[TxMt] LaTeX bundle problem

[Max Lein]

 > On 4. Jul 2007, at 23:12, Max Lein wrote:
 >
 > > The problem with TextMate is that it essentially forces people to
 > > use UTF8.
 >
 > Yes, and as I tried to explain, there is good reason it does that.

There are usually `good' reasons not to as well. For all I love about
TextMate, it's a bit pushy here ;-)

 > > I have yet to find a way how to teach TextMate that my default
 > > encoding is Latin1 (even though this is the default encoding which
 > > I have set in the prefs): as long as a TeX file doesn't contain any
 > > special characters, it will automatically assume they are UTF8  
files
 > > (ignoring my preference and -- if existant -- the metadata  
connected
 > > to that file).
 >
 > When checking “use for existing files” it will respect your
 > preference. However, I fixed the problem for next build, so when  
files
 > with ASCII encoding can’t remain as ASCII, it will first try your
 > preferred encoding (even when the “use for existing files” is not
 > checked).

Well, my web pages use UTF8 ... so this option doesn't really solve the
problem. (I am aware of said option, but it just shifts my problem.) As
I said, an encoding per project option would be greatly appreciated (I'm
not sure I understand the last part of your reply correctly and whether
TextMate 2.0 would effectively resolve this issue).

 > >> [...]
 > >
 > > However, going UTF8 is sometimes just not an option [...]
 >
 > Maybe not, but the bundle commands (which was the topic of this
 > thread) can’t be expected to work with your files, when those
 > are not UTF-8. I.e. go with Latin-1 and use special characters,
 > and you should be prepared to see no or garbled output from script
 > runners (which show script output), diff commands (showing changes in
 > your files), build commands (which quote parts of your source), log
 > commands (showing SCM log entries), various validation/completion/
 > pretty-printing commands, a.s.o.

You clearly have the perspective of someone who codes (which is fine by
me, just an observation), but I haven't noticed any garbled output while
working with Latin1. That's probably due to the simple fact that I just
use a very specific subset of TextMate's commands. For me, a one-time
warning would be acceptable.

 > > I frequently exchange files with people who work on Windows,
 > > Linux or Solaris and the standard encoding they use is usually
 > > Latin1. Yes, there are ways how to use UTF8 on other OS, but have
 > > you ever tried to convince someone to switch to UTF8 who still
 > > writes his papers in Plain TeX?
 >
 > Would plain TeX not be ASCII? :)

... but my contribution isn't. The encoding is `hardcoded' into
LaTeX (it's a simple command), so when the chapters are merged, we'd
get into trouble (not necessarily with Plain TeX people of which
there are admittedly very, very few left, but with all of my active
co-workers). (We usually split our work into sections which are then
compiled. Obviously any other wants to be able to compile the TeX code
on his system without fiddling for half an hour. I've seen it happen
often enough.)

 > > Instead of blindly arguing for people to convert to UTF8 (which
 > > is what I would use if I got to choose), you should accept that
 > > people (= customers) want to and sometimes need to work with other
 > > encodings as well.
 >
 > In what you replied to I gave a technical explanation of why it
 > is highly infeasible to support other than UTF-8 for the various
 > commands, which was the topic raised. Me accepting that some can’t
 > use UTF-8 doesn’t really change that.

Well, I understand the reasons you gave, but people who use LaTeX need
just functionality, most of which is provided by the LaTeX (or Beamer)
bundle. I think if people consciously change the encoding to something
other than UTF8, they have a good reason for doing so. Give them a
warning (once) that some commands may not work would be acceptable to
me. I haven't heard of people in my field using diff on their TeX source
files, for instance. I've also never had any problems with TextMate's
built-in commands that produced no or garbled output.

I can certainly understand if you'd rather fix other problems than
these. But I think there are certain fields when this is just an
essential feature and the people would even be willing to live with a
smaller feature set.

 > > I'm still longing for an `encoding per project' option which
 > > TextMate would stick to no matter what. And also an error message
 > > that tells me that I cannot save my .tex file in Latin1 because
 > > there are some (invisible) characters that prevent it from doing so
 > > (right now, it'll just revert to UTF8 without telling me).
 >
 > I have commented on this a few times in the past; the lack of a
 > warning is indeed very unfortunate, and it comes from the code that
 > does this “bumping” of encoding not having access to the UI. A
 > mistake 2.0 will be without -- and as for encoding per project, I
 > can’t recall exactly how much I have said here, but 2.0 does move
 > a lot of things to be more folder-oriented and has another approach
 > to dealing with encodings, basically offloading this to customizable
 > import/export hooks, so non-UTF-8 users should be able to get  
whatever
 > they want.

That's very good news (although the first time I hear of those new
features).  I hope that you don't have to set these encoding hooks
globally (not 100 % sure what you mean by that), as I mentioned, I use
UTF8 whenever I can (e. g. for the websites I maintain) and Latin1
*when I have to*. Hence different projects, different encodings and
a per project encoding seems like the best option to me. (I usually
create a project for my papers (LaTeX) since LaTeX is very noisy and
creates a phletora of files I almost surely don't need.)   :-)


Max


UC Berkeley
Department of Physics

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