dave-white/vim-latex

My fork of the vim-latex plugin.

Changes from the original

An inexhaustive description of what I've changed:

Architecture

1. The bulk of the functions are moved to scripts in autoload/tex/. For the most part, autoload script files correspond to those under ftplugin/latex-suite/ in the original, but I've shortened names here and there.

2. Global variables in the original become script variables in the autoload scripts here, and the ftplugin now exclusively sets buffer variables. Each autoload script is to open with a segment in which the ftplugin buffer variable corresponding to each script variable is checked; if it exists/is populated, then the script variable is given the buffer value. This code looks as follows:

    if exists("b:tex_<param>")
     	let s:<param> = b:tex_<param>
    else
    	let s:<param> = <default_global_val>
    endif
   

   I haven't yet fulfilled this everywhere.

3. Rules for compiling to a particular target file type are to be located in scripts with names like tex2<targ>.vim under compiler/ as much as practicable. Buffer variables may be used here for runtime customization, and some may be set here. When the ftplugin is loaded, these compiling rules can then be set via the vim command :compiler.

   I've only done this for the pdf target so far, and the script is a bit messy.

4. The IMAP plugin is not specific to the tex file type, hence should be, in my humble opinion, a standalone plugin. I've accordingly removed it from my forked ftplugin.

Functionality

1. Compiling/Viewing: I've rewritten what was mostly contained in Tex_RunLatex(), Tex_CompileLatex() and Tex_CompileMultipleTimes(), and made some changes to what was in Tex_ViewLatex()—partly to speed things up (which I may or may not have achieved), partly to take advantage of more of what pdflatex can do, and partly to avoid running steps which are unnecessary in a particular instance. In particular:

   • The code is now aware of the use of the -output-directory and -jobname options for pdflatex via the vim settings b:tex_outpdir and b:tex_jobnm, resp.

   • Nothing is done if the tex file (which is now written to right at the start of the process) is older than its associated aux file.
     The BibLaTeX "backend" (biber by default) is only run if the bcf file is updated, and it gets its input/output from pdflatex's output directory if applicable.

   • The autoload function tex#compiler#View() (replacing Tex_ViewLatex()) opens the target file from pdflatex's output directory if applicable.

2. imaps: The IMAP plugin provided with the original ftplugin is great, and I continue employing it for a number of things in this fork (with the goal of eventually removing it entirely), but most LaTeX constructs it just isn't exactly to my taste. I've added my own autoload code in tex/imap.vim to provide what I call "running imaps", i.e. those which operate on multiple consecutive characters while allowing those characters to be printed normally. My way of implementing this fires the mapping when one of a small set of triggering characters is typed: <space>, <tab> or <cr> at the moment. This contrasts with IMAP's mapping of every character which terminates some mapped sequence.

Code

I've jettisoned a few helper functions and restructured some things along the way. I may come to regret doing so, but I'd like to see how far I simplify things.

Naming

• Moving code under autoload/tex/ obviates the use of the prefix Tex_ from the original ftplugin to avoid naming collisions with other plugins. Such a prefix should be retained, however, for all buffer variables and for any functions which for some reason need to be kept at the ftplugin level.

  I haven't yet removed that prefix across all the code.

• I like my variables to begin in lowercase, so the buffer variables holding the ftplugin's settings look like b:tex_<lowercase_char><rest_of_name>. As for the rest, I'm very indecisive; what I've got is a mix of camelCase, underscores and stuff crammed into single "words". I really ought to come up with a convention for this.

Debugging

Writing debugging messages is to be triggered based on a debugging level, b:tex_debuglvl, and on a bitwise match between the overall debugging flag, b:tex_debugflg, and a "code module" flag of the form tex#lib#debugflg_<script_name> specific to a particular autoload script. The overall debugging flag, b:tex_debugflg, is set by bitwise OR'ing together the module flags for all of the scripts one wishes to debug, and then this is matched for debugging calls to tex#lib#debug() via a bitwise AND. Such a call is coded as follows:

if (b:tex_debuglvl >= <lvl>) && and(b:tex_debugflg, tex#lib#debugflg_<script_name>)
  call tex#lib#debug(<msg>)
endif

Here "<script_name>" is the name of the autoload script in which this call resides, and "<lvl>" and "<msg>" are determined on a per-case basis.

"Code modules" may need to come to mean categories of autoload scripts (ideally grouped in folders) if the number of scripts were ever to get very large.

TODO

1. This fork is horrifyingly lacking in documentation and code comments, and files have lost their header text (giving info such as authorship, licensing, etc.) in the shuffling.

2. Finish renaming things. (Cf. Naming)

3. Pull out the remaining uses of the IMAP plugin. Users should be able to enable IMAP independently of this ftplugin.

4. Probably all functionality which I don't use has been broken by my changes and I just don't know it yet. These bugs will need to be tested for and fixed.