User talk:Koenich
Contents
Introduction
Textadept is a programmable text editor for Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. It is fully extensible using Lua.
How to ConTeXt with Textadept (MS Windows)
(updated 2017/03)
Step 1: Install / Update ConTeXt
Installation and update of ConTeXt work the same way. If you only want to update ConTeXt you can start directly from point 3.
1. Download ConTeXt.
- Windows x86 / 32 bit users: context-setup-mswin.zip
- Windows x64 / 64 bit users: context-setup-win64.zip
- Download the x64 / 64 bit version only when you are really sure, that you need it.
2. Extract the archive to a location of your choice.
- You might want to change the name of the extracted directory to a shorter one as it will be the final location for ConTeXt.
3. Install / Update ConTeXt
3. Method 1: Write a batch file
Since at this point the installation and update of ConTeXt work the same way, the most effective solution is to create a batch file. To do so
- use Windows Explorer to navigate to your ConTeXt directory. In there should be a file called
first-setup.bat
. - Use Windows Notepad or
Right-click
-> New -> Textfile to create such. - If you only want ConTeXt mkiv (highly recommended), add the following line to the new and empty textfile:
first-setup -engine=luatex -modules=all
- Save the file as a batch-file and name it something like
update.bat
.- Note that the document ending has to be
.bat
not.txt
or anything else. You might have to rename the file ending by hand.
- Note that the document ending has to be
- Execute the batch file you just created by double-clicking on it. A command prompt window should pop up.
- If it appears for only a few seconds, chances are high that the download server is down. In that case you might want to re-try the procedure at some other time.
- Wait for the download / update to finish. After it is done, the command window should disappear by itself.
- ConTeXt's folder's size should be around 380 - 400 MB when everything worked fine.
3. Method 2: Type the command by hand
- Use Windows Explorer to navigate to your ConTeXt directory.
- Click into the upper white field where the current location is displayed.
- Enter
cmd
and pressEnter
-key. - Now Windows command prompt should pop up with the correct location.
- Otherwise you can start your Windows command prompt like this:
- by using the key shortcut
Windows-key + R
, enteringcmd
and pressingEnter
-key. - Alternatively you can use
Start
->Programs
->Accessories
->Command Pompt
.
- by using the key shortcut
- Some DOS commands you might need:
dir
list the content of the current directorycd DIRECTORY
change to directory with name DIRECTORYcd..
change to superior directorycd\
change to drive rootX:
change to drive X:- also possible:
cd directory\subdirectory\subsubdir...
- In the end your command prompt should look like this:
X:\ConTeXt>_
- If you only want ConTeXt mkiv (highly recommended), enter the following line and press
Enter
-key:
first-setup -engine=luatex -modules=all
- Wait until the download / update is complete. Afterwards you can close the command prompt by entering
exit
and pressingEnter
-key or by simply closing the window.
Step 2: Add ConTeXt's executables folder to Windows search Path
Note: you will need admin rights for this. On public machines for example you most probably won't be able to add ConTeXt to that machine's path. In that case skip this step and go to Step 3 respectively Step 4.1 directly.
1. Open Windows' System dialog
- either by
Right-click
ing on This PC / My Computer on your Desktop and then clicking on Properties - or by clicking Start -> Settings -> About -> System Info
- or on older Windows Machines by going to Control Panel -> System.
2. Click on Advanced System Settings ("System Properties").
3. Click on Advanced-Tab.
4. Click on Environment Variables....
5. Choose where to add ConTeXt's executables folder to:
- Either to User variables for USER for the current user only
- or to System variables for all users.
6. Double-click on the respective variable called Path.
7. Add your ConTeXt executables to Windows path.
- Note that the position, to where you add the location is sorted by importancy. The most important directories will be searched first. This might be taken into account when using ConTeXt together with MiKTeX for example. It's safest to place ConTeXt's path at the very beginning.
- In User Path variable you might need to add the location and seperate it from the existing ones by using a semikolon (
;
). - In System Path variable you probably only have to add a new line.
The location should look like this:
- Win x86 / 32 bit:
X:\ConTeXt\tex\texmf-mswin\bin
- Win x64 / 64 bit:
X:\ConTeXt\tex\texmf-win64\bin
8. Save your changes. Usually no restart or re-login is needed after this operation, but to make sure, that the folder was added, you should restart your machine.
Optional: You can test whether it worked by starting your Command prompt and entering the following line, while being in a directory other than the one you just added.
context -version
- A message with ConTeXt's version number should apear.
- If a message like 'context' is not recognized as an internal or external command... appears, you should restart your machine, make sure that you added the correct location of ConTeXt's executables path to Window's search path or re-try the operation by starting from Step 2.1.
Step 3: Install Textadept
1. Download and extract Textadept to a folder of your choice.
2. Use textadept.exe
from the extracted folder to start Textadept.
Step 4: Tweak Textadept's settings
Note that almost all changes to Textadept are saved in the file init.lua
. There is two of them, of which you should edit only one:
- One of them is in the extracted Textadept main folder. It is not recommended to edit this file as your changes will be lost when you update Textadept. Instead:
- When you start Textadept for the first time, a new folder
SYSDRIVE:\users\USERNAME\.textadept
gets created. It also contains a file calledinit.lua
. This is the file and location where you should save all your Textadept settings. This way you can make a copy and use it on several computers. When you open it for the first time it should be empty.
Usually you have to restart Textadept after changing its configuration files. Robert Gieseke created a code though, which you can add to your init.lua
to circumvent having to restart Textadept, whenever a change is made:
-- Save and reset Lua state: F9
keys['f9'] = function() -- Mac OSX users might prefer: keys[OSX and 'mf9' or 'f9']
io.save_file()
reset()
end
Save init.lua
and restart Textadept once. After doing so you can add changes to Textadept's configuration files and press F9
-key afterwards to save and load the changes without having to restart Textadept.
Step 4.1: Bind a PDF build command into Textadept
1. Use Textadept to open your init.lua
stored in SYSDRIVE:\users\USER\.textadept\
.
2. Add an execute command for ConTeXt to Textadept's menu:
- If your ConTeXt executables folder is already in the Windows search Path:
textadept.run.compile_commands.tex = 'mtxrun --autogenerate --script context --autopdf --purge --synctex=-1 "%f"'
- If for some reason you can't add the folder to PATH, for example on public machines, you have to add the full path to your ConTeXt executables. For example:
textadept.run.compile_commands.tex = 'C:/ctx/tex/texmf-mswin/bin/mtxrun --autogenerate --script context --autopdf --purge --synctex=-1 "%f"'
- Important: you have to start
first-setup.bat
from the main ConTeXt directory every time you restart a machine, on which ConTeXt is not in the Windows search path (see Step 1.3), otherwise you will get file not found-errors, when trying to compile a ConTeXt document. - Note that you have to use slash
/
instead of backslash\
in the file path, since Lua (same as ConTeXt) interprets a\
as the beginning of a command.
3. Restart Textadept to reload the modified init.lua
.
4. Open or create a ConTeXt test document:
\starttext hello world! \stoptext
5. Use Textadept's Tools -> Compile to build a PDF with the options added to init.lua
. A message buffer with compilation status will open in a seperate tab.
6. When you have a popular PDF reader installed already, it should pop up at the end of the process and show the created PDF output. Sumatra PDF is highly recommended for this.
Step 4.2: Lexing (command highlighting & code folding)
A lexer is a file that defines command highlighting and code folding keywords. Textadept comes with a ConTeXt lexer. In order to be able to use command highlighting and code folding when writing ConTeXt documents, you have to bind those documents to the lexer. To do so
1. add the following line to your USER/.textadept/init.lua
and save it afterwards:
textadept.file_types.extensions.tex = 'context'
- If you plan to use LaTeX and ConTeXt, you should use different file extensions. For example
*.tex
for LaTeX and*.cxd
for ConTeXt documents. In that case you only have to bind your new ConTeXt extension to Textadept's ConTeXt lexer, since.tex
files are automatically recognized as LaTeX documents:
textadept.file_types.extensions.cxd = 'context'
2. Restart Textadept to reload init.lua
.
3. Open a ConTeXt document and check Textadept's status bar in the lower right corner. It should say context. If it says latex make sure it really is a ConTeXt file or repeat the procedure.
Optional: Additional Textadept tweaks
Themes & editor font changes
You can change the theme, font and font size of Textadept with the following line
ui.set_theme('dark', {font = 'Monospace', fontsize = 10})
in which the expression dark is the filename of the theme located either in Textadept\themes
or you can download and add new themes to USER\.textadept\themes
(create the folder if it's not there yet).
- There are more settings which you can look up in Textadept's manual.
- Many base16 themes for Textadept can be found at Robert Gieseke's GitHub. You can preview them here (partially).
Snippets
Snippets are predefined code or text blocks. Using snippets can save a lot of time as you won't have to retype often used commands and text passages. You add snippets to your USER/.textadept/init.lua
. In Textadept they look like this:
-- The first line is mandatory: snippets['context'] = snippets['context'] or {} -- Snippets start here: snippets.context['emph'] = '{\\em %<selected_text>%0}' snippets.context['bold'] = '{\\bf %<selected_text>%0}' snippets.context['start'] = '\\start%1\n%0\n\\stop%1' snippets.context['itemize'] = '\\startitemize\n\t%0\n\\stopitemize' snippets.context['item'] = '\\startitem\n\t%0\n\\stopitem' snippets.context['enumerate'] = '\\startenumerate\n\t%0\n\\stopenumerate' snippets.context['chapter'] = '\\startchapter[title={%1},marking{%1}]\n\t%0\n\\stopchapter' snippets.context['section'] = '\\startsection[title={%1},marking{%1}]\n\t%0\n\\stopsection' snippets.context['ssection'] = '\\startsubsection[title={%1},marking{%1}]\n\t%0\n\\stopsubsection' snippets.context['title'] = '\\starttitle[title={%1},marking{%1}]\n\t%0\n\\stoptitle' snippets.context['subject'] = '\\startsubject[title={%1},marking{%1}]\n\t%0\n\\stopsubject' snippets.context['ssubject'] = '\\startsubsubject[title={%1},marking{%1}]\n\t%0\n\\stopsubsubject'
- Note that a backslash
\
is created by typing a double backslash\\
.
- The most important formatting commands are the following:
%0
creates the closing caret (placeholder) (the cursor will jump here last)%1
creates one or multiple input carets (%1
,%2
,%3
and so on; you can also use the same integer multiple times: e.g.\\start%1 ... \\stop%1
)\n
creates a new line\t
creates a tab%<selected_text>
this is where highlighted text will be pasted when enclosing it with a snippet (e.g.{\\emph %<selected_text>%0}
)
- After adding snippets, you have to restart Textadept or reset Lua state as described in Step 4.
- You can paste snippets into ConTeXt documents
- either by typing the keyword that you defined within
snippets.context['KEYWORD']
and pressingTab
-key afterwards - or by using
Ctrl + K
(by default on Windows machines) to choose from the list of snippets. No matter in which order you add them to yourinit.lua
, they will show up sorted alphabetically.
- either by typing the keyword that you defined within
- Note that since you added snippets.context, i.e. to Textadept's ConTeXt lexer, Textadept's status bar in the lower right corner has to say context, otherwise use a ConTeXt document or see Step 4.2.
- Read more about snippets in Textadept's manual.
3rd party projects
A ConTeXt module for textadept is being developed at ta-context-latex.
Note though, that if you plan to use Textadept without LaTeX with ConTeXt mkiv only (recommended), then you might not need the package mentioned above as it comes with literally only a hand full of ConTeXt snippets. It also needs additional software to be installed (Textredux, ctags), so that it's almost more comfortable to create own ConTeXt snippets with the ease of Textadept (see above).