Vscode-markdown: Feature request: `{` auto closing

[upupming]

What is the problem?

It would be nice if the { is a js file was $ in an md file in the screenshot below:

How can I reproduce it?

Enter $ in an md file.

Is there any error message in the console?

[yzhang-gh]

It might not be a good idea since $ is not a punctuation mark. I suggest using ctrl+m

[upupming]

Sure! I prefer the hotkey, too. One thing more, we should not insert whitespace when user press ctrl + m twice, otherwise we will get warning from markdownlint once enter a newline.

[yzhang-gh]

We can add a third case

$$
|
$$

on third press

[upupming]

If this is difficult, we should auto-close $ because auto complement of KaTeX is only supported in text surrounded by $$.

Also, we should auto-close { and } in math blocks.

[yzhang-gh]

we should auto-close $ because auto complement of KaTeX is only supported in text surrounded by $$.

I don't get the point. The math completion also works inside $...$ 😳

---

As for the { thing, we can do it.

[upupming]

Sorry for making it confusing.
I meant that if I type a opening $, I have to type another closing $ before
I can get auto complement. So auto closing the $ will help save time a lot.

On Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 7:53 PM Yu Zhang [e-mail] wrote:

we should auto-close $ because auto complement of KaTeX is only supported
in text surrounded by $$.

I don't get the point. The math completion also works inside $...$ 😳

As for the { thing, we can do it.

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[yzhang-gh]

I understand.

For {, it is natural because no one wants a single {.

But for $, it is kind of different. The math is an extension to Markdown and I believe most of the users don't use that.
It will cause a problem when people _literally_ want a $ symbol (as US dollars, or as a special character).

So that is why we have the hotkey ctrl+m. Typing shift+4 and ctrl+m is both two keystrokes, why not using it 😉.

[upupming]

Very reasonably.

I remembered that when I used Microsoft Word to edit formulas. There were many symbols that couldn't be typed by the keyboard, so I set up a lot of shortcuts, which I used very familiarly and could be typed very quickly.
Perhaps we should draft or find some standard shortcuts for mathematical symbols and apply it to Markdown All in One. Or, just let the user define the shortcut for a new symbol easily.

[upupming]

Another proposal, we can add some shortcut for quick surround current math code block with \begin{aligned} and \end{aligned}, because I always want to change an ordinary math equation into aligned math block.

[upupming]

Another thing, < should not be auto-closed.

[yzhang-gh]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I also have some custom snippets (with keybindings). For your case, it can be

{
    "key": "ctrl+whatever",
    "command": "editor.action.insertSnippet",
    "args": {
        "snippet": "\\begin{aligned}\n$TM_SELECTED_TEXT$1\\end{aligned}"
    },
    "when": "editorTextFocus && editorLangId == markdown"
},

However, as a Markdown extension, I guess this might be too special a feature. Let's see whether there are other people also want this.

---

<> is provided by the official extension. I'm not sure whether we can override it.

See https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/3a12b7ac2efd2f1f01a646ef5272313ad50bf618/extensions/markdown-basics/language-configuration.json#L28-L34

[upupming]

Thanks, I will try it.

I have another suggestion, you can see that the auto complement is always the same order and the user may press arrow down several times to get the complementation he/she needs.

As far as I can see, Eclipse IDE will change the complete order according to users' previous input, I think this is a good feature to be added.

[upupming]

If I am free, I should try to make these possible. But I am also quite busy right now, someday will come a PR!

[yzhang-gh]

👍

VSCode seems to be able to auto reorder the completions. It does work for TypeScript. Maybe there are some options for the extension authors. I will have a look in this weekend.

[linsui]

About snippets for math, maybe we can consult LaTeXWorkshop's snippets.

[yzhang-gh]

VSCode seems to be able to auto-reorder the completions

Need to set editor.suggestSelection to recentlyUsedByPrefix.

[upupming]

Let's sort out this one by one, for Ctrl+M shortcut, I wanted to reuse the highlighting logic to detect the current math block and create/cancel the math block. But I am not familiar with it, so I created my own logic to deal with them. I have created two small algorithms to detect them.

[upupming]

This is the current style I finished:

Create

Cancel

Note that I added extra space for users, do you like it?

[yzhang-gh]

Sorry, I don't get the point. What feature would you like to implement?

For example, the current behaviour can be described as:
| -> $|$ -> $$ | $$ -> | -> ... (toggle with ctrl + m)

My previous idea is to add another state

$$
|
$$

between $$ | $$ and |.

Could you elaborate your expected behaviour like this?

[upupming]

I finally used ctrl+shift+m to toggle displayed math.

[upupming]

Let us discuss it in a PR.

[upupming]

Keeping the plugin simple is a better idea, let me simply close this issue, for the <> auto closing problem, it is not very inconvenient when typing, but the implementation is too difficult. For math shortcuts, LaTeX-workshop is too complex, too. I will consider using my own key bindings.