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I was struggling to find a TeX editor where I could switch between multiple projects. I have been using TeXnicCenter for some time, but unfortunately, I found that as soon as you open an another project the existing project disappears i.e you can only have one project window at a time.

I then downloaded Texlipse for the Eclipse environment and found that pretty handy. However, its a pain to get started. What seemed a cake walk in TeXnicCenter is a big problem in TexLipse.

Can anyone recommend me any IDE (windows based) that can be used as a TeX editor and at the same time, multiple projects can be handled at the same time i.e it is possible to switch between one project to another without closing the project.

Mensch
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infoclogged
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  • Welcome to TeX.SX! You can have a look at our starter guide to familiarize yourself further with our format. Such question is sometimes hard to answer directly. You may spend some time on a big list – Symbol 1 Aug 22 '15 at 14:42
  • But you can switch between TeX files. Is there anything in your work, that the main files should be projects, not simply TeX files? – Przemysław Scherwentke Aug 22 '15 at 15:26
  • @ Przemysław Scherwentke : yes, the relevant tex files are distribute in various subdirectories. Hence would like to have them included in a "project". This way, I could also simply pass the whole project to my students and they need to just import the project file, similar to project.tcp in Texnic Center or .project in Texlipse. – infoclogged Aug 22 '15 at 16:52
  • But isn't a project in TeXnicCenter just a small file with a few bits of information that has to be stored with all your source files? Not sure if there's much advantage to it over the sources alone. – Mike Renfro Aug 22 '15 at 17:02
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    While Texnic Center only supports one project at a time, one can run multiple Tecnic centers at the same time. It will even warn you if you modified a common file between two projects (after you switch back, that is). – John Kormylo Aug 22 '15 at 18:09
  • @JohnKormylo: well, opening multiple Texnic center looks like a good workaround for the meanwhile. However, that would flood my taskbar. Would be keen to know if there is something else in the market that can support my requirements i.e multiple projects at the same time ( similiar to eclipse ) Perhaps, texlive, texmaker etc etc.. ? – infoclogged Aug 22 '15 at 18:26
  • TeX Live is a distribution of TeX - not an editor. Kile definitely supports multiple projects being open simultaneously. 90% of the time I have multiple projects open, if not closer to 100%. – cfr Nov 20 '15 at 23:38

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That TeXnicCenter can only use one project in one running TeXnicCenter is a clever thing. Or how should TeXnicCenter be able to discover which project you want to be compiled? It is a help for the user to make compiling easier ...

A TeXnicCenter project has two files, the *.tcp file (TeXnicCenter project) for the project and the *.tps (TeXnicCenter project Status?) file which contains all loaded files for the current project.

So if you want to give the students all relevant files opend in TeXnicCenter, open the project, open in TeXnicCenter all needed files and store the project with the TeXnicCenter menu.

Then zip the hole thing including directories and give it to the students ...

But please remember and tell your students: only the defined project can be compiled. If you want to compile the other projects you have to (single!) compile in TeXnicCenter the main file of the other project(s).

Mensch
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  • Sorry but how exactly does this answer the question? As I understand it, the OP doesn't want to pass the students multiple projects. The point of a project is to include everything needed to be passed to a particular set of students. It is the OP who wants to have multiple projects open simultaneously. – cfr Nov 20 '15 at 23:16
  • sorry for the late answer. as @cfr correctly identified, its me who want to open multiple projects on "my" machine. I need multiple TexnicCenter projects because I have multiple set of students and my goal is to make my life easier to have one window while having multiple projects ( similiar to eclipse projects ). Hence your answer is a little out of context. – infoclogged Nov 21 '15 at 08:09
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Kile allows you to have multiple projects open simultaneously. I almost always work this way.

On my systems (Arch Linux and Fedora), Kile only ever has one window. So, if I have multiple projects open, they will all be open in a single window. If multiple files are open, they are in different tabs. So I never have multiple project windows because my projects (and non-projects) all share a single window.

That said, this is how I want it, so I've never made the slightest effort to figure out if there's a way of changing it. (I have spent time trying to persuade other applications to use tabs rather than new windows, but I've no reason to try to change Kile on this score.)

The trick to managing this is to turn off the functionality which tries to guess which document is the one Kile should compile and to insist that compilation should always assume the currently active document is the one to compile.

The other thing to note is that changes to the project seem to be saved only when the project is closed. So, if you work on more than one system, you may need to do a little work to ensure your project retains changes you make on different machines. Though if you are on Windows, you probably quit your editor when you are done anyway, which obviously closes the project and saves the changes.

My only real gripes are two.

  • First, I would like projects to accommodate customised sub-folders in the project listing or for that listing to reflect the file system hierarchy.

  • Second, I would like to be able to set no-master-document in the project options so that nothing is compiled by default. Right now, I must either select a file as master or let Kile guess. But I don't want any file set as master and Kile has far too an obsequious attitude towards the aristocracy of files for my taste.

But the second problem can be effectively worked around (so that Kile always compiles the active file in practice, if not in theory) and, apart from these two gripes, the feature works well for me. (But will no doubt cease now that I've said so!)

cfr
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