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author | Norbert Preining <norbert@preining.info> | 2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900 |
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committer | Norbert Preining <norbert@preining.info> | 2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900 |
commit | e0c6872cf40896c7be36b11dcc744620f10adf1d (patch) | |
tree | 60335e10d2f4354b0674ec22d7b53f0f8abee672 /usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_1/editor.tex |
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diff --git a/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_1/editor.tex b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_1/editor.tex new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..72ea863551 --- /dev/null +++ b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/5_1/editor.tex @@ -0,0 +1,239 @@ +\def\DANTE{\textsc{Dante}} +\title{Editorial} +\begin{article} +\section{Welcome back} +It is a pleasure to thank Robin Fairbairns for his sterling work in +masterminding our special \BV\ `FAQ' issue at the end of 1994. Many +people assisted him in getting good, reliable, questions and answers, +and we will maintain them in future. \emph{Please}, therefore, +report back to Robin any inaccuracies or omissions. We will reissue the +list at the end of 1995, but in the meanwhile it is on the CTAN +archives, on a WWW site, and in Acrobat format, for easy consultation. +Contact a \ukt\ committee member if you need help finding it. +\section{\BV\ articles needed} +As \BV\ starts a new year, determined to keep on coming +out on time, your help is badly needed. +It's time to write \BV\ articles for 1995. Get your writing hats on +to `delight fellow \TeX\ users with your words of wisdom'. +\emph{Please note the following copy deadlines}: + +\def\Thead#1{\makebox[1.7cm][c]{\rotatebox{35}{{\raggedright +\parbox{2.2cm}{#1}}}}} +\begin{quote} +\begin{tabular}{llll} +\em \rotatebox{35}{Issue}& +\em \Thead{Submit material}& +\em \Thead{Last-minute notices}& +\em \Thead{Posting date}\\ +5.2&Apr 10&Apr 14&May 5\\ +5.3&Jun 5 &Jun 9 &Jun 23\\ +\end{tabular} +\end{quote} +Each issue of \BV\ has a special theme, although articles on any +\TeX-related subject are always welcome. +\BV\ 5.2 will have papers on SGML, Acrobat etc following the +January meeting which is briefly reported in this issue. +\section{A dozen from 1994: 9--3 to the good} +\newcount\Hit +\Hit0 +\def\YY#1{\advance\Hit by 1 \paragraph*{($-$) #1}} +\def\XX#1{\advance\Hit by 1 \paragraph*{($+$) #1}} +Last year was a pretty good one for \TeX, I think. A lot of action, a +lot of changes, and plenty of discussion. How can you keep up with it +all? I find it a big job to scan the messages on various mailing +lists, browse the Usenet \texttt{comp.text.tex} and read some \TeX\ +publications; and I am not as assiduous as many. I do have an +advantage over most people, though --- I see all the Comprehensive +\TeX\ Archive Network activity, as +one of the small team of volunteer managers; just skimming the nightly +logs of the mirroring process gives a fascinating insight into +the busy world of developers continuously making new versions of +things available; it's a rare day when there is \emph{no} change in the +archives. So maybe it will not be too unreasonable of me to attempt a +review of the my favourites of 1994, and some of the turkeys. I'll +take the chance to off\-load some favourite prejudiced opinions. + + + +\XX{\LaTeXe, of course} Aided and abetted by the `three men and a dog' +\emph{\LaTeX\ Companion}, \LaTeXe\ has been a great success so far +as I can tell. It was so undeniably needed, and so (largely) well +done, that it has made \LaTeX\ use a pleasure again. \LaTeXe\ itself +perhaps is most valuable for style designers and maintainers, but +taken in conjunction with the \emph{Companion}, there can be few users +who do not find life a little easier this year. As an example of the +hidden treasures, do you realize that if you use T1 encoding, and mark +up accented words in the conventional way, they are translated on +input into 8-bit codes and thus hyphenated? + +\XX{NTG sensible article + class} Who amongst you has never cursed the default \LaTeX\ +`article' style? Have a look at the Dutch `artikel' styles in the +`ntgclass' directory on the archives, recently updated for \LaTeXe. I +use them for lots of my work now, and find them very refreshing. + +\XX{Eddi4\TeX, the corner shop \TeX\ shell} Ulrich Jahnze's shareware +DOS shell for \TeX, Eddi4\TeX, is based around a friendly, but +powerful, editor (the right way of going about it, in my view). It has +extensible menus, a good macro language, online help, and is easy to +maintain. Many have found that the superstore 4\TeX\ CD suits them, +but I prefer something simple that doesn't run my life. This shell is +admirably humble, but really does have the features you need. + +\XX{MetaPost at last} Groupies of Donald Knuth will know +that he swears by John Hobby's MetaPost\footnote{Oh, a pox on logos! + No, this isn't set properly, because I never seem to have Knuth's + slightly amended \emph{logo} font to hand.} + as his drawing tool of choice; +this is a version of \MF\ which produces PostScript code rather than +GF font format. It has been around for a few years, but just at the +end of the year, AT\&T finally allowed John to make it publicly +available. Now everyone who is so inclined can use the enormously +powerful \MF\ engine to describe their pictures (and use \TeX\ for +labelling, of course) and get good portable output. John Hobby has +recently written a graphing add-on, which is a joyful prospect for those +of us who have been keening for \emph{grap} ever since they stopped +using \emph{troff}. + +\XX{Poor man's PostScript previewing} P. +Pianowski and B. Jackowski have written a little set of PostScript +procedures which magically add zooming, page selection, and so on to +plain GhostScript; if you don't want to run up Windows, and its cranky +Ghostview, then this is extraordinarily liberating. If you have never +needed such things, forget you read this, but for cognoscenti, it's on +CTAN in \texttt{support/psview}. + +\XX{BaKoMa, or The Man from Protvino} I don't know how he does it, but +the quality of Basil Malyshev's PostScript Type1 versions of the CM +fonts, and the newly added AMS fonts (the BaKoMa family) is excellent, +and means that I really can forget complicated \MF\ sources and weird PK +fonts, without spending any money. + +\XX{CD relief} +I do a lot of \TeX\ at home, un-networked. How wonderful it +has been to have the Prime Time Freeware CD of the CTAN archives to +hand. No more directories full of `just in case' copies. No more +expensive and slow downloads of vital \texttt{.bst} files. OK, so some +bits are out of date now, but there'll be a new release in the summer, +so I can continue my more relaxed \TeX\ lifestyle. + +\XX{Hyper\TeX, and rich Acrobat from \LaTeX} Adobe released version 2 +of Acrobat this year, and their Portable Document Format; it coincided +with maturing work by the loose Hyper\TeX\ group (described by Arthur +Smith in \emph{Baskerville} 4.5), and the release of an enhanced +\emph{dvips} which can pass on hypertext information via the `pdfmark' +operator to PDF. This means that \LaTeX\ can be set up to produce, +automatically, very rich Acrobat documents. The whole Hyper\TeX\ thing +is encouraging, because it shows that there is plenty of life yet in +\TeX. + +\XX{The AMS} The American Mathematical Society has stuck by +\TeX; they have kept up alongside \LaTeXe\ with a major update to +\AMSLaTeX; they document and support their macros and fonts. Better +yet, they think creatively about the electronic future of scholarly +publishing and maths, and look at SGML working with \TeX\ as the way +forward. I hope they keep showing us the way. +\YY{\TeX\ under DOS} I +am writing this article in a hotel in New York. Luckily, I was able to +borrow a portable PC from work just before I left; but, my goodness, +what a palaver it was to put together a useful \TeX\ system to take +with me to prepare \emph{Baskerville}! I ended up with: +\begin{enumerate} +\item An em\TeX\ kernel set of programs, and a \LaTeX\ format; +\item the RSX loader to allow em\TeX\ to work in a Windows DOS box; + usage requires only 10 years of experience; +\item dvips, which I had to recompile myself to get dynamic + decompression of PostScript files; +\item GhostScript, to preview pages properly (I like to see my + figures, my colours, my rotations etc --- is that unreasonable?); +\item A set of Type1 PostScript fonts---Baskerville, Computer Modern, + Monotype Times, Lucida (maths fonts for work), and (unreleased + beta) DC fonts (we do \emph{Baskerville} with T1 encoding, and use + Computer Modern as the typewriter font); +\item Gnuemacs, to edit files in a civilised way; and Eddi4\TeX, as a + DOS \TeX\ shell for when I felt strange; +\item Battalions of \texttt{sty}, \texttt{cls}, \texttt{fd}, + \texttt{tfm}, and \texttt{vf} files I might end up pulling in by + accident or design. +\end{enumerate} +If only Y\&Y drivers understood virtual fonts, or I had three weeks to +spare sorting out the reencoding of my fonts to the bizarre Windows +encoding, I'd have brought the excellent \emph{dviwindo} as a +previewer. But I still couldn't have previewed my pictures. + +What a mess. It took me hours to make it all go together. Why can't I +use, or recommend, an unequivocally good and complete \TeX\ for DOS +and Windows, at any price? + +\YY{\TeX\ user group politics} Like rats +packed in a cage, \TeX ies just can't stop mauling each other. TUG is +rendered impotent by the inability of its directors\footnote{The + author of this piece is a director of TUG, and as guilty as others.} +to agree on what to do about \TeX\ worldwide; \DANTE{} withdrew its +Special Director from TUG in pique at something no-one else +understood; the French quarrel publicly about disk sets; the British +slyly insert prima donna activists into all \TeX\ projects. Thousands +of \TeX\ users and developers worldwide happily help each other in a +great spirit of cooperation --- why can't the user groups work +together? + +\YY{\LaTeXe, I'm afraid} `They' keep changing it, you know. +Documents come out differently before and after Christmas, styles +mysteriously crack in new places with brace fatigue; \AMSLaTeX\ +appears and vanishes like the Cheshire cat. Colour madness permeates +the kernel. Can the redoubtable Frank Mittelbach hold together his +talented team? + +\section{News section} +\subsection{Winter \LaTeX\ Release} + +The second full release of \LaTeXe\ was placed on the CTAN archives on +December 17th. This release fixes problems reported since June and +incorporates the new `inputenc' package as a standard method of +supporting 8-bit input. + +The document \texttt{ltnews02.tex} contains more details of the new features. +See also the WWW page on \texttt{http://www.tex.ac.uk/CTAN/latex/} + +\LaTeX\ is available from CTAN hosts in the directory +\path|macros/latex/base|, and a ready `unpacked' version +is available in \path|macros/latex/unpacked|. Note that +this includes all the files in `base' so you do not need both +directories. + +Unfortunately a couple of small bugs are present in the release. +These are fixed in the file +\path|macros/latex/base/ltpatch.ltx| which is +automatically applied when you install. + + +\subsection{UKTeX is dead, long live TeXhax} + +({\itshape David Osborne posted the following on 23rd December:}) + +With the welcome emergence of the Comprehensive \TeX\ Archive Network, +there's no longer any need for a UK-oriented digest, originally +created to announce developments of the UK \TeX\ Archive which Peter +Abbott set up at Aston University. The digest was Peter's idea, +modelled on the TeXhax Digest, and he acted as editor/moderator for +the first few years of its existence. Looking back, I see I (DO) took over +the editing of the digest with the V90 \#21 issue and that from the +beginning of 1987 to date, 336 digests were produced. + +However, don't despair! The intention is to merge UKTeX into TeXhax, +which will continue to act as a question, answer and announcement +forum for the global \TeX\ community. The electronic distribution lists +of the two digests will be merged and, for a while at least, +contributions addressed to UKTeX will still be accepted but will +appear in TeXhax, starting early in 1995. Initially, it's intended to +produce TeXhax at weekly intervals, to maintain the timeliness of +UKTeX for announcements, but this frequency may be modified in the +light of experience, depending on the volume of contributions. + +So, my sincere thanks go to all those who have encouraged and +supported UKTeX in the past, particularly to Peter Abbott. I +encourage your support of the TeXhax Digest and welcome your +contributions to it in 1995 and beyond. + +\end{article} +\endinput |