A.3.2 Wishlist

• Enable syntactic font lock for verbatim constructs in ‘docTeX’ mode

  In ‘docTeX’ mode buffer, ‘%’ sign at the line beginning hinders syntactic font lock of verbatim constructs. This should be improved.

• Simplify tool bar implementation

  The library toolbar-x.el was developed as an abstraction layer to absorb difference between XEmacs and GNU Emacs. Now that XEmacs is no longer supported, the library, together with tex-bar.el as a whole, can be much simplified (or even unified).

• Documentation lookup for macros

  A parser could gather information about which macros are defined in which LaTeX packages and store the information in a hashtable which can be used in a backend for TeX-doc in order to open the matching documentation for a given macro. The information could also be used to insert an appropriate ‘\usepackage’ statement if the user tries to insert a macro for which the respective package has not been requested yet.

• Improvements to error reporting

  Fringe indicators for errors in the main text would be nice.

• A math entry grid

  A separate frame with a table of math character graphics to click on in order to insert the respective sequence into the buffer (cf. the “grid” of ‘x-symbol’).

• Crossreferencing support

  It would be nice if you could index process your favorite collection of .dtx files (such as the LaTeX source), just call a command on arbitrary control sequence, and get either the DVI viewer opened right at the definition of that macro (using Source Specials), or the source code of the .dtx file.

• Better plain TeX support

  For starters, LaTeX-math-mode is not very LaTeX-specific in the first place, and similar holds for indentation and formatting.

• Page count when compiling should (optionally) go to modeline of the window where the compilation command was invoked, instead of the output window. Suggested by Karsten Tinnefeld tinnefeld@irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de.
• Command to insert a macrodefinition in the preamble, without moving point from the current location. Suggested by "Jeffrey C. Ely" ely@nwu.edu.
• A database of all commands defined in all stylefiles. When a command or environment gets entered that is provided in one of the styles, insert the appropriate \usepackage in the preamble.
• A way to add and overwrite math mode entries in style files, and to decide where they should be. Suggested by Remo Badii Remo.Badii@psi.ch.
• Create template for (first) line of tabular environment.
• I think prompting for the master is the intended behaviour. It corresponds to a ‘shared’ value for TeX-master.

  There should probably be a ‘none’ value which wouldn’t query for the master, but instead disable all features that relies on TeX-master.

  This default value for TeX-master could then be controled with mapping based on the extension.

• Use index files (when available) to speed up C-c C-m include RET.
• Option not to calculate very slow completions like for C-c C-m include RET.
• Font menu should be created from TeX-font-list.
• Installation procedure written purely in emacs lisp.
• Included PostScript files should also be counted as part of the document.
• A nice hierarchical by-topic organization of all officially documented LaTeX macros, available from the menu bar.
• TeX-command-default should be set from the master file, if not set locally. Suggested by Peter Whaite peta@cim.mcgill.ca.
• Make AUCTeX work with ‘crypt++’. Suggested by Chris Moore Chris.Moore@src.bae.co.uk.
• Make AUCTeX work with ‘longlines’. This would also apply to preview-latex, though it might make sense to unify error processing before attempting this.
• The ‘Spell’ command should apply to all files in a document. Maybe it could try to restrict to files that have been modified since last spell check? Suggested by Ravinder Bhumbla rbhumbla@ucsd.edu.
• Make . check for abbreviations and sentences ending with capital letters.
• Use Emacs 19 minibuffer history to choose between previewers, and other stuff. Suggested by John Interrante interran@uluru.Stanford.EDU.
• Documentation of variables that can be set in a style hook.

  We need a list of what can safely be done in an ordinary style hook. You can not set a variable that AUCTeX depends on, unless AUCTeX knows that it has to run the style hooks first.

  Here is the start of such a list.

  LaTeX-add-environments

  TeX-add-symbols

  LaTeX-add-labels

  LaTeX-add-bibliographies

  LaTeX-largest-level

• Outline should be (better) supported in TeX mode.

  At least, support headers, trailers, as well as TeX-outline-extra.

• TeX-header-start and TeX-trailer-end.

  We might want these, just for fun (and outlines)

• Plain TeX and LaTeX specific header and trailer expressions.

  We should have a way to globally specify the default value of the header and trailer regexps.

• Get closer to original TeX-mode keybindings.

  A third initialization file (tex-mode.el) containing an emulator of the standard TeX-mode would help convince some people to change to AUCTeX.

• Use markers in TeX-error-list to remember buffer positions in order to be more robust with regard to line numbers and changed files.
• Finish the Texinfo mode. For one thing, many Texinfo mode commands do not accept braces around their arguments.
• Hook up the letter environment with bbdb.el.