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I just answered a question about TeXShop and I noticed that there's no TeXShop tag. Before creating extraneous or discouraged tags I went over to the tag CW post on meta and it says that "Formats, tools, compilers, etc." should get tags. The examples given are [luatex], [pdflatex], [context], and [bibtex], which are two compilers, one format, and one external tool, I think. Editors aren't listed here (there is an [editors] tag though), but MikTeX and AucTeX do have tags.

In the course of preparing this question I've pretty much decided that an editor is a "tool" and each should get its own tag. But I thought I'd get a second opinion.

Edit My comment to Martin's answer explains my rationale for creating the tag, which I've gone ahead and done.

This brings up the topic of what tags are for in the first place. The top-voted, accepted answer is that tags are for finding questions you can answer. If so, people will get more use out of a tag for a specific editor that they know well, rather than all editors.

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I agree with your comment that "people will get more use out of a tag for a specific editor that they know well". So yes, IMO, specific editors should get their own tags so that people can ignore questions on editors they don't use and highlight those that they do.

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  • That's a good enough second opinion for me. I went ahead and created the tag.
    – Matthew Leingang
    Nov 30, 2010 at 16:17
  • It's not exactly going to be helpful until there are multiple questions for the editor in question, though; on the other hand, neither will it cause any great harm. The worst that can happen is that we end up with multiple tags for the same editor, isn't it? Tag synonyms would probably make short work of that.
    – SamB
    Feb 19, 2011 at 21:02
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Generally, I think we shouldn't introduce new tags that will only be used for a few questions. The [editors] tag currently has only 26 questions, and it should be able to accommodate quite a few more before new tags will be needed to help with the search.

That being said, we already have [texlipse], [texniccenter], [texmaker], [lyx] and probably some more, and basically all are used 10 times or less.

Disclosure: I am actually guilty of using one of the editors tags from above just today.

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  • This brings up the topic of what tags are for in the first place. The top-voted, accepted answer is that tags are for finding questions you can answer. If so, people will get more use out of a tag for a specific editor that they know well, rather than all editors.
    – Matthew Leingang
    Nov 30, 2010 at 15:31
  • Lyx isn't really a Latex editor, and there have been a whole lot of Lyx questions on SO and SU over the 18 months I've been following the sites.
    – Charles Stewart
    Nov 30, 2010 at 16:19

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