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X-render mode is an XEmacs library that can be used to render substrings of a buffer as images. For example, it could be used to graphically display syntax trees, plots, or graphs, within an emacs buffer. The main interface to the x-render library is the x-render-string function, which:
Prompts the user for what kind of string to render (e.g.: tree, dot-graph, qtree) Searches backwards from the cursor for the first string of the given type. Converts the string to an image, using an external program (such as tree2image or Graphviz dot). Displays the image in the XEmacs buffer, immediately following the string. Since x-render mode uses external programs to convert string to images, it's easy to add new string types. In particular, x-render mode uses a customizable variable, x-render-string-types, to define the types of string that x-render mode can convert to images.
By default, x-render-string-types defines string types for drawing treebank-style trees (delimited by parenthases or brackets); LaTeX qtree-package trees; AT&T Graphviz dot digraphs; and gnuplot plot and splot commands.