Difference between revisions of "Text Editors"

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For synchronising between text in PDF and TeX source see [[SyncTeX]].
 
For synchronising between text in PDF and TeX source see [[SyncTeX]].
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== Revision Control ==
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Because large ConTeXt projects can consist of a number of separate files that are hard to keep track of, it may be necessary to consider using a revision control system.
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[http://tortoisehg.bitbucket.org/ TortoiseHg] is an easy-to-use GUI frontend that includes the Mercurial revision control system as well as Windows shell extensions.
  
 
[[Category:Text Editors]]
 
[[Category:Text Editors]]
 
td> Linux
 
td> Linux

Revision as of 18:33, 23 April 2012

< Main Page | Related Programs >

You can use any text editor for creating a source file for ConTeXt, even notepad should do. Many editors provide generic TeX syntax highlighting, but some have even more support for ConTeXt.

ConTeXt-aware

Editor features Linux Win MacOS X Remarks
Emacs with AUCTeX S T U  ? y y y Extremely powerful & highly configurable text editor for CTRL- and ALT- key lovers.
The official AUCTeX distribution beginning with 11.50 has ConTeXt support. Berend de Boers ConTeXt mode for Emacs has been merged with the former ConTeXt support in AUCTeX by Patrick Gundlach. More AUCTeX has further AUCTeX customization for ConTeXt. If you write documents with bibliographies, indexes, or cross-references, you may also be interested in Using reftex with ConTeXt. There is also Emacs-muse which is an extension.
Vim S T U 2  ? y y y Extremely powerful & highly configurable text editor. It operates in different "modes": you type in text in "insert mode" and pass commands to the editor in "normal mode." Whether you prefer Vim or emacs is a religious question of the highest importance. (See also: Vim)
Scite C S T U y y y (X11) ConTeXt support not before v1.6.x. ConTeXt support files come with the ConTeXt distribution in directory context/data/context.properties. See also the manual mcite.pdf.
TeXshop  ? P S T U - - y (native) Simple Cocoa IDE. Configuration instructions
iTeXMac  ? P S T U + - - y (native) More advanced Cocoa IDE (one of its modes doesn't like tabulated source)
TextMate C - S T U  ? - - y (native) ConTeXt bundle not yet in distribution, but you can download one at [1]. There is an extra page
Notepad++ S T U 2 + y Npp is one of the most powerful and useful text editors around. For windows users (you can also use it under wine) wanting a more modern interface with loads of included features (see especially the TextFX menu), it deserves a close look.
Kate - - S  ? U - (KDE3) / 2 (KDE4) + y y y Kate is an advanced multi-document text editor for KDE (KWrite is in the same package, but handles only single documents). It has already built-in LaTeX syntax highlighting, but you can install a file that provides ConTeXt syntax highlight. It is planned to be included in the Kate package itself in the (near) future though.
Kile C P S T U - (KDE3) / 2 (KDE4) + y y y Kile is a very advanced KDE-based editor/environment that primarily aims at LaTeX users, but since 2.x it has native ConTeXt support as well.Amongst other advanced features, Kile has to offer project management, inverse and forward TEX<->DVI search, side tree view of the document structure (e.g. by chapters, sections etc.), insertion of TeX and ConTeXt commands, insertion of symbols.
Smultron - P S T - - - - - y Configuration instructions
TeXWorks P S T U (y) y y

features:

  • C = TeX/ConTeXt command completion
  • P = PDF preview
  • S = TeX/ConTeXt syntax highlighting
  • T = ConTeXt typesetting
  • U = Unicode (UTF-8) handling
  • 2 = bidirectional edit (right-to-left)
  • + = more…
  •  ? = previous feature probable but unsure

Other editors

The following editors have no specific ConTeXt support, but do a good job for generic (La)TeX typesetting, so you may use them for ConTeXt as well:

Editor features Linux Win MacOS X Remarks
GNU nano S U  ? y y y Curses-based text editor for Unix and Unix-like systems, designed to be a free replacement for the Pico text editor. Has basic TeX syntax highlighting.
gedit S U  ? y - y (X11) GNOME editor
klat S T U  ? y - y (X11) KDE editor, based on Kate
WinEdt - - S T U - - - y - A nice, configurable Windows editor, very suitable for newbies to (La)TeX. A large collection of buttons with Greek letters and other (math) symbols is very helpfulp when typesetting math. It also has spell checker, but no support for UTF yet.
LaTeX users can also find many templates (tables, enumerations, ...) and compiling/previewing the documents by clicking a button. This is supported For ConTeXt also. You can configure it easily.
(WinEdt is not free software, but shareware with 31+ days trial.)
NEdit - - S - - - - y y  ? X server (Cygwin/Xorg) is needed to run Nedit on Windows
TeXnicCenter - P S - - - - - y - Oriented towards the use of LaTeX, but can also be used for processing ConTeXt documents. A large collection of buttons with Greek letters and other (math) symbols is very helpfulp when typesetting math. It also has spell checker.
LaTeX users can also find many templates (tables, enumerations, ...) and compiling/previewing the documents by clicking a button (it is easy to Configure TeXnicCenter for ConTeXt use).
(TeXnicCenter is freely available under GPL).
TextPad - - S T U  ? + - y - Commercial; TeXt/ConTeXt/LaTeX command library; confirugable to run a whatever-TeX command as a tool

SyncTeX

For synchronising between text in PDF and TeX source see SyncTeX.

Revision Control

Because large ConTeXt projects can consist of a number of separate files that are hard to keep track of, it may be necessary to consider using a revision control system.

TortoiseHg is an easy-to-use GUI frontend that includes the Mercurial revision control system as well as Windows shell extensions. td> Linux