The
SubEthaEdit mode I've developed in this series of posts is generally rather quiet. It doesn't announce successful production of a PDF from a LaTeX file, it just creates it and opens it. It also doesn't tell you when an error occurs.
You can have the errors reported by piping the output from the call to
pdflatex into some command line tool. Exactly what tool to use is less clear. The natural choice for SubEthaEdit would be the
see command line too, but it's not very convenient, and has some real
problems. Beyond that, calling out to
see repeatedly will produce a new window each time, which is just annoying.
The
Python mode has a nicer behavior. It has a
Check Syntax command that always writes to a window named
Python Check Syntax, opening it if need be or overwriting the contents otherwise. The
Lua mode has an analogous
Check Syntax command with similar behavior.
Let's make a shell script that does something similar. First, I encapsulate the relevant bits of AppleScript from the Python and Lua modes into some simple handlers. Second, I embed those into a shell script using the
approach recently discussed here. The resulting script I call
seeless, as it is usable as something like the
less pager. I'll defer the text of the script until the end, first describing the usage.
Basic usage is just to pipe in some text:
echo Hello World! | seelessThis writes the text
Hello World into a SubEthaEdit window titled
seeless message, opening a new window if necessary or replacing the text in an existing window. Multiple windows with the same title are a bit problematic, with no guarantee that the window you want will be the one written to. Don't do that.
The title of the window can be specified:
echo Hello World! | seeless -t"A message for you, direct from the shell"Appropriate choice of title allows a SubEthaEdit mode to establish its own reporting window.
The window is normally brought to the front when it is written to. Call
seeless as
echo Hello World! | seeless -bto leave the window in the background. This allows, e.g., a reporting window to be kept out of the way as a tab and only checked when something seems to be wrong.
There are two different modes, insert and append, for writing to the window. For insert mode, the window is cleared before writing the text from
stdin, while append mode just appends to any existing text. To set append more, use:
echo Hello World! | seeless -aInsert mode is the default, but a flag exists for it, too:
echo Hello World! | seeless -iMultiple flags for the insert and append mode can be given, with the final one determining the behavior.
In append mode, the text from a second call to
seeless follows immediately after the text from the first. To give some visual space, specify a separator:
echo Hello World! | seeless -s"----------"When a separator is given with the
-s flag, append mode is automatically set. It is also possible to use a separator in insert mode, giving a form of header. For example,
echo Hello World! | seeless -s"$(date)" -ishows the time when
seeless was called. Another possibility would be to have a cluster of related programs writing to the same window, and using the separator to specify the program that wrote the latest text.
Let's take a look at how I put those options into use with the LaTeX mode. I set
SEE_BIBTEX to:
'bibtex "${FILE%.tex}" | "$HOME/Library/bin/seeless" -t"LaTeX Messages" -s"bibtex ran at $(date)\n" -b -i &> /dev/null &'
SEE_LATEX_CLEANUP to:
'latexmk -C "$FILE" | "$HOME/Library/bin/seeless" -t"LaTeX Messages" -s"latexmk -C ran at $(date)\n" -b -i &> /dev/null &'
and
SEE_LATEX_COMPILER to:
'latexmk -pdf -quiet "$FILE" | "$HOME/Library/bin/seeless" -t"LaTeX Messages" -s"latexmk ran at $(date)\n" -b -i &> /dev/null &'
Note that I have redirected the output of each call to
seeless to
/dev/null and made the calls asynchronous with
&—SubEthaEdit hangs without doing this, requiring a force quit.
With the above settings, the LaTeX mode will cause SubEthaEdit to open up a report window titled
LaTeX Messages whenever a document is typeset,
bibtex is run, or the auxiliary files are cleaned up. I can put it out of the way, either as a tab or background document; because I've used the
-b flag for each call, the report window will stay out of the way until I want it brought to the front. I've used a separator to show which feature was most recently used and at what time it was called. I've set insert mode with an
-i flag, so I only see the latest call; by eliminating this flag, I'd have a chronological record of all the calls made (in the current editing session, anyway).
I haven't been using this very long, so there may be some bugs. However, it seems quite solid, and is definitely useful already. Download it
here.
As promised above, I'll give the text of the script here, too. I've formatted the script as a shell script, to better show how the shell variables are used to adapt the behavior of the embedded AppleScript.
#!/bin/sh
# Writes stdin to a SubEthaEdit document, modifying the contents if the
# document already exists. Document is selected by title, with a default
# title of 'seeless'. Title can be specified with a '-t' flag. If there
# are multiple documents with the given title, one is chosen arbitrarily.
#
# Writing to the document occurs in two modes, insert and append. With
# insert mode, the document is cleared before any text is written to
# it. In append mode, any existing text is maintained, with the new
# text appended at the end. By giving an '-a' flag, append mode is set.
# Giving an '-i' flag sets insert mode; insert mode is the default.
#
# A separator can be specified. The separator is written to the
# document before the text from stdin. Specifying a separator also sets
# append mode (but this can be turned off again if desired with an '-i'
# flag). The separator is specified with an '-s' flag; the argument
# following the flag is used as the separator.
#
# Giving an '-h' flag shows a usage summary. Any other flags are ignored.
#
#$Id: seeless.sh,v 1.9 2008/04/12 20:33:56 mjb Exp $
# Copyright (c) 2008, Michael J. Barber
#
# Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
# a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
# "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
# without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
# distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
# permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject
# to the following conditions:
#
# The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
# included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
#
# THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
# EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
# MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
# IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR
# ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
# CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
# WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
PROGRAM=$(
basename $0)
usage()
{
echo "Usage: $PROGRAM [-ahi] [-t title] [-s separator]" }
title=
"$PROGRAM message" shouldClear=
true shouldSeparate=
false shouldBringToFront=
true separator=
"----------" while getopts :t:ias:bh opt
do case $opt in t) title=
"$OPTARG" ;;
i) shouldClear=
true ;;
a) shouldClear=
false ;;
s) separator=
"$OPTARG" shouldSeparate=
true shouldClear=
false ;;
b) shouldBringToFront=
false ;;
h) usage
exit 0 ;;
'?')
echo "$PROGRAM: invalid option -$OPTARG" >&
2 usage >&
2 exit 1 ;;
esac done shift $((OPTIND -
1))
/usr/bin/osascript > /dev/null <<ASCPT
set newContents to
"$(cat | sed -e 's/\\/\\\\/g' -e 's/\"/\\\"/g')" set seeDoc
to (ensureSEEDocumentExists
for "$title")
if $shouldClear then replaceContents
for the seeDoc by
"" end
if if $shouldSeparate then extendContents
for the seeDoc by the
"$separator" end
if extendContents
for the seeDoc by the newContents
if $shouldBringToFront then tell application
"SubEthaEdit" to show the seeDoc
end
if to ensureSEEDocumentExists
for doctitle
tell application
"SubEthaEdit" if exists document named doctitle
then document named doctitle
else make new document with properties {name:doctitle}
end
if end tell
end ensureSEEDocumentExists
to replaceContents
for seeDoc by newContents
tell application
"SubEthaEdit" set the contents of seeDoc to newContents
clear change marks of seeDoc
try
set modified of seeDoc to
false end try
end tell
end replaceContents
to extendContents
for seeDoc by moreContents
tell application
"SubEthaEdit" if "" is not equal to the contents of the
last paragraph of seeDoc
then set the contents of the
last insertion point of the
last paragraph of seeDoc to
return end
if set the contents of the
last insertion point of the
last paragraph of seeDoc to moreContents
clear change marks of seeDoc
try
set modified of seeDoc to
false end try
end tell
end extendContents
ASCPT
