LaTexEditor

LaTeXEditor is a graphic text editor (JavaFX UI), which enables to compose LateX reports.

Features

LaTeXEditor provides the following features :

simple representation of the LaTeX code, called javatex. Not all features of LaTeX are supported (far from...) but it is possible to directly include LaTeX code when necessary
generate LaTeX code corresponding to basic elements (chapter, section, paragraphe, includegraphics...) from their javatex representation
add/remove packages via a UI frame. Those elements are created and displayed in a tree view.
include LaTeX custom defined commands
provide shortcuts to most frequent mathematic symbols
use LaTeX templates depending on some parameters via simple forms and a template language that still has to be clearly defined (but is already functional)
preview generated LaTeX code with syntax coloring
preview the document via Yap
generate an output PDF file
set language of the UI (currently available : EN, FR)
set appearance of the UI
command-line mode (Scala application) enabling to output a tex and/or a pdf file from a javatex document

Pre-requisites

Compilation

Scala 2.11 or later
JDK 8 or later

Use

A jre with a version greater than 1.8 should do.
MikTeX installed on the machine and present in the environment variable PATH

javatex

Syntax

javatex is a simple format used to save and represent our documents. Here is an example of its very basic syntax :

packages ##
one
package
per[line]
##
commands ##
pathFromIncludeDirectoryToAFileContainingLaTeXCommandDefinitions
anotherOne
etc
##
documentSettings ##
documentClass=report
alinea=4mm
chapterName=Partie
##
title[titlePage.bicolorHeaderTemplate] ##
first_author_name=Albert \textsc{Einstein}
title_size=0.8
sup_strip_color=0.80,0.80,0.80
description=Blablabla
inf_strip_color=0.00,0.00,0.00
title=Blablabla
##
> chapter ##
This is a chapter
##
>> section ## 
This is a section in the chapter
##
>>> list ##
This is a;
list with several;
items separated by semi-colons
##
>>> image ##
path.png;
This is the caption of an included image. Below is the scale of the image in the document;
0.8
##
>>> latex ##
\begin{center}
Here you can insert raw LaTeX code
\end{center}
##
> section ##
This section is still related to the same chapter, but will be seen at the same level as the chapter in the UI
##
>> code ##
javascript
function f() {
  console.log("Insert any code here, set the language on the first line");
}
##
>> template[templateFamily.templateName] ##
actuallyTheTitleAlso=IsATemplate
soItsJust=TheSame
##

The > symbols are only meant to allow the UI to identify the structure of the document, but they are unnecessary when working with command-line only. Yet, it is recommended to use it as it also improves the readability. All the keywords are presented in the sample of code provided. The commands have to be stored in the LATEX_HOME/includes directory (environment variable to define) and the templates in the LATEX_HOME/includes/templates directory. For a file with the following path : LATEX_HOME/includes/templates/titlePage/header/header.template, the code will look like :

template[titlePage.headerTemplate] ##
##

Some templates and other includes are provide in the includes folder of this repository.

Templating language

The templating language is a very basic language that enables to specify where, when and how some elements of a LaTeX template should be modified. Here are some examples :

\DeclareFixedFont{\bigsf}{T1}{phv}{b}{n}{${title_size}cm}
 ${first_author_name} {?first_author_info!=null? \\
	${first_author_info}?}

Basically, ${name} indicates that the value of the parameter name of the template should be printed here. {?name!=null? anything ?} means that anything should be printed if and only if name != null. For now, no other types of condition are supported, nor are inner {?? ?}. To use templates with the interface, a lang directory should be added to the directory of the template and provide a property file for each supported languages. The properties will have the same name as the name of the parameters of the template.

Known issues

the split pane resizes incorrectly when passing from the template view to the text editor view (or vice-versa)
DVI preview (using latex command) and pdf generation (using pdflatex command) are incompatible for the use of image resources with \includegraphics. One solution is to convert all the images to eps format so that it will work for the DVI preview and follow this example to make the pdf compilation work :

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{epstopdf}
\epstopdfsetup{update} % only regenerate pdf files when eps file is newer
\begin{document}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{sine} % loads sine-eps-converted-to.pdf
\end{document}

As far as I'm concerned, I just don't use the DVI preview anymore and open the generated pdf under Google Chrome and refresh it each time needed. It could become a long term solution, requiring the user to define some alias to a pdf reader and call it through a ProcessBuilder.

Dicee/latexEditor