GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 165242
Add support for tex source specials to the dvi viewer
Last modified: 2005-04-08 18:25:56 UTC
It would be good if the dvi viewer had support for "source specials" They enable dvi viewers to make a connection between a location in the displayed dvi document and the corresponding tex source. For example for a dvi file called FILE.dvi that was created from a tex file called ATEXFILE.tex it is possible to open xdvi showing the location in the document corresponding to line number LINENUMBER in the source file ATEXFILE.tex by issuing the command: xdvi -sourceposition "LINENUMBER ATEXTFILE.tex" FILE.dvi xdvi can also open a text editor showing the source location corresponding to the location in the .dvi document where a user clicks (actually C-mouse1 click). It is possible to tell xdvi how to invoke the editor by adding arguments to the above command line, for example: -editor "emacsclient --no-wait +%l %f" This bi-directional communication between xdvi and an editor is currently implemented in the AUCTeX-11.54 package for emacs. It would be great if evince could support something similar.
Hmm, we don't have anyone really working on the dvi support here so if you'd like to see your ideas get implemented you'll have to add the patches yourself. I'm sure the open to position can be done in Evince without too much a problem (at least from a UI perspective, coding it could be difficult). However I'm dubious that we'll accept something that hooks into and editor of choice and sends it a custom command. Your parameters for such a system would probably be beyond easily implementable. Like no preferences allowed, no hardcoding editor params, no hidden gconf keys, some reasonable set defaults, and not on by default. Perhaps a user local plugin system were you could install the plugin to Evince and it hooks into your editor magically, but only with this plugin installed. Good Luck!
Bryan, WONTFIX?
Yeah, it's probably not going to happen.