LaTeX Thesis Helper

A powerful VS Code extension that streamlines LaTeX thesis writing with smart navigation, bibliography management, and real-time document statistics.

✨ Features

📄 Document Templates (New!)

Start your project with professional templates:

• COE198 Research Proposal — MSU-IIT COE198 Research Methods (Rho class)
• IEEE Conference Paper — Standard IEEE conference format
• IEEE Journal Article — Two-column journal format
• Thesis (Standard) — Complete thesis structure with chapters
• Thesis (Book Style) — Book-style with parts and chapters
• Academic Article — Simple article format
• Research Proposal — Proposal with timeline and budget
• Dissertation — Full dissertation with front matter

Use LaTeX Helper: New Document from Template to create a complete project structure!

🎯 Word Count Goal Tracker

Stay motivated with a customizable word count goal:

• Set your target — Use LaTeX Helper: Set Word Count Goal
• Visual progress bar — See your progress at a glance
• Percentage tracking — Know exactly how close you are to your goal

📊 Live Document Stats

Get real-time insights into your document with an interactive stats panel:

• Word count — Track your progress
• Page estimate — Know your document length
• Citation count — Monitor your references
• Figures & tables count — Keep track of visual elements

📑 Section Navigator

Navigate your thesis structure effortlessly:

• Hierarchical tree view of all sections and subsections
• One-click navigation to any section
• Per-section word count for balanced writing

📚 Bibliography Manager

Manage your references with ease:

• Browse all citations from .bib files
• Quick search and insert with Ctrl+Shift+C
• Preview author, title, and year at a glance

🖼️ Figure & Table Manager

Keep track of all visual elements:

• Complete list of figures and tables
• Quick navigation to any element
• Caption and label preview

⚡ Quick Insert Snippets

Insert common LaTeX structures in seconds:

• Figures — Complete figure environment with label and caption
• Tables — Customizable table with column specification
• Sections — Auto-generated labels for cross-referencing
• Thesis Templates — Pre-built templates for Abstract, Introduction, Methodology, Results, and Conclusion

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

Tip: All shortcuts work when editing .tex files with the editor focused.

🚀 Getting Started

Installation

From VS Code Marketplace

1. Open VS Code
2. Go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X)
3. Search for "LaTeX Thesis Helper"
4. Click Install

From VSIX File

1. Download the .vsix file from Releases
2. In VS Code, go to Extensions → ... → Install from VSIX
3. Select the downloaded file

Quick Start

1. Open a LaTeX project in VS Code
2. Click the 📖 book icon in the Activity Bar to open LaTeX Helper
3. Explore the sidebar panels:
   • Document Stats — View real-time statistics
   • Sections — Navigate your document structure
   • Bibliography — Manage and insert citations
   • Figures & Tables — Track visual elements
   • Quick Insert — Add common LaTeX structures

📋 Requirements

🔧 Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following commands:

🐛 Known Issues

• Section word counts may be approximate for complex document structures
• Bibliography parsing requires standard BibTeX format

See the issue tracker for current bugs and feature requests.

📝 Release Notes

0.4.1

• 🐛 Fix: Cross-platform path handling for Windows, macOS, and Linux
• 🐛 Fix: Windows compile command now works correctly
• 🐛 Fix: UTF-8 encoding for all created files

0.4.0

• ✨ New: COE198 Research Proposal template (MSU-IIT Rho class)
• 📚 Complete Rho LaTeX class included with template

0.3.0

• ✨ New: Document Templates feature — Create complete LaTeX projects from templates
• 📄 Templates: IEEE Conference, IEEE Journal, Thesis, Article, Proposal, Dissertation

0.2.0

• ✨ New: Word count goal tracker with progress bar
• ✨ New: Configurable word count target in settings
• 🎨 Improved stats panel UI with number formatting

0.1.0 (Initial Release)

• ✅ Live document statistics panel
• ✅ Section navigator with word counts
• ✅ Bibliography browser and citation insertion
• ✅ Figure and table manager
• ✅ Quick insert snippets for common LaTeX structures
• ✅ Thesis chapter templates

See CHANGELOG for full release history.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Built with the VS Code Extension API
• Inspired by the academic writing community

Made with ❤️ for thesis writers everywhere

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