How can I make AUCTeX recognise this macro?

Question

I'm writing a custom helper command for my beamer presentation:

\newcommand{\sectionfigure}[1]{
  \begin{tikzpicture}[overlay, remember picture]
      \node at ([shift={(0, 0.27925\paperheight)}] foot.north) {\includegraphics[height=0.37925\paperwidth]{#1}};
  \end{tikzpicture}
}

with C-c C-n and then C-c RET, AUCTeX recognizes the command, but I would like to have it asking me an image path, like it does when inserting an includegraphic macro. I placed

(TeX-add-style-hook "beamer"
            (lambda ()
              (TeX-add-symbols
               '("sectionfigure" LaTeX-arg-includegraphics))))

in my init file, but it doesn't work. I suppose AUCTeX is overwriting it when it opens the file? How can I make this effective? Thanks!

Answer 1

The usual practice for this is to source out your TeX code into a private package, say ab-beamer-addons.sty which looks like this:

\ProvidesPackage{ab-beamer-addons}

\newcommand{\sectionfigure}[1]{%
  \begin{tikzpicture}[overlay, remember picture]
    \node at ([shift={(0, 0.27925\paperheight)}] foot.north) {%
      \includegraphics[height=0.37925\paperwidth]{#1}};
  \end{tikzpicture}
}

\endinput

save the file in a directory where TeX can find it and add the following line to your .tex file:

\usepackage{ab-beamer-addons}

Then write the corresponding AUCTeX style file which looks like this:

(TeX-add-style-hook
 "ab-beamer-addons"
 (lambda ()
   (TeX-add-symbols
    '("sectionfigure" LaTeX-arg-includegraphics))

   ;; Fontification:
   (when (and (featurep 'font-latex)
              (eq TeX-install-font-lock 'font-latex-setup))
     (font-latex-add-keywords '(("sectionfigure" "{"))
                              'reference)))
 :latex)

Now save the lisp code above as ab-beamer-addons.el and put the file in a directory which is part of TeX-style-private (or adjust it first). Make sure you have set TeX-parse-self to t, restart Emacs and open your .tex file. Hit C-h e and check if ab-beamer-addons.el is loaded; in that case, C-c C-m sectionfigure RET should DTRT.