> I use AucTeX, which is a really great, and gigant package to edit latex (+cdlatex)

This is tangential, but have you any quick tips for someone looking to get started with AucTeX? I'm a comfortable Emacser who has started to occasionally think of some document I'd like to do in LaTeX (some maths questions for a student, or an overview of some topic). I've looked at AucTeX once or twice, and ran away thinking, oh, I'll do that some other time.

What is the order of events? Should I make a few really basic LaTeX documents first with a terminal, and then try AucTeX?

I’ve found that the best way to learn a new emacs package is incrementally: for something like Auctex, I initially just enable it for my latex documents and then I configure and learn features as I need them, never learning too much at once. Even with minimal configuration, it gives you some nice things like imenu entries for headings and a menu that surfaces some of the basic latex feature

It's pretty easy, actually. First, install the plugin, I use this with elpaca: ``` (use-package latex :ensure nil :hook (LaTeX-mode . TeX-fold-mode) ;; I don't use a lot the fold, but it's useful (LaTeX-mode . turn-on-reftex) ;; For biblatex (LaTeX-mode . LaTeX-math-mode) ;; For inserting math symbols, altough I think cdlatex is better (LaTeX-mode . outline-minor-mode) ;; If you use outline to surf throughout the buffer ;; (LaTeX-mode . abbrev-mode) ;; If you use abbrevs (LaTeX-mode . visual-line-mode) ;; Either this or auto-fill-mode, which will return when you have more than the `fill-column` characters (LateX-mode . prettify-symbols-mode) ;; Will replace most latex math symbols with unicode :bind (:map LaTeX-mode-map ("s-a" . abbrev-mode) ("s-c" . preview-clearout-at-point) ("s-q" . LaTeX-fill-buffer) ) :custom (TeX-auto-save t) (TeX-parse-self t) (preview-auto-cache-preamble nil) ;; Setting this to t should be faster, but for me it wouldn't work with lualatex (TeX-command-extra-options "-shell-escape") ;; Use pdf-tools to open PDF files (TeX-view-program-selection '((output-pdf "PDF Tools"))) ;; I use pdf-tools to read the pdf in emacs (TeX-save-query nil) ;; Auto save without saving (TeX-show-compilation nil) ;; Hide the compilation (TeX-engine 'luatex) (reftex-plug-into-AUCTeX t) ;; I think this is redundant (TeX-source-correlate-mode t) ;; To enable synctex (click on the pdf to go to source) (TeX-source-correlate-start-server t) :config (add-to-list 'TeX-command-list '("Make" "make" TeX-run-command nil t)) ;; Update PDF buffers after successful LaTeX runs (add-hook 'TeX-after-compilation-finished-functions #'TeX-revert-document-buffer) )

    (use-package auctex
      :ensure  (auctex :pre-build (("./autogen.sh")
              ("./configure" "--without-texmf-dir" "--with-lispdir=.")
              ("make")))
      :demand
      :mode (("\\.tex\\'" . LaTeX-mode)
      ("\\.tex\\.erb\\'" . LaTeX-mode)
      ("\\.etx\\'" . LaTeX-mode))
      :config
      (with-eval-after-load 'preview
        (dolist (env '("tikzpicture" "circuitikz")) ;; I want to preview tikzpictures and icrcuitikz
          (add-to-list 'preview-default-preamble
         (concat "\\PreviewEnvironment{" env "}") t))
        (add-to-list 'preview-inner-environments "axis") ;; And axis (pgfplots)
        (set-face-attribute 'preview-reference-face nil
       :foreground "black"
       :background "white")))
        ;; Tikz previews look better with a white background, if you don't use it, it's way cooler to preview latex with a "trasparent" background

```

And then the usage:

Just continue using latex as you are, and then try to incorporate auctex commands. The most useful being =latex-environment= and =latex-section= + the previews. So don't write \begin{env}... nor \section{sec}, and instead use C-c C-e and C-c C-s (They seem hard, but they aren't) For the previews, use C-c C-p ... (there are a lot of options there, using which-key you can see them) And for compiling use C-c C-c. I recommend reading https://karthinks.com/software/latex-input-for-impatient-sch... and if you have the time, read bits of the manual

(Sorry, I can't get the code to display right. goto https://gitlab.com/vslavkin/emacs-config/-/blob/master/emacs... and search for the latex heading)

> Besides the typst packages, it also lacks the editor packages. I am an emacs user…

The typst editor plugin for vscode is pretty great. It gives you a split view of source & pdf, and you can cmd+click on either side to scroll to the corresponding source / rendered output. It also does things like give you autocomplete on fields from externally referenced json data.

Obviously, that might be no help if you’re married to eMacs. But if you’re a little promiscuous with editors like I am, give it a try.

Latex workshop gives an identical experience with latex

Yeah I think its fair to say latex has a much more mature ecosystem. And we should expect nothing less from something made in 1985. Its almost 40 years old.

But typst is catching up as fast as it can. I find it very usable already.

Yeah, my guess is that it'll fall on either side of the same go/c vs c++/rust "simple rules with more implicit rules in your head" vs "complex tool with less in your head" divide in people's opinion.

Can you say more? That’s not my experience of it.

I think it’s more like latex is like c++ and typst is like zig. C++ & latex have been worked on for decades, and has all this design baggage it carries around. An ugly macro system, weird “compile it 3 times” things. But it also has decades of work filling out the 3rd party package ecosystem and decades of stackoverflow questions and answers.

Zig & typst are rewrites from scratch with new ideas. The core is better designed, since they have been able to learn from what came before and have a do over. But they’re missing the decades of incremental work fixing bugs and filling out the ecosystem. So, yeah, I’m sure the eMacs plugin is worse for typst and latex. It’s all just … newer.

I don't know which of the several typists plugins are you talking about, but they all seem decent, but years from achieving the features auctex has.

Just to say, the most important features:

Well, the feature you mentioned of clicking the PDF and redirecting to the source.

Preview in the same buffer (window) as the code

It uses other regexps to recognize the enabled packages, and then adds the package's macros and environments to its list, so with a command you can open an environment or macro, and it recognizes which packages you are using, if you are in a math environment, etc. and shows only the ones you can use in the context. It's like a super-intelligent set of macros.

AucTex has also great support for bibtex/biblatex, and glossary/glossaries, both for using the macros and for compiling.

Automatic, intelligent, labeling.

And a lot more (altough this is probably the biggest latex package, there are a lot of other smaller packages that are also extremely useful) . Maybe it's not the hardest package to do, but it needs a lot of people and time to replicate, basically what typst is also lacking, for now.

The current actively-developed VSCode extension is Tinymist. Its workflow is great and addresses all your issues (to the extent they are even relevant to Typst):

> Well, the feature you mentioned of clicking the PDF and redirecting to the source.

Tinymist does this. Click on text and it redirects the document buffer to the corresponding source text.

> Preview in the same buffer (window) as the code

Tinymist previews in a separate tab for side-by-side real-time writing with a preview.

> It uses other regexps to recognize the enabled packages, and then adds the package's macros and environments to its list, so with a command you can open an environment or macro, and it recognizes which packages you are using, if you are in a math environment, etc. and shows only the ones you can use in the context. It's like a super-intelligent set of macros.

This sounds like an artifact of Tex. The standard Typst library is very thorough. And for everything else, Typst has automatic retrieval of community packages. Just add an #import and it just works:

    #import "@preview/example:0.1.0": add
    #add(2, 7)

> AucTex has also great support for bibtex/biblatex, and glossary/glossaries, both for using the macros and for compiling.

This just works with Typst in-the-box for bibliographies, and with the glossarium package for glossaries (just add with: #import "@preview/glossarium:0.4.2": *). But one thing a Typst IDE like Tinymist or the web service adds to the writing environment is an autocomplete for labels and citations. Just start typing the reference and get autocomplete options.

> Automatic, intelligent, labeling.

Not sure what this means, but you can add a label to headings, figures, etc. and quickly reference them with @label, and the current IDEs

It seems good, and there's an emacs version, altough simpler than auctex.

Not having the preview in the code buffer, isn't a dealbreaker, especially when typst is so fast, but it's still a useful feature.

The part of the packages I wasn't talking about a tex feature but an emacs one. When you import a package, it'll usually add environments or macros (in typst i believe they are called commands). Emacs would recognize thay you imported a package and with a shortcut you are able to quickly insert a command without writing it manually (because that's too much time... Like a template) It also recognizes the document type for inserting sections, and whether you are or not inside a math environment.

Albeit, looking a bit more in typst I think it's as mandatory as in latex. Commands tend to be simpler and shorter, especially sections. So maybe it wouldn't impact as hard as I had thought.

For references, using bib files, it would be almost as good as latex.

The auto labeling is useful for align envs or itemizes. AucTeX adds a label to each item or equation automatically. Again, not a dealbreaker, but would be great.

Reading a bit more, it seems that typst is a bit more different that what I had thought. I will not switch till cetz is more mature or I find another alternative.

Maybe I'll remake my Cv in typst just to try it out (+ my cv is horrible)

With typst you can get autocomplete for symbols imported from packages or defined locally. And your bibliography can use the same .bib files as latex if you want to. I’m pretty sure the typst editor plugins also know which mode you’re in and give you different autocomplete suggestions depending on the mode. But yeah, it’s probably still not quite as mature. But it is, in my opinion, much better designed.

What features do you want from cetz that you think are missing?

(And yeah making something with it is a good idea. You’ll get much more of a sense of it by playing around with it.)

I've been using it a bit and it works very well, altough it's hard to get used to its way to define ”environments”. About cetz, I miss mainly circuits. There's a plugin, but's years behind circuitikz or its alternatives. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't tell if the support for mindmaps, trees, etc. is as good.

One of the worst things about LaTeX is its reliance on packages to do anything useful. In fact, LaTeX is itself essentially just a set of packages for Tex. I hope whatever replaces LaTeX finds a solution that covers as many usecases as possible without needing any packages.

Writing Typst in Emacs is pretty easy with this setup.

https://codeberg.org/meow_king/typst-ts-mode/wiki/

https://github.com/Myriad-Dreamin/tinymist/tree/main/editors...

It looks nice, but it doesn't have as many features, altough I understand that, as typst is easier to write, a lot of things aren't needed. I'll try it out when I have time

> I am an emacs user insert joke here

In my totally anecdotal experience the intersection between proficient LaTeX users and emacs users is pretty large.

So having good emacs support would be a big selling point.

My experience on the other hand is also those people never complain about LaTeX, so they're probably not the target for a new typesetting system.

Yeah, I've also seen that in the latex forums, Emacs is strangely popular. I don't think that there's someone that doesn't have at least one complaint about latex. But probably there are a lot of people that try to understand its flaws and start to love it or something after using it for dozen of years, and don't want to spend the time to switch. (Stockholm syndrome??)

I have a similar "user profile" and find typst a much better experience. It's true CeTZ is not as mature, but it's much easier to extend where it's missing functionality (because you have a nice, normal scripting language to work with instead of a macro mess). But math is the reason I smile every morning when I open my .typ files. It's so clean and readable, and a pleasure to write, compared to LaTeX. It's also not as mature so I can imagine some things can be tricky to do in typst depending on your needs. But it does everything I need, and is only getting better (I see that several of the annoyances I found are getting fixed in the next release).

Can't comment on the AucTeX part, I'm using helix and typst support is not great but good enough.

Yeah, that's why I thought of contributing to cetz, the language is definitively way better. Although I think that for basic usage, I like the tikz way a bit better. The main problem I'd say is circuitikz. It's a really big and versatile project, and I would need years to make it work.

However, thinking about it, it's not like anyone other than me cares about how clean my circuits are. They are high school notes, and the rest of my classmates are doing it on paper, but I haven't found a good alternative. One that probably isn't as clean as circuitikz, but easier, faster and easy to integrate to latex/typst

Well that's going to remain an issue for a long time: TeX has close to half a century head start :)

Judging from the releases page on Github, Typst has been in the public since May 2023. You can hardly expect it to catch up with decades of LaTeX packages in that time.

Typist is a bit older than that, it was born in 2018. Regardless, I don't expect it to have feature parity with latex, but it still lacks several important and simple packages. Besides, I was just making a point on why people in a similar situation to mine should/shouldn't use it for big documents; what I found good and bad; and what would maintainers need to develop for more people to switch