Overview of the Scheme extension language

One major characteristic of TeXmacs is the possibility to extend the editor using the Guile-Scheme extension language. Such extensions can be simple, like a personal boot file containing frequently used keyboard shortcuts, or more complex, like a plug-in with special editing routines for a particular type of documents. The Scheme language can also be used interactively from within the editor or invoked by special markup like “actions”.

In this chapter, we give an overview of why and how to use Scheme from within TeXmacs. The first sections provide sufficient information for someone who wants to program some basic customization of the keyboard and menus. The latter sections give an introduction to the general architecture of the Scheme API and some important features and particularities of way Scheme is used within TeXmacs. The reading of the overview is highly recommended to anyone who wants to make non-trivial use of Scheme inside TeXmacs.

More complete documentation about the Scheme modules provided by TeXmacs is available from the Help→Scheme extensions menu. We also recommend the following on-line manuals about Scheme and its Guile implementation:

• The Scheme programming language.
• Guile reference manual.

For further information about Scheme, we refer to http://www.schemers.org. As a general rule, we also encourage users to take a look at the TeXmacs source code for concrete examples on how to use Scheme from within TeXmacs.

• Why TeXmacs uses Scheme as its extension language
• When and how to use Scheme
• General architecture of the Scheme API
• The module system and lazy definitions
• Contextual overloading
• Meta information and logical programming
• The TeXmacs content model
• Standard utilities