RSTPad

reStructuredText editor with live preview.

.. image:: screenshot.png

.. contents::

Features

• live preview with autoscroll

• configurable orientation (horizontal / vertical)

• search & replace

• toolbar with common elements:

  • headings
  • bold, italic
  • inline code
  • code blocks
  • horizontal rule
  • lists
  • link
  • image

• inserting highlighted code blocks (Pygments)

  • autocomplete for known lexer names

• built-in help pages

  • syntax cheat sheet
  • directives

• export to PDF

Known limitations

• UTF-8 documents only

Implementation details

• the application contains an embedded Python interpreter

  • Python libraries are located in the application's directory / bundle

• the Docutils library is used to convert RST to HTML on the fly

  • the converstion is done in a separate thread
  • resources/preview/docutils_extensions.py overrides some of the HTML writer's methods to insert additional tags and attributes

• HTML output is displayed using Qt WebEngine

  • external links are delegated to QDesktopServices
  • autoscroll is implemented in JavaScript
  • the preview is "frozen" during loading and autoscrolling to allow for smooth transitions (a previously rendered frame is used for the duration)

Compilation

Prerequisites

• QT 5.8 & Qt Creator
• Python 2.7 (32bit or 64bit depending on the used compiler)
• Pygments <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Pygments>_ (tested with 2.1.3)
• Docutils <https://sourceforge.net/p/docutils/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/docutils/>_ (tested with 0.13, revision 7975)

Build configuration

.. NOTE::

• The paths used below (such as C:/python) are just examples. Use actual paths :)
• Use forward slashes in all paths. Omit trailing slashes.
• OS X notes and examples assume that Python 2.7 has been installed using Homebrew. Your paths may vary.

Copy rstpad.local.pro.dist, name it rstpad.local.pro and set the following variables:

• PYTHON_LINK

  • Python linker flags

  • Windows: -LC:/python/libs -lpython27

  • OS X: use the python-config <http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/man1/python-config.1.html>_ utility to determine linker flags:

  • python2.7-config --ldflags

• PYTHON_INCLUDE_PATH

  • path to a directory containing Python's header files

  • Windows: C:/python/include

  • OS X: /usr/include/python2.7

• PYTHON_SYS_PATH

  • path to a directory containing:

  • libs.zip - the Python standard library as a ZIP archive

  • pygments, docutils - library directories (these cannot be inside libs.zip)

  • any .pyd, .dll and .so modules that should be available in a standard Python installation

  • .pyc files should be excluded

Windows deployment

. Use the Windows Deployment Tool <http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/windows-deployment.html#the-windows-deployment-tool>_ with the release binary to fetch required DLLs.

Example: windeployqt.exe --release --no-translations rstpad.exe

. Locate and copy the correct python27.dll file or the application won't work on machines without Python 2.7 installed.

• possible locations depend on how you've installed Python and on its version:

  • C:\Windows\System\python27.dll
  • C:\Windows\SysWoW64\python27.dll

• make sure you're ussing the correct version (32 vs 64bit)

OS X deployment

Use the Mac Deployment Tool <http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/osx-deployment.html#the-mac-deployment-tool>_ to convert the resulting application into a .dmg file:

::

macdeployqt RSTPad.app -dmg

Other platforms

Not tested yet. You're on your own :)