What can we do to improve the output parsing/visuals of pdflatex?

[ThSGM]

I've long puzzled over why I find the output display of vimtex so difficult to work with, as compared to `normal' LaTeX UIs like SublimeText, TeXShop, etc. I wanted to make a discussion to raise some thoughts.

To me, there are three things:

1. Is there a parser that better parses the output?
2. Is there a parser that can visually colourise the output?
3. Is there something about the quickfix interface and output display that makes it inferior to other UIs?

I am not sure what the answer to these questions are. I think it might take some side-to-side comparison. But just two further thoughts.

1. Apparently pplatex can be used to 'prettify' output, and this is incorporated into vimtex. However pplatex is not easily obtainable on Mac. I have not tried to build it from source.
2. QuieTeX looks super promising. @lervag can we incorporate this into vimtex? Here is the demo of before and after

[lervag]

I've long puzzled over why I find the output display of vimtex

Just so we're clear, your talking about the output visible in :VimtexCompileOutput (\lo), right?

1. Apparently pplatex can be used to 'prettify' output, and this is incorporated into vimtex. However pplatex is not easily obtainable on Mac. I have not tried to build it from source.

pplatex is available as an option for parsing the log file and giving input to the quickfix window. But I don't think this is what you are talking about here. Also, I don't really think pplatex can be easily used as a "filter" for latexmk or similar.

2. QuieTeX looks super promising. @lervag can we incorporate this into vimtex? Here is the demo of before and after

This is interesting. But notice that you can already use it with latexmk by adding a line to your .latexmkrc file. This means you can use it with VimTeX without changing anything in VimTeX!

But to me, it does not seem to provide a very big improvement to the output, and the project has been stale for 3 years.