Add a macro for importing settings from external files

[mozhewen]

A solution to #76

After thinking about it a few days, I realized that reusing settings from former code blocks may lead to uncontrollable behavior because when those blocks are changed, some update events should be triggered for other blocks, which complicate the problem.

On the other hand, I found importing external files is easier to implement. Now we can write a %:input macro

%:input path/to/settings.tex
\begin{document}
% ...
\end{document}

to import settings from files. The result now looks like

It's not a perfect solution for the moment. The blocks do not respond automatically to the settings file change. But, as the
settings are not changed frequently, and one can always reopen the .md file to refresh all pictures, it's acceptable for me.

Hope someone comes up with a better idea.

[artisticat1]

Thanks for the PR! I'll try to take a look soon.

[a76854]

Great solution, but I don't know how to edit content of settings.tex. Can you give me an example? Thanks a lot.

[mozhewen]

Great solution, but I don't know how to edit content of settings.tex. Can you give me an example? Thanks a lot.

@a76854 It's basically a list of \usetikzlibrary{...} and \tikzset{...}. The usage of these commands can be found in TikZ & PGF‘s manual. In fact, you can write any tex code in some file and import it by %:input (with no indent). The macro will just be replaced by the file content.

[cdpotti]

Great solution, but I don't know how to edit content of settings.tex. Can you give me an example? Thanks a lot.

@a76854 It's basically a list of \usetikzlibrary{...} and \tikzset{...}. The usage of these commands can be found in TikZ & PGF‘s manual. In fact, you can write any tex code in some file and import it by %:input (with no indent). The macro will just be replaced by the file content.

Dear @mozhewen ,
does this mean it's possible to use different libraries than the default ones the plugin comes with?

After creating an issue about this topic i jsut stumbled across this thread, sorry if I mistaking something here.

[mozhewen]

Great solution, but I don't know how to edit content of settings.tex. Can you give me an example? Thanks a lot.

@a76854 It's basically a list of \usetikzlibrary{...} and \tikzset{...}. The usage of these commands can be found in TikZ & PGF‘s manual. In fact, you can write any tex code in some file and import it by %:input (with no indent). The macro will just be replaced by the file content.

Dear @mozhewen , does this mean it's possible to use different libraries than the default ones the plugin comes with?

After creating an issue about this topic i jsut stumbled across this thread, sorry if I mistaking something here.

@cdpotti Yes, you can use different tikz libraries documented in tikz's manual. However, I also tried some tex packages like mathtools and xcolor and they don't work (amsmath and color work fine).

[artisticat1]

Should we print a warning to the console if a user inputs a filepath that Obsidian can't locate?

[mozhewen]

Yep, that would be helpful.

[artisticat1]

Hello, apologies for the delay - it looks good to me!

Can you add some documentation on this feature to the README.md?