation, add text that has to be added anyway. I 
can't stand it, but some love it). I'm sure it can fully automate the 
autocompleteion (like Xcode, and that drives me nuts, YMMV).

Regards,

Maarten

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