Texpad has an advanced autocomplete system capable of autocompleting straightforward commands, autofilling the \\ref
,\cite
and \\begin
families of commands, displaying supplementary information for all autocompletes. It is also fully configurable.
Simple commands are automatically autocompleted. If Texpad has some documentation information about the currently highlighted entry it is displayed at the bottom of the autocomplete list. You can accept an autocomplete with the Tab key, and dismiss the autocomplete window with the Escape key. You can disable autocomplete entirely with the Auto Completion option in the preferences window.
Texpad will parse any BibTeX or LaTeX files in your project, looking for \label
s and BibTeX entries. When you cite or refer to labels or bibliography items, it will bring up a list for you to choose from.
Texpad will also generate a matching
\end{some environment}
for every
\\begin{some environment}
This behaviour can be enabled or disabled with the Automatch \\begin
with \end
option in the Preferences window.
When you press return, Texpad will insert an equivalent. This behaviour can be enabled or disabled with the Auto Indent option in the preferences window.
Custom Autocomplete commands are stored in the autocompleted_commands.txt file inside Texpad's Application Support directory. You can open this file in Texpad by clicking the
menu item in the menu. Once you have changed this file you must reboot Texpad for the changes to take effect.This file consists of lines that are either a comment, and autocomplete command or an autofill identity.
The first non-whitespace character in the line should be a %
symbol. E.g.
% This is a comment line
A line that describes a custom autocomplete. This consists of four parts, the first mandatory, the second, third and fourth optional.
The first entry should be the autocomplete key. For a regular command this should simply be the command without the preceding slash, e.g. for \documentclass
write documentclass
.
For an autofill autocomplete (e.g. \\begin{someenvironment}
or \documentclass{article}
), write the first stage, followed by a colon, followed by the autocomplete. e.g. begin:someenvironment
or documentclass:article
.
Autocompletes will always be sorted alphabetically, but some autocompletes are more commonly used than others and there may be one you wish to prioritise over others. To prioritise an autocomplete, prepend a stars to the key, the more stars, the higher the priority. For example to prioritise \documentstyle
so that it is selected by default instead of \documentclass
, add an entry beginning ***documentstyle
. In the case of an autofill complete, place the stars after the colon.
To add a description, append a |
character followed by the description. This description is presented to you in the autocomplete menu when typing the command in the editor.
To note the file the command has been defined in, write an @
character followed by a comma separated list of files.
To note the files the command has been redefined in, write an @@
followed by a comma separated list of files.
An example of a simple \documentclass
command with no description is
documentclass
An example of an environment with a full description is
begin:*fake | description here @ a.tex @@ b.cls, c.sty
An example with multiple placeholders would follow the following syntax
frac | Fraction in math mode E.g. \frac{numerator}{denominator}
In many cases different commands are autofilled in different ways. For example, begin
and end
are autofilled identically. To save you entering the options all again, you can add an autofill identity between, for this example begin
and end
. This should begin with an =
, followed by the new autofilled command, followed by a colon, followed by a fully defined autofilled command (not another identity). There should be no whitespace at all on the line. To return to the begin
and end
example, where the autofills have been defined for begin
, you would write.
=end:begin