Re: ConTeXt Package for Notepad++ v. 5.0.3

[abbg770@city.ac.uk]

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Alan Stone <software.list.1es9s <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> 
> Hi Idris,
>  
> Thanks a lot.
>  
> One question though...
>  
> I installed Npp, downloaded the context support package for Npp and 
> extracted the zip file.
>  
> What/where are the setup instructions please ?
>  
> Best,
> Alan
>  

Seems like Idris forgot to include the readme, incase it hasn't been 
attached check out the 1 November 2007 rev from 
http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Image:Npp_ConTeXt.zip your sure to find it 
there.

Put everything in ConTeXt.zip in the same folder you extracted 
mswincontext.zip (182 mb) then run NPP.bat. Make sure you adjust 
acrobat.lnk appriopriately as the path is hard-coded.

And what OS are you using?

Mohamed

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Instructions for Setting up ConTeXt with Notepad++
November 1 2007
ConTeXt Support Package for Notepad++.

This package is for Notepad 4.5, released October 25 2007. The file config.xml in particular may
not work with other versions, especially if you start it with the batch file. If you already have Npp, please update to 4.5.

Lots of small improvements. One nice feature is that from any text 
selection (such as a control sequence) you may do a ConTeXt Wiki search 
from the RUN menu or ALT-F3. In addition there is Google and Wikipedia 
search. Also, I have included the wonderful Explorer plugin.

This package is offered as is, with no promise of support.

Instructions:

1. From the installer, you MAY not want to use the default destination folder, 'Notepad++'.
texexec and company choke on directory names with characters like '+' in them. So you could
change it to, eg, 'Notepadpp'. So if you plan on linking the ConTeXt utilities with the notepad
installation directory somehow then you may want to change its name.

However, in the following I assume that the directory name remains 'Notepad++' 

2. You may also want to check the installation option, "Don't use %APPDATA%".
Then all your configuration settings will be save in the installation directory. This is because, even
if you rename the installation directory, the name of the local user application directory will still
be 'Notepad++'.

However, in what follows I assume that all configuration files
are saved in \<username>\Application Data\Notepad++.

3. You may want to install a few plugins. The installer will give you a list of plugins you can
select. Go to the following links for details:

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/plugins-HOWTO.php

The Explorer and NppExec plugins are among my favorites, and I have configured them for ConTeXt.

In the following I assume that you have also installed the Explorer and NppExec plugins. The Explorer plugin is not included in the installer so
I have included it in this package.

4. Notepad++ should already be in your path. If not, add C:\Program Files\Notepad++ to your system path
in System Properties > Advanced > Environment Variables > System Variables > PATH.

5. In System Properties add make LNK files executable. Go to
System Properties > Advanced > Environment Variables > System Variables > PATHEXT. Click on Edit
and add ".LNK;"

6. Now log out and log back in (to activate the environment variables).

7. Make sure Notepad++ is closed.

8. There are three zips within the package:

Application Data.zip
ConTeXt.zip
Program Files.zip

9. Copy the directory Program Files\Notepad++ to Program Files.

10. Copy the directory Application Data\Notepad++ to Application Data.

11. Copy the contents of the directory ConTeXt to your ConTeXt tree.

12. For processing ConTeXt files, always use the batch file npp.bat to open Notepad++. npp.bat is
based on cscite.bat. You can change the icon for the batch file by going to the file properties of
npp.bat, Change Icon, and point it to  Program Files\Notepad++\Notepad++.exe. I put a shortcut to
npp.exe in the taskbar for easy access.

13.  A note: In Preferences,  always leave the option "Remember the last operation directory"
unchecked. 

14. Edit batch files in the ConTeXt directory to suit your needs. Please forward any major
improvements!

Have fun!

===================================
Message to ConTeXt mailing list, 12 Aug 2007:
==============
Some background:

I come from the WinEdt world originally. However WinEdt, while a fantastic TeX editor (perhaps the best), has a couple of problems:

a) Geared towards LaTeX;
b) No utf-8 support present or immediately planned (at least when I was using it);
c) No Right-to-left support present or immediately planned (at least when I was using it);

a) is not really a problem; one could easily configure WinEdt to be ConTeXt editor, but b) and c) were showstoppers.

Scite is nice, but seems to me to be a real regression when compared to WinEdt's features. 

Finally I came across Notepad++, hereafter called Npp (actually it was Hans who told me about it first). This is one amazing text editor. Like Scite, it is based on Scintilla. It is a programmer's editor, but for a non-programmer user like myself it is amazingly easy to configure. Like scite, it has utf-8 support. It also has global utf-8 support (as opposed to local utf-8 support which scintilla does not support).

Npp is just loaded with features. It supports plugins, and some of the available plugins are now indispensable to me.

For ConTeXt, I have implemented

1) Syntax highlighting. There are six kinds:

a) \start-stops
b) TeX primitives
c) setups
d) comments
e) sectioning
f) general ConTeXt commands
g) operator arguments
h) numbers

2) Folding

a) Since discovering folding, my efficiency in writing long documents has really increased. All \start-stops are foldable, and you can easily add your own in the User-Defined-Language dialog; just select "ConTeXt" and you can edit all entries.

Fellow gangster Wolfgang Schuster has provided a small module, t-startstops, which converts section headings like
\chapter into \startchapter-\stopchapter, etc. You can add more. Look at the files t-startstop.tex and startstop.tex.

NOTE: Hans will eventually implement official support for startstops, and the syntax will in all likelihood be different than the one used here (\startpart[title=,ref=]).

3) Auto completion. There is a notepad++ api file context.api, which has a list of perhaps all english ConTeXt commands. From the scite properties files you can find more keyword for your your own language and roll your own version. The nice thing is that Npp has a sorting utility so you can easily add your keywords and alphabetically sort them into your own api list.

4) ConTeXt utilities. 

a) The Run menu mimics the one in Hans's distribution of Scite, and mostly uses the same shortcuts. You can add more by pressing F5 and saving your command, which will allow you to define a shortcut.

I deleted a few utilities that come with the default Npp setup but which did not seem relevant to context. If you want them back just look at the original shortcuts.xml file and copy the ones you want.

A few nice tricks are there. For example, 

\input file.tex

After selecting "file.tex" you can run "open file" and Npp will open file.tex for you. From selected text, you can also do a Google search , wiki search. Perhaps we could add a ConTeXt wiki search.... next version perhaps.

b) Npp comes with a Console plugin, NppExec, which allows you to run scripts. Most of the Run commands have been implemented as scripts in NppExec. Here you can play around with the commands, test different options etc.

5. Integrated Explorer plugin. This is one of favorite tools. I have just added some tex-related filters

Both NppExec and the Explorer are dockable. They can also be docked into one another outside of the main editor, separately outside, or separately inside. You'll have lots of fun with these two.

6. Color. I have implemented a color theme that is easier on the eyes than the default pure white background. It makes use of four shades of DADADA. For non-TeX languages you may need to tweak the settings a bit in Settings > Styler Configurator.

7. I have removed most of the languages from the Language menu, but you can bring back any language you need from 
Settings > Preferences > Language Menu.

8) The Shortcut Mapper has been slightly changed: Ctrl-Shift-Z does undo now. shortcut.xml controls this.

9) Added four functions to the context menu (right-click that is): 

Split lines, 
Join Lines, 
Text Direction RTL
Text Direction LTR

=========================
Nearly everything above is easily configurable. I could not implement support for non-startstop folding with sectioning like \chapter etc. because that would mean compiling the scintilla lexer, something I'm not interested in doing. If anyone knows how to do lexer programming and is interested, feel free;-)
=========================

This package depends on Npp 4.2, so if you already have Npp then upgrade to the latest version.

The documentation.bat file is based on code from Adrian Drury. Eventually it may be replaced with the mtxrun utility.

I offer the package to the community but I am no OS guru so I cannot promise any support. OTOH please do make suggestions for improvement. 

Finally, I need a volunteer to post this on the wiki and to update the Text Editor page.

Enjoy!

-- 
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523

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