TextMate Txt2tags Bundle

If you’re one lucky guy/girl that owns a copy of the excellent TextMate text editor, listen on and prepare the “Hooray!”.

I’m a recently converted TextMate user and as you may wonder, to edit txt2tags files is part of my everyday routine. Websites, articles and books, everything is t2t-marked.

For a few days I’ve used TextMate on the “black & white mode” and that was real unsexy. A decade of Vim hardcore use told me that syntax highlight is a Good Thing.

I’m the Great Cornholio! I need some T.P. for my Bundle!

For my total surprise, the making of the TextMate Txt2tags Bundle was a breeze. It’s damn easy to add the syntax rules and as the regexes format are similar to Python’s, it was a copy & paste dream.

Since I was there, I just couldn’t stop.

Besides the colors for the txt2tags markup, we also have:

• Tab Triggers for all the marks
  
  Just type the mark’s character and hit Tab. For example, to start a bold sentence, hit “*” followed by a Tab. It will expand to “****“, with the cursor right at the middle, waiting for your words to be inserted. Very handy!
• Keyboard Shortcuts
  
  Still on the bold example, you can select your words and press Command-B. They’ll be surrounded by the “**” marks. Quick comment/uncomment a block of lines with Command-/ and move quotation in and out with Command-] and Command-[.
  
  To type a link, it’s even cooler. First, copy the desired URL to the clipboard (Command-C, you know). Then type Control-Shift-L and the link mark will appear, with the URL already filled. Type the link name and press Tab to leave the mark. Killer!
  
  You can also select some already-typed text, press Control-Shift-L and see it being linked without any typing. The same works for titles, images and even tables (just Tab-delimit your data and press Control-Shift-|).
  
  Press Command-Esc at any time to get the key listing:
  
  
  Tip: Use keyboard shortcuts for selected text, use tab triggers for to-be-typed text.
• Tab Triggers for all settings and macros
  
  Never read the Txt2tags User Guide anymore. Just type the setting name followed by a Tab to have all it’s arguments shown. And what about those funky “%Y %m” for the %%date macro? No problem, type “date” and hit Tab.
• Drag’n'drop support
  
  Images, other txt2tags files and HTML files. Just drag them to the editor and watch the magic happening!
• Ready-to-use template for UNIX man pages
  
  Load the template, fill your program’s data and there it is: you have a full featured man page. To start, choose File > New From Template > Txt2tags > Manual Page (man).
• Painless conversion process
  
  There are several shortcuts to automate the conversion process and see the results.
  • Under the “Convert to…” menu you can convert your document to any txt2tags-supported format with a single click.
  • Press Control-Option-Command-P (Wow, that hurts to type, but it’s easy to press) to get an instant clear text-only version of your document, just in case the markup is stealing your attention.
  • My favorite: press Control-Command-P to convert the file to HTML and open it in Safari (or your other default browser). It avoids the boring save-convert-switch-reload every time you’re editing your site pages.

Check out the full bundle menu expanded to finally shout your Hooray!:

That’s it! Download and double click to install.

New version 0.3 for QuasiWiki (Txt2tags’ OpenOffice.org extension)

Dmitri Popov wrote me to tell that there’s a new version for his impressive QuasiWiki, an OpenOffice.org extension that lets you use the txt2tags markup in Office documents!

Dmitri says: “I thought you would like to know that I’ve released version 0.3 of the txt2tags extension for OpenOffice.org. The new release features some nice icons, bug fixes, and a few code tweaks.”

Txt2tags package for OpenBSD

Matthias Kilian has packaged txt2tags for the OpenBSD distribution. And since version 2.3! It’s my fault not telling you about it before.

The details about the package can be found on http://ports.openbsd.nu/textproc/txt2tags.

Off-topic: Have you noticed the two Matthias on the recent news? :)

Txt2tags RPM package for Fedora Core 6

Matthias Haase has packaged our sweet little program to RPM for the Fedora Core 6 Linux distribution.

If you’re a Fedora user, just point your yum to Matthias’ repository at http://www.bennewitz.com/rpms/.

Wixi - A desktop wiki powered by txt2tags

You know what is a wiki, right? It’s a collaborative website where visitors can read and change its contents. Think Wikipedia.

What you may don’t know is that the wiki concept can be brought to your own computer, running as a nice standalone application. Then you can easily edit multiple documents using all the wiki’s benefits: save, compare (diff), restore, organize and link them.

That’s just what Kees Remmelzwaal has made. Wixi is a desktop wiki application that runs on Linux, Windows and Macs.

But wait, there’s more!

• Guess which is the markup used by this software, when editing documents?
• Guess which program is used to convert this markup to HTML, LaTeX and many other formats?

Txt2tags. Txt2tags.

If you are getting crazy trying to organize all those t2t files hanging around your disk, you should definitely give Wixi a try.

Txt2tags Web Editor

Let’s start 2007 with good news!

David Area from Spain brings us the brand new Txt2tags Web Editor.

It’s a web editor for txt2tags files, similar to editors found in phpBB forums. You write your text on the box and use the special buttons on the left to add formatting to it. For example, to make some text appear in monospaced font, just select it and press the “Mono” button. Quick!

The “Directives” menu is also very handy to insert all those funny %Y, %m and friends for the %%date macro.

This web editor is a mix of PHP and Javascript code, licensed under the GPL. You can download it if you want. The download page is in Spanish, but just click on the green ball and be happy.

New version 2.4 released

Day 24, version 2.4. Got it? :)

Take all the dust and spiders out of your current txt2tags installation and upgrade to the fresh new stylish Christmas release.

Tons of bug fixes, new mark to comment multiple lines, more than one CSS per HTML file and user-defined .sty files for LaTeX are some of the news. Read them all.

Example of the new features:

My Test File
John Doe
Dec/2006

% Multiple CSS files are now supported
% They're applied on the same order you specify them
%
%!style(html): site.css
%!style(html): ie-gotchas.css
%!style(html): xmas-theme.css

% Now you can use your own LaTeX goodness
%
%!style(tex): ~/.mylatexrules.sty
%!style(tex): tex/mystyles/MathSettings.sty

Hello World

%%%
This is a commented block.
Three percentages to open, three more to close.
These lines won't appear on the converted file, they're commented.
%%%

Goodbye World

Yes, we’re growing!
No, we’re not bloat!

Xmas Charity

HAPPY HOLIDAYS for all you nice txt2tags users.

Without your kind words, energy, comments, ideas, code and bug reports, we would never leave the 0.x series… With your help, today txt2tags is a five years old stable mature program. Thanks!

Now take a minute to think with me.

• For how long do you use txt2tags?
• How many hours of boring markup typing it has saved you?
• It’s good to write a Man Page without messing with TROFF, isn’t it?
• Remember the endless LaTeX escaping nightmares?
• And your cool website, all powered by sexy text files?

Yes, txt2tags keeps you sane and saves your precious time.

In this Christmas, how about to give something back, making a little donation to the project?

Support the Free Software/Open Source model, support the people.

Ktxt2tags Service Menu

More good news for you, KDE people!

David Area, a long time txt2tags user has made a Konqueror Service Menu to integrate ktxt2tags in the contextual menus of Konqueror.

Now you can right-click any .t2t file in your disk and choose the “Process with Ktxt2tags” menu item to open the file in ktxt2tags. Pretty handy!

New Translation: Manual Page in German

Michael Malien strikes again! Now he translated the Manual Page to German. You know, manpage. That thing UNIX users love to hate.

His work is already online on the documentation page.