Highlighting possibilities?

Hello, I am absolutely new to Emacs and lisp, but I am considering a possibility to star using it for latex code editing. What I have learned about Emacs (and it fascinated me) is that it has almost unlimited possibilities to modify it according to your needs. Before jumping into learning progress i need to clarify few things. One of the most important features that i need for my editor is possibility to create advanced highlighting schemes. Part of my work is rewriting latex code to make it suitable for certain type of conversion to HTML. Visual emphasizing of some parts in the code makes my work much easier. Is it possible in Emacs, to highlight certain commands only if they are in some kind of environment? Can I define highlighting priorities in case they overlap. Can I tell Emacs to highlight certain phrases only if they follow after some set (containing symbols or words)?


Thank You for your replies, and sorry for my bad English.

I presume, you can. Check out (if not already) elisp docs, particulary 23.6 "Font lock Mode" and http://emacswiki.org/emacs/ModeTutorial#toc2 for use cases.

This should really have been posted in the elisp forum