Reference

A LaTeX template is a Velocity script, so it has the standard bindings any wiki script has, $services and the Velocity tools among them. On top of those the renderer adds $latex, which is the whole of the LaTeX rendering API, and $SP.

The last four belong to an export. A template rendered outside one still finds them, and the FAQ below says what they hold there.

$latex.block

The org.xwiki.rendering.block.Block the template was chosen for, with its own API: getChildren(), getParameter($name), isInline(), getParent(), and whatever its class adds on top — getWord() on a WordBlock, getLevel() on a HeaderBlock. It is set again for every Block, so a template always sees its own.

Handing its children back to the processor is the line almost every template contains:

$latex.processor.process($latex.block.getChildren())

$latex.processor

A name here is relative and carries no latex/ prefix — Preamble, macros/code — and goes through the same two-path lookup as a Block's own template. getTemplate is how a template checks that another one is there before rendering it.

$latex.tool

A template that writes text cannot do without escape: these ten characters mean something to LaTeX and have to be neutralised first.

\ { } # $ % & ^ _ ~

normalizeLabel is the variant for a \label, which refuses seven of them outright rather than accepting an escape; it drops those and keeps &, ^ and _.

Figure Helpers

$latex.tool.figureTool holds what the FigureBlock and FigureCaptionBlock templates need.

$latex.properties

The options the export was started with. They are the eleven fields of the export form, and Export Options says what each one does.

The index template is where they are read, one guard per option:

#if ($latex.properties.toc)
  \setcounter{tocdepth}{3}
  \tableofcontents
#end

$latex.resourceConverter

The shipped ImageBlock template shows the pattern: convert first, write the reference the converter hands back, escape it like any other text.

#set ($resourceReference = $latex.resourceConverter.convert($imageBlock))
\includegraphics{$latex.tool.escape($resourceReference.reference)}

Its Java interface is LaTeXResourceConverter.

$latex.includes

The paths of the page files written to the package so far, in the order they were added. The index template is what loops over them to pull each page into the document. Outside an export nothing writes page files, so the list is empty.

$SP

Leading whitespace is stripped from every line of a template before it runs, so that a template can be indented for reading without leaking that indentation into the LaTeX. A line whose output really has to begin with spaces asks for them with $SP:

\newcommand{\xwikititle}[1]{
  ${SP}${SP}\title{#1}}

FAQ

Why is $latex.properties empty?

Only an export fills it. A template reached through a plain latex/1.0 render, from a script or from Java, gets a $latex binding with no properties in it, so every option reads as nothing. A template that has to work both ways guards with $!latex.properties.toc rather than $latex.properties.toc.

Why does $latex.resourceConverter leave my references alone?

Because outside an export the renderer binds a converter that does nothing and returns the reference unchanged. The one that copies files comes with the export package machinery, and without a package there is nowhere to copy anything to.

Related

• Template Mechanism
• Override a Template
• Add Support for a Macro