Using the Textures Tool

To install the tool quit BBEdit and put the tool in the "BBEdit Extensions" folder that is in the same folder as the BBEdit application. The tool is started by selecting "Textures" from the BBEdit Extensions menu. A command key can be assigned to the tool by using the "Set Keys" item in the BBEdit Extensions menu. If Textures is not running when the Textures tool is started an attempt is made to launch Textures. After the tool is started a floating window (named "Textures") is displayed containing a list of the TeX formats available for typesetting (these are the formats listed in the Typeset menu of Textures). There are two buttons at the top of the Textures tool window — a "Run" button, and a "Close" button. Selecting a format and clicking on the Run button will send a command to Textures to start a typesetting job using the text in the active BBEdit window, and will bring Textures to the front. If the active BBEdit window is not a new document (the document exists on disk) the file containing the document is sent to Textures for typesetting. This means that if the active BBEdit window contains changes that have not been saved, those changes will not be reflected in the typesetting results since the file as currently saved to disk will be sent to Textures for typesetting. If changes have been made to an active BBEdit window that exists on disk, the Save command in BBEdit must be used before the file is typeset for the changes to appear in the typesetting results. If the active BBEdit window contains a new document (has not been saved to disk) then clicking on the Run button in the Textures tool window will send the text in the window to Textures for typesetting. In this case a file does not exist to send to Textures, so the text in the window is sent instead. After a typesetting job has been started an Edit window containing the contents of the active BBEdit window and an associated Typeset window are created in Textures. If the document in the active BBEdit window exists as a file on disk, that file will be open in the Textures Edit window. The name of the window will be the file name. If the active BBEdit window is a new document (not saved to disk) the Textures Edit window will have a name like "as27239728" (the number will be different). Closing the Edit window in Textures associated with a typesetting job started in BBEdit will not close the job (the Edit and Typeset window names will still appear in the Windows menu of Textures even though the Edit window is closed). The job must be closed by the BBEdit Textures tool. Any typesetting job started by the BBEdit Textures tool will be automatically closed if another typesetting job is started with the Textures tool (only one typesetting job started by the Textures tool can be active at a time), or the Textures tool window is closed. A typesetting job can be manually closed by clicking on the Close button in the Textures tool window. If the Close button is dimmed this means no typesetting job started by the Textures tool is active. There is generally no need to use the Close button since typesetting jobs are automatically closed when a new job is started or the Textures tool window is closed. A situation in which the Close button may be useful is in stopping a running typesetting job. To stop a running typesetting job that was begun by the Textures tool, switch to BBEdit and click on the Close button in the Textures tool window. The Textures Edit window associated with a typesetting job can be manipulated in the same manner as an Edit window opened directly by Textures. For instance, the text can be edited, and the Save and Save As commands can be used. Any changes to the Textures Edit window will not appear in the BBEdit window from which the job was begun. If the Textures Edit window is saved, and the BBEdit window from which the job was run exists on disk, then the modifications made in Textures can be made to appear in the associated BBEdit window by doing the following:
  1. Bring BBEdit to the front.
  2. Make some modification to the BBEdit window so that the "Revert to Saved" item in File menu becomes undimmed. Any modification that changes the text in someway, like adding a space someplace, can be used. The modified text will be replaced in the next step.
  3. Select "Revert to Saved" from the File menu and click on the Revert button in the resulting dialog. The modified file as saved from Textures will appear in the BBEdit window.