I have been using Kile for a good few years, but since my most recent installation (openSUSE 12.2 64-bit on a Lenovo X220t) I have been constantly irked by the following minor problem.
I often leave manuscripts strewn with commented-out material, using the percent symbol. Such passages may have originated in my own writing, or may have been copy/pasted from elsewhere. In the past, they never caused any problem. But of late they are causing a big problem, because it seems every time I open a file, Kile decides there is a line break in there and splits the paragraph, with the result that part of the material is no longer commented out. If this only happened once, you’d fix it and that would be that. But it is never-ending.
I don’t know what might be different in my setup that could be causing this (Dynamic word wrap is “on”). Any suggestions? Thanks, JDW
On 2013-02-21, j1d1w1 <j1d1w1@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> But of late they are causing a big problem, because it
> seems every time I open a file, Kile decides there is a line break in
> there and splits the paragraph, with the result that part of the
> material is no longer commented out.
One of the (main) reasons I dislike Kile is because of its wrapping deficiencies. If your original document wrapped at a
greater textlength then your present setting then this problem is inevitable. Have you tried increasing the textlength?
For dynamic word wrap it’s accessible from Configure Kile → Editor → Appearance → General → Align etc… For static
word wrap, the textlength can be changed from Configure Kile → Editor → Editing → General → Wrap words at …
For this reason it’s important to keep your TeX/LaTeX files wrapper to a common fixed value whatever computer or editor
you’re using. The default 80 is far too narrow for modern computer screens but while 160 is much better on your average
desktop, it can be too wide for many laptops. From (considerable) experience, I find the sweet-spot is around 120. In
fact I wrap all my text (including this post) to 120!
Thanks very much – I’ll give that a try. I do work as often on the laptop as my desktop, and I’m perpetually flipping files from one to the other, so your point about a consistent compromise setting seems the key. JDW
Bear in mind that Kile uses the same backend as Kate for editing and it is possible that the problem is Kate rather than Kile related. I have no configuration file for editing in ~/.kile but I do have one in ~/.kate which Kile may read when it loads the editing backend.
Thanks John. I do use Kate regularly for editing computer programs (and displaying output files), often simultaneously with using Kile while writing documents. I rarely do any tweaks in Kate, but do often turn off Dynamic word wrap (in the View menu). I’ll see how it goes with the new Static word wrap setting (120 characters) – the only down side so far is that whereas I used to be able to comment out long paragraphs of text with a single %, now I need line-by-line %s (of course, I can use the \begin{comment} \end{comment} construction, it’s just that I’m lazy. JDW
On 2013-02-21, j1d1w1 <j1d1w1@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
> Thanks John. I do use Kate regularly for editing computer programs (and
> displaying output files), often simultaneously with using Kile while
> writing documents. I rarely do any tweaks in Kate, but do often turn off
> Dynamic word wrap (in the View menu). I’ll see how it goes with the new
> Static word wrap setting (120 characters) – the only down side so far
> is that whereas I used to be able to comment out long paragraphs of text
> with a single %, now I need line-by-line %s (of course, I can use the
> \begin{comment} \end{comment} construction, it’s just that I’m lazy. JDW
Bear in mind the wonders of Linux is that you have choice. Kile is not the only LaTeX IDE out there (e.g. there is
LaTeXilla). Since you have been using LaTeX for some time and you clearly write code, it sounds like to me you just need
an excellent text editor. Kate is a good editor and Kile provides a good editor, but both programs are what I would
recommend to beginners. You are no longer a beginner (at least for LaTeX) and therefore have a right to know alternative
strategies.
Here beginneth the sermon (perhaps better suited in Soapbox! :)) entitled `Avoid IDEs’ (for both code and LaTeX), for
the following reasons:
Power - you can see and manipulate all of the details without an IDE hiding them away from you.
Freedom - IDEs encourage you to be lazy and lock you into their mould - avoiding them gives you much greater
choice over what software to use. And you have the flexibility to change from one to another without having to worry
about irritating `project files’.
Conrol - rather than different IDEs imposing different text editors on you, you have complete control and ideally
you’d want to use the same text editor, which you can personalise and customise (e.g. using plugins) to meet different
needs. At the most basic level, you only need a text editor wherein you can configure a convenient shortcut that
`runs/compiles’ properly in accordance to the file extension.
Of course these are my biases and I strongly suspect there will be some among the forum who will disagree (perhaps
passionately) with me. You are welcome to believe their objections, but on this point I could never be persuaded that
IDEs are a good idea (after nearly three dozen years of coding). There’s nothing wrong with trying them out, but to be
solely reliant on a particular IDE seems to me a bad idea.
Now which text editor to choose is another matter. By far and the way the best two are (or at least based on) Vim and
Emacs. Which of these two is better is the subject of ongoing bloodshed to this day. I prefer Vim, but at least on this
point I am prepared to accept that it may not be the perfect choice for everyone. They both work nicely for LaTeX
documents (Vim requires a plugin), and they both have mouse-friendly graphical equivalents (GVim and XEMacs). The choice
is yours :).
On 2013-02-21 23:06, j1d1w1 wrote:
>
> Thanks John. I do use Kate regularly for editing computer programs (and
> displaying output files), often simultaneously with using Kile while
> writing documents. I rarely do any tweaks in Kate, but do often turn off
> Dynamic word wrap (in the View menu). I’ll see how it goes with the new
> Static word wrap setting (120 characters) – the only down side so far
> is that whereas I used to be able to comment out long paragraphs of text
> with a single %, now I need line-by-line %s (of course, I can use the
> \begin{comment} \end{comment} construction, it’s just that I’m lazy. JDW
This looks to me as a bug.
Even simple editors, when they wrap a comment line, they insert new
comment start chars at the start of the new lines they create.
If Kile does not, it is a bug.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
Thanks to both Carlos and John for comments (I enjoyed the soapbox). I take the point about being willing to find an optimal editor for one’s own type of work – I’ve always been lazy on that score, typically settling on something I can live with and resisting further change. I use gedit, Kate and Kile for different purposes, oh, and sometimes vi. I don’t ask much of an editor, except consistency – once I adapt to its peculiarities all is fine: until a new release. I’ll take another look at emacs. JDW