Re: syntax highlighting (was utf8, macos x, and fmt)

On Thu, 15 May 2003 22:43:33 +0100, Steve Kilbane wrote:
> The problem with syntax highlighting - or any formatting - is a
> philosophical one. Acme displays the contents of a text file[1].
> That's it. The power comes from how the arbitrary contents of
> that text file are interpreted, when moused appropriately.
> Formatting, such as colour, font, underlining, etc. is
> additional information that needs to be stored somewhere.
> 
> Last time I looked at the Wily source, mumble years ago, the
> different Views offered an approach by which this sort of thing
> could be handled. Perhaps Wily could have additional View types
> that could render the same text with additional auto-generated
> formatting. It drastically complicates the rendering, though,
> and that's before you get into the issues caused by such text
> being editable, or whether this affects chord behaviour.
> 
> (An often-mentioned similar case is being able to render HTML,
> or even just recognise URLs in text as mousable)
> 
> [1] Okay, acme cheats for directories, in that it creates its own
> internal text file contents from a directory, but after that, the
> rules are the same.
> 
> steve

What you say makes sense.  In a way, it is the simplicity and
starkness of wily's interface that most makes it what it is.

As for messy latex files, perhaps a better approach would be
an external tool that folds and unfolds footnotes as needed, perhaps
storing them temporarily in a separate file or perhaps appending 
them to the file being worked on.

John