% !TeX program = LuaLaTeX

The name of the typesetting engine to use for the current file, which should be one of the engines that is set up for use with TeXworks. This is useful if you normally use one engine (for example pdfLaTeX), but have a few files that need an alternative engine. In my example, the file would automatically use LuaLaTeX as the engine.

% !TeX encoding = UTF-8

Sets the file encoding for the current file. The usual default is UTF-8, but this setting is handy if you need to collaborate with other people using non-UTF-8 editors.

% !TeX root = somefile.tex

Indicates that the current file is not the main file for typesetting: when you choose to typeset, TeXworks will save the current file then typeset the master file. Using this setting, you need the full name of the master file including the extension. This is clearly a handy setting for larger projects, where you might have a lot of files which are to be included in one master document.

% !TeX spellcheck = de-DE

Specify the spell check language for the current file. This is a new setting in v0.4.0 (it was not present in the 0.2 stable release). The language of course needs to be one you have installed!

One point to notice with the root setting is how it interacts with program. Let’s imagine that the master file needs to be typeset using LuaLaTeX, and that your default engine is pdfLaTeX. You then need to include the program in each subsidiary file to get everything to work properly:

% !TeX root    = master.tex
% !TeX program = LuaLaTeX

If you don’t do that, when you try to typeset from one of the subfiles then TeXworks will use the currently-selected engine (probably pdfLaTeX) and not LuaLaTeX for the typesetting. Once you know, this is not so surprising, but at first it caught me out!

Windows binaries and a source code bundle have been uploaded to GC, and Ubuntu packages are currently building (see https://launchpad.net/~texworks/+archive/stable/+packages). The web page (http://www.tug.org/texworks/) will be updated soon (just waiting for a routine pull from the GC repository). For a quick overview over the most important changes, please have a look at http://code.google.com/p/texworks/source/browse/tags/release-0.4.0/NEWS

This is very much evolution in TeXworks development: I’ve been using the unstable builds for some time with no serious issues, and doubt that will change much with the release of v0.4.0. I’ve quickly tested the Windows builds, and have also done a quick build on Ubuntu (see the screenshots). You will see that Mac OS X builds are currently missing: getting them working is currently proving to be something of a difficult task. So for the moment, on the Mac you have to stay with older (but quite usable) builds.

There was a post to the TeXworks mailing list yesterday asking for volunteers to get Mac binaries sorted out. This will not be a trivial process: Mac OS X is used on PowerPC and Intel chips, and the later covers both 32- and 64-bit cases. However, the aim has to be first to solve the more basic problem of getting the software to build at all! Bruno Voisin has managed that, but this is a test case and not really suitable for distribution.

As I’ve got a Mac, I’m having a go at solving some of the problems, but my experience with serious programming is pretty much non-existent, so whether I’ll be much help I’m not sure. So any keen TeX-using Mac programmers reading might want to take a look at the discussion and make suggestions (or of course provide some binaries and build instructions!).

[LaTeX]
# special characters
darkred		N	[$#^_{}&]

# LaTeX environments
darkgreen	N	\\(?:begin|end)\s*\{[^}]*\}

# LaTeX packages
darkblue	N	\\usepackage\s*(?:\[[^]]*\]\s*)?\{[^}]*\}

# control sequences
blue		N	\\(?:[A-Za-z@]+|.)

# comments
black/lightgrey			Y	%.*

You’ll see that the last line includes two colours, so I get black on light grey for comments.

TeXworks: Experimental LaTeX-errors interface

The latest builds of TeXworks include support for scripting. There are not a lot of scripts just yet, but one that already looks good is LaTeX error message highlighting.

This already seems to work pretty well, and it’s one of the few things I miss from my previous editor of choice (WinEdt). It can already jump to the line in question, when you choose the appropriate line in the listing.

Of course, this is only the first step in getting full scripting support for TeXworks. But things look good to me: the extra complexity to the interface is minimal, and it really opens up the possibilities for more advanced users.