Hello everybody,

I have a number of relatively basic questions concerning the LaTeX bundle, the "bundle mechanism" in general, as well as Textmate's interaction with PDFView. I am a newbie to Textmate in the sense that I bought a license about 8 months ago but I have not regularly/seriously used it until now, and I am sure that I have not fully understood some of the basics yet. So, please, excuse me if some of the questions are "stupid" or have been answered on this list or in Textmate's documentation. It would be helpful to just point me to the relevant parts of the documentation in this case.

I should say, though, that I followed the discussions on this list in the last 8 months, and I have also used Textmate on and off, I tinkered around in order to fit it to my needs, tried (and partially succeeded) to wrap my mind around the scope selector mechanism etc.

I must say that I am really excited about Textmate's potential, in particular, its flexibility in regard of syntax coloring. If I interpret the recent emails to the TeX on MacOS X mailing list correctly, there is quite a need and a desire for a TeX frontend that has some decent capabilities as a text editor but keeps TeXShop's simplicity. This is why I hope that I am not alone with the following questions (because I feel that this email will be relatively long)! There seems to be a place for Textmate among the folks who use TeX on MacOS X. The point is, I *want* to love Textmate, but some of the following issues/questions keep me from using it on a regular basis.

So, here we go.

1. What is (strategically) the best way to include my own additions, e.g., to the syntax coloring? The first thing I tried was to change the original LaTeX language file itself, but I soon understood that was not a good idea. The second thing I tried was create my own LaTeX addition file (which would claimall .tex files and at the end include the original LaTeX language file) but that also seemed to break certain things. In relation to this first question, I think I need to understand the following related questions:

2. Do I understand correctly that the "LaTeX bundle" is somehow officially maintained in the sense that certain improvements and additions are included in the official release from time to time?

3. Is there a "version system" for the bundles? I mean, is there a way to tell that I have the latest version of the bundle (or which one I have installed)?

4. Is a new version of a bundle automatically installed with the Textmate updates?

5. What happens to my own additions when a bundle is upgraded? As far as I understand, my additions are stored as "differences" to the original file. But what exactly happens, for example, when I added/changed a behavior that is later added/modified/deleted in an updated bundle?

Furthermore, I have some questions concerning the typesetting process. Let me start with two observations. The first time I installed Textmate, the TeX console window would pop up when I hit "Typeset", and the results would appear in relatively large chunks as HTML output which seemed rather "slow" compared to TeXShop. The window stayed on the screen when the typesetting was finished. The second time I installed Textmate a couple of months later, (on my MacBook Pro, only in case this matters), the large console window would pop up in the middle of the screen briefly during typesetting, and immediately disappear again when typesetting was finished (which is relatively fast on a Macbook Pro!), not leaving me any chance to at least adjust its size and position.

6. Can anybody give me a clue why there is this difference in behaviors? Has the bundle changed in this respect? Does it matter which type of processor it is run on?

7. Can one bring up the TeX console window without typesetting (e.g. in order to change its size/position)?

8. Is there a way to switch its behavior between one of the following options: Appear upon typesetting (i) always; (ii) upon error; (iii) never; (iv) and close when typesetting is finished?

9. In case there is no way to switch the behavior, would it not be a desirable feature? Would it be possible to include in the LaTeX bundle by default?

10. Are there any advantages to display the results formatted as HTML? Would it not be more appropriate (faster) to make it plain text?

And, finally, I have a few questions concerning the interaction with PDFView. Let me start with a few comments again. First of all, I find PDFView a really nice tool! Thanks to the developers! It just feels right. Simple, with a clean interface. The only "complaint" that I have (which is not really one) is that having two applications interact still feels more clunky than TeXShop's integrated solution ... I wonder whether there is any chance to see a PDF Previewer with some basic LaTeX specific functionality (pdfsync, click-to-magnify etc.) included in Textmate?

In any case ...

11. How am I supposed to view the current selection/cursor position in Textmate in PDFView? Sometimes (and really not always), selecting a word and hitting Ctrl-Opt-Cmd-O seems to work. Is there a better way? For example, one without previously selecting something, or a simple Cmd-click?

12. Why does it sometimes fail to take me to the correct paragraph (showing the page PDFView had previously shown)? Is this a shortcoming of pdfsync?

Again, excuse me for this laundry list of questions.

Thank you in advance for your answers, a big Thank You to the Textmate/Bundle/PDFView developers for providing such great tools, and I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Holger