The TEX Wrapper Structure: a basic TEX document model implemented in iTEXMac

This presentation primarily concerns the high level user interface of the TEX typesetting system. In general, people find it difficult to work with TEX due to the powerful syntax, numerous auxiliary files created or managed, and the user interface that has very little in common with standard word processors. Moreover, sharing TEX documents with colleagues is often delicate as soon as some non standard LATEX is involved or, more frequently, there are some significant differences in the computer configurations. The purpose of this article is to lay the foundation for the TEX Wrapper Structure, which aims to help the user solve this kind of problems. We first explain what could be the desiderata for a TEX document object model, then we give a precise description of the TEX Wrapper Structure, discussing the various solutions and the final choice. Finally, the concrete implementation used by iTEXMac demonstrates an example of user interface. An appendix briefly presents the latest developments concerning PDF synchronization which is a MacOS X specific feature of great interest for the whole TEX community.