No automatic syncing is easy to work around, but when you Upload This or Download Latest, you're firing blind — I propose a warning for when the file on-server has changed since download.

It would be nice to draw a line when the "form feed" control character is unique at the beginning of a line.

This makes it possible to separate various notes in a visible way.

Hi Alexander,

I would like to request an option to use the Tab key to cycle through code completion suggestions, especially when using Textastic with an external hardware keyboard on iPad.

I currently own an older iOS version of Textastic as well as the current macOS version, and I am considering purchasing the current iPad version as well. This particular feature would make the iPad version especially attractive to me as a serious LaTeX editing environment.

I use TeXShop extensively on macOS, and one of its features I find extremely efficient is its Tab-based command completion. I have also been experimenting with Textastic's custom CodeCompletion files on macOS, and Textastic already seems very close to being able to provide the same kind of workflow.

For example, suppose I define several completions related to a:

A
$a$
$A$

Ideally, I would like to be able to use the keyboard like this:

type: a

Tab    → first completion
Tab    → next completion
Tab    → next completion
Enter  → accept the currently selected completion

An alternative UI would also be perfectly fine:

a
Tab    → open the completion popup and select the first candidate
Tab    → select the next candidate
Tab    → select the next candidate
Enter  → accept

The important part for me is being able to cycle through the candidates by repeatedly pressing Tab, without having to move my hand to the Up/Down arrow keys.

For LaTeX and mathematical typing, this makes a surprisingly large difference. I use many short custom abbreviations, and keeping my hands in the normal typing position makes command completion much faster.

I understand that Textastic currently allows completion-list navigation using the arrow keys and Return. I would not want that behavior removed. Ideally, this could simply be an optional keyboard shortcut configuration.

For example, perhaps the existing completion navigation actions could be exposed under:

Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts

as commands such as:

Select Next Completion
Select Previous Completion
Accept Completion

Then a user could assign:

Tab        → Select Next Completion
Shift-Tab  → Select Previous Completion
Return     → Accept Completion

Ideally, Tab would have this special behavior only while the completion popup is active:

When no completion popup is active:
Tab → normal Tab / indentation / snippet behavior

When completion popup is active:
Tab → next completion
Shift-Tab → previous completion
Return → accept

That way, normal Textastic behavior would remain unchanged outside the completion list.

An even more TeXShop-like option would be to allow popup-free cycling, where each Tab immediately replaces the current text with the next completion:

a
Tab → A
Tab → $a$
Tab → $A$

with no popup required.

However, I think simply exposing “Select Next Completion” as a configurable keyboard command would already solve most of the problem and would be a very useful improvement.

I have already experimented quite a bit with Textastic's custom completion system, including CodeCompletion JSON files and snippets. The completion definitions themselves seem flexible enough; the missing piece is mainly the ability to control completion-list navigation from the Tab key.

Textastic already has many of the qualities I would want in an iPad LaTeX editor, and this would make the hardware-keyboard workflow much closer to what I currently enjoy in TeXShop on the Mac.

Thank you very much for considering it.

COBOL syntax support would be nice

Can you add some kind of AI integration like a Chat Agent.
Look at VSCode. it allows you to add CoPilot, Claude, Codex etc

Then we could set up a proper AI framework like OpenSpec?

https://github.com/Fission-AI/OpenSpec

https://medium.com/coding-nexus/openspec-a-spec-driven-workflow-for-ai-coding-assistants-no-api-keys-needed-d5b3323294fa

This allows you to add Gemini level AI functionality that is correctly remembered and self updating.

Currently my work flow is;

Google AI mode -> TextTastic -> Working Code

The problem with using raw Google AI mode [Gemini] is that often your previous conversation gets too long and the context window crashes and you lose the entire conversation.

It only needs to be single agent driven, at the moment. Nothing too fancy. Just some way for an AI to traverse the project root and understand a project as it evolves. In this way, AI can add instruction files to every root folder. This acts like an index in a database. It tells the AI what this folder’s functionality & context within a larger application, is.

I was just looking at OpenSpec. Because it is a CLI that requires global node library installation, you may actually need to integrate OpenSpec into the App, itself. Obviously, iPhones cannot install NodeJs & Node libraries etc So there needs to be some deeper level integration, here.

IMHO, OpenSpec is currently the best & easiest AI spec framework, to work with.

This would be a massive win for TextTastic as a future proof, smart phone IDE.

Imagine being the only app in the world to have integrated a Spec framework, into its AI capabilities.

I have family sharing on iCloud enabled yet when my partner tries to sign in and restore purchase it simply will not work, enter password, and dialog box disappears. Can you please advise.

Thanks