SEEing LaTeX 14: General Use of Environments

We've now seen how to define and update an environment for SubEthaEdit. The approach is modeled on how Mac OS X applications store their preferences; effectively, I used application preferences as a design pattern. To demonstrate the general applicability of the approach, let's apply it to some additional scripts; specifically, let's revisit viewing the PDF compiled from a LaTeX document and cleaning up the auxiliary files that LaTeX produces. The short version is that the approach works smoothly in both cases, with minimal differences in the AppleScripts used to add behavior to SEE. The long version follows, including the scripts to actually implement it.

First, let's look at viewing the compilation product. Previously, I'd just used the LaTeX file name to define the PDF file name, and sent it to PDFView using AppleScript. With the new approach, I need a shell script defining the default behavior, and an AppleScript invoking the shell script from SEE. The shell script is:

PATH="$PATH:/usr/texbin:/usr/local/bin"
export PATH

VIEWER=${SEE_LATEX_VIEWER:-'open "$PRODUCT"'}
PRODUCT_TYPE="${SEE_LATEX_PRODUCT_TYPE:-pdf}"

FILE="$(basename "$1")"
DIRNAME="$(dirname "$1")"
LINE="$2"
PRODUCT="$(basename "$1" .tex).$PRODUCT_TYPE"

cd "$DIRNAME"
if [ -s "$PRODUCT" ]
then
    eval $VIEWER
fi

Note that the new definition nowhere assumes that we will produce a PDF file as output; it could be used with latex to produce a DVI, for instance.
The AppleScript is:

tell application "SubEthaEdit"
    if exists path of front document then
        set filePath to path of front document
        set lineNumber to startLineNumber of selection of front document
        set activeMode to mode of front document
        set modeResources to resource path of activeMode
    else
        error "You have to save the document first"
    end if
end tell


set viewScript to prependEnvironment for activeMode onto (join of {quotedForm for (modeResources & "/bin/viewproduct.sh"), quotedForm for filePath, lineNumber} by space)

do shell script viewScript


-- SubEthaEdit settings

on seescriptsettings()
    {displayName:"View", shortDisplayName:"View", keyboardShortcut:"^~@o", toolbarIcon:"ToolbarIconRun", inDefaultToolbar:"yes", toolbarTooltip:"View current document in external viewer", inContextMenu:"no"}
end seescriptsettings

on join of tokenList by delimiter
    set oldTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
    set text item delimiters of AppleScript to delimiter
    set joinedString to tokenList as string
    set text item delimiters of AppleScript to oldTIDs
    return joinedString
end join

on quotedForm for baseString  
    quote & baseString & quote
end quotedForm

to prependEnvironment for seeMode onto scriptString
    set envFilePath to (path to preferences from user domain as string) & "de.codingmonkeys.SubEthaEdit." & (name of seeMode) & "_environment.plist"
    (readEnvironment out of envFilePath) & scriptString
end prependEnvironment

to readEnvironment out of plist
    readListPair out of plist
    environmentString from result
end readEnvironment

to readListPair out of plist
    tell application "System Events"
        if exists file plist then
            tell property list file plist
                get {name, value} of every property list item
            end tell
        else
            {{}, {}}
        end if
    end tell
end readPlist

on environmentString from keyValueListPair
    set {plistKeys, plistValues} to keyValueListPair
    set accumulator to {}
    set oldTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
    set text item delimiters of AppleScript to ""
    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in plistKeys
        set tokens to {"export ", item i of plistKeys, "=", item i of plistValues, ";"}
        copy (tokens as string) to the end of the accumulator
    end repeat
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to space
    set envString to accumulator as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldTIDs
    envString
end environmentString

The shell script uses the same SEE_LATEX_VIEWER environment variable used for compiling; I'll adapt the compilation script a little to allow separate viewing behavior for the two cases, defaulting to both using the SEE_LATEX_VIEWER contents. Essentially, this consists of changing just one line, replacing

VIEWER=${SEE_LATEX_VIEWER:-'open "$PRODUCT"'}

with

VIEWER=${SEE_LATEX_COMPILEVIEWER:-${SEE_LATEX_VIEWER:-'open "$PRODUCT"'}}

Note that the AppleScript uses the same code to read from the same plist of environment settings as the compilation script--no changes were needed to accommodate the new settings.

Second, let's examine cleaning up the auxiliary files. The shell script is:

PATH="$PATH:/usr/texbin:/usr/local/bin"
export PATH

CLEANUP=${SEE_LATEX_CLEANUP:-'rm -f $(basename "$FILE" .tex).{aux,bbl,blg,dvi,log,out,ps,pdf,pdfsync,toc}'}

FILE="$(basename "$1")"
DIRNAME="$(dirname "$1")"
PRODUCT="$(basename "$1" .tex).$PRODUCT_TYPE"

cd "$DIRNAME"
eval $CLEANUP

The cleanup behavior can be defined in a SEE_LATEX_CLEANUP variable, used to set the CLEANUP variable. The default value for CLEANUP is to remove files with the same name as the LaTeX file but with different filename extensions. The list of extensions (aux, bbl, blg, dvi, log, out, ps, pdf, pdfsync, toc) is pretty arbitrary, being essentially what were created for my own writings.

The associated AppleScript is:

tell application "SubEthaEdit"
    if exists path of front document then
        set filePath to path of front document
        set activeMode to mode of front document
        set modeResources to resource path of activeMode
    else
        --Unsaved document, so LaTeX not run on it and can just return
        return
    end if
end tell

set cleanupScript to prependEnvironment for activeMode onto (join of {quotedForm for (modeResources & "/bin/cleanupaux.sh"), quotedForm for filePath} by space)

do shell script cleanupScript

on seescriptsettings()
    return {displayName:"Clean Up Auxiliary Files"}
end seescriptsettings

on join of tokenList by delimiter
    set oldTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
    set text item delimiters of AppleScript to delimiter
    set joinedString to tokenList as string
    set text item delimiters of AppleScript to oldTIDs
    return joinedString
end join

on quotedForm for baseString  
    quote & baseString & quote
end quotedForm

to prependEnvironment for seeMode onto scriptString
    set envFilePath to (path to preferences from user domain as string) & "de.codingmonkeys.SubEthaEdit." & (name of seeMode) & "_environment.plist"
    (readEnvironment out of envFilePath) & scriptString
end prependEnvironment

to readEnvironment out of plist
    readListPair out of plist
    environmentString from result
end readEnvironment

to readListPair out of plist
    tell application "System Events"
        if exists file plist then
            tell property list file plist
                get {name, value} of every property list item
            end tell
        else
            {{}, {}}
        end if
    end tell
end readPlist

on environmentString from keyValueListPair
    set {plistKeys, plistValues} to keyValueListPair
    set accumulator to {}
    set oldTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
    set text item delimiters of AppleScript to ""
    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in plistKeys
        set tokens to {"export ", item i of plistKeys, "=", item i of plistValues, ";"}
        copy (tokens as string) to the end of the accumulator
    end repeat
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to space
    set envString to accumulator as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldTIDs
    envString
end environmentString

Again, the bulk of the script is unchanged, with no changes at all to the portions handling the environment settings.