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diff --git a/macros/latex-dev/doc/ltx3info.tex b/macros/latex-dev/doc/ltx3info.tex new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..e0aabafba4 --- /dev/null +++ b/macros/latex-dev/doc/ltx3info.tex @@ -0,0 +1,474 @@ +% \iffalse meta-comment +% +% Copyright 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 +% The LaTeX3 Project and any individual authors listed elsewhere +% in this file. +% +% This file is part of the LaTeX base system. +% ------------------------------------------- +% +% It may be distributed and/or modified under the +% conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3c +% of this license or (at your option) any later version. +% The latest version of this license is in +% http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt +% and version 1.3c or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX +% version 2005/12/01 or later. +% +% This file has the LPPL maintenance status "maintained". +% +% The list of all files belonging to the LaTeX base distribution is +% given in the file `manifest.txt'. See also `legal.txt' for additional +% information. +% +% The list of derived (unpacked) files belonging to the distribution +% and covered by LPPL is defined by the unpacking scripts (with +% extension .ins) which are part of the distribution. +% +% \fi +\documentclass[a4paper]{article} + +% Commands and environments: + +\newcommand{\eg}{e.g.~} +\newcommand{\ie}{i.e.~} + + +\newenvironment{citations}{% + \list{}{% + \renewcommand{\makelabel}[1]{\normalfont\itshape ##1}% + }% +}{% + \endlist +} + +% Some logos: + +\newcommand{\NFSS}{NFSS} + +\newcommand{\LaTeXNews}{\LaTeX~News} + +\newcommand{\AW}{Addison Wesley} + +\newcommand{\SGML}{{\sc SGML}} +\newcommand{\DSSSL}{{\sc DSSSL}} +\newcommand{\HTML}{{\sc HTML}} +\newcommand{\XML}{{\sc XML}} +\newcommand{\PDF}{{\sc PDF}} + +\newcommand{\PS}{{\sc Post\-Script}} + +\newcommand{\AmSTeX}{$\mathcal A$\lower.4ex\hbox{$\!\mathcal + M\!$}$\mathcal S$-\TeX} +\newcommand{\AmSLaTeX}{$\mathcal A$\lower.4ex\hbox{$\!\mathcal + M\!$}$\mathcal S$-\LaTeX} +\newcommand{\MF}{{\sc Meta\-font}} + +% sections + +\setcounter{secnumdepth}{-2} + +% Front matter: + +\title{\Large The \LaTeX3 Project} + +\author{\copyright 1995--1999 \ +Frank Mittelbach and +Chris Rowley} + +\date{12 January 1999} + +\begin{document} + +\thispagestyle{empty} + +\maketitle + +\begin{abstract} + This article describes the motivation, achievements and future of + the \LaTeX3 Project, which was established to produce a new version + of \LaTeX{}, the widely-used and highly-acclaimed document + preparation system. It also describes how you can help us to + achieve our aims.\\[2pt] + \textbf{For Archive maintainers, Authors, Publishers and + Distributors:}\\ + The project team request that, whenever possible, you include this + article in any of the following: + \begin{itemize} + \item Books about \TeX{} and \LaTeX{}. + \item Instructions for authors on using \LaTeX{}. + \item The printed documentation of CD-ROM collections that contain + \LaTeX. + \item On-line collections that include a significant proportion of + documents encoded in \LaTeX. +\end{itemize} +\end{abstract} + +\section{Outline} + +The purposes of the \LaTeX3 system can be summarized thus: it will +greatly increase the range of documents which can be processed; and it +will provide a flexible interface for typographic designers to easily +specify the formatting of a class of documents. + +The \LaTeX3 Project Team is a small group of volunteers whose aim is +to produce this major new document processing system based on the +principles pioneered by Leslie Lamport in the current \LaTeX. + +The major visible work of the team before 1997 was the development of +the current \emph{standard} version of \LaTeX{}. This was first +released in 1994 and has since then been actively maintained and +enhanced by extensions to that core system. They will continue to +develop and maintain this system, releasing updated versions every six +months and recording these activities in the \LaTeX{} bugs database +(see below). + +Although \LaTeX{} may be distributed freely, the production and +maintenance of the system does require expenditure of reasonably large +sums of money. The \LaTeX3 Project Fund has therefore been set up to +channel money into this work. We know that some users are +aware of this fund as they have already contributed to it---many +thanks to all of them! If you want to know more about how you can +help the project, see Page \pageref{fund}---and thanks in advance for +your generosity in the future. + + +\section{Background} + +With \TeX{}, Knuth designed a formatting system that is able to +produce a large range of documents typeset to extremely high quality +standards. For various reasons (\eg quality, portability, stability +and availability) \TeX{} spread very rapidly and can nowadays be best +described as a world-wide de facto standard for high quality +typesetting. Its use is particularly common in specialized areas, such +as technical documents of various kinds, and for multi-lingual +requirements. + +The \TeX{} system is fully programmable. This allows the development +of high-level user interfaces whose input is processed by \TeX{}'s +interpreter to produce low-level typesetting instructions; these are +input to \TeX{}'s typesetting engine which outputs the format of each +page in a device-independent page-description language. The \LaTeX{} +system is such an interface; it was designed to support the needs of +long documents such as textbooks and manuals. It separates content and +form as much as possible by providing the user with a generic (\ie +logical rather than visual) mark-up interface; this is combined with +style sheets which specify the formatting. + +Recent years have shown that the concepts and approach of \LaTeX{} are +now widely accepted. Indeed, \LaTeX{} has become the standard method +of communicating and publishing documents in many academic +disciplines. This has led to many publishers accepting \LaTeX{} +source for articles and books; and the American Mathematical Society +now provides a \LaTeX{} package making the features of \AmSTeX{} +available to all users of \LaTeX{}. Its use has also spread into many +other commercial and industrial environments, where the technical +qualities of \TeX{} together with the concepts of \LaTeX{} are +considered a powerful combination of great importance to such areas as +corporate documentation and publishing. This has also extended to +on-line publishing using, for example, \PDF{} output incorporating +hypertext and other active areas. + +With the spreading use of \SGML{}-compliant systems (\eg Web-based +publishing using \HTML{} or \XML{}) \TeX{} again is a common choice as +the formatting engine for high quality typeset output: a widely used +such system is {\em The Publisher\/} from ArborText, whilst a more +recent development is the object-oriented document editor Grif. The +latter is used for document processing in a wide range of industrial +applications; it has also been adopted by the Euromath consortium as +the basis of their mathematician's workbench, one of the most advanced +of the emerging project-oriented user environments. Typeset output +from \SGML{}-coded documents in these systems is obtained by +translation into \LaTeX{}, which will therefore soon also be a natural +choice for the output of \DSSSL-compliant systems. + +Because a typical \SGML{} Document Type Definition (DTD) uses concepts +similar to those of \LaTeX{}, the formatting is often implemented by +simply mapping document elements to \LaTeX{} constructs rather than +directly to `raw \TeX'. +This enables the +sophisticated analytical techniques built into the \LaTeX{} +software to be exploited; and it avoids the need to program in \TeX{}. + +\section{Motivation} + +This increase in the range of applications of \LaTeX{} has highlighted +certain limitations of the current system, both for authors of +documents and for designers of formatting styles. + +In addition to the need to extend the variety of classes of document +which can be processed by \LaTeX{}, substantial enhancements are +necessary in, at least, the following areas: + \begin{itemize} + \item + the command syntax (attributes, short references, etc); + \item + the layout specification interface (style design); + \item + the level of robustness (error recovery, omitted tags); + \item + the extendibility (package interface); + \item + the layout specification of tabular material; + \item + the specification and inclusion of graphical material; + \item + the positioning of floating material, and other aspects of page + layout; + \item + the requirements of hypertext systems. + \end{itemize} + + Further analysis of these deficiencies has shown that some of the + problems are to be found in \LaTeX{}'s internal concepts and design. + This project to produce a new version therefore involves thorough + research into the challenges posed by new applications and by the use + of \LaTeX{} as a formatter for a wide range of documents, \eg \SGML{} + documents; on-line \PDF{} documents with hypertext links. + + This will result in a major re-implementation of large parts of the + system. Some of the results of such rethinking of the fundamentals + are already available in Standard \LaTeX{}, notably in the following + areas: + +\begin{itemize} +\item Font declaration and selection; +\item Font and glyph handling within mathematical formulas; +\item Handling multiple font glyph encodings within a document; +\item Allowing multiple input character encodings within a document; +\item A uniform interface for graphics inclusion; +\item Support for coloured text; +\item Building and interfacing new classes and extension packages. +\end{itemize} + + +\section{Description} + +The strengths of the present version of \LaTeX{} are +as follows: + \begin{itemize} + \item excellent standard of typesetting for text, technical +formulas\\ +and tabular material; + \item separation of generic mark-up from visual formatting; + \item ease of use for authors; + \item portability of documents over a wide range of platforms; + \item adaptability to many languages; + \item widespread and free availability; + \item reliable support and maintenance by the \LaTeX3 project team. + \end{itemize} + These will be preserved and in many cases greatly enhanced by the new + version which is being developed to fulfill the following requirements. + \begin{itemize} + \item + It will provide a syntax that allows highly automated translation + from popular \SGML{} DTDs into \LaTeX{} document classes (these + will be provided as standard with the new version). + + The syntax of the new \LaTeX{} user-interface will, for example, + support the \SGML{} concepts of `entity', `attribute' and `short + reference' in such a way that these can be directly linked to the + corresponding \SGML{} features. + + \item + It will support hypertext links and other features required for + on-line structured documents using, for example, \HTML{} and \XML{}. + +\item + It will provide a straightforward style-designer interface to support + both the specification of a wide variety of typographic requirements + and the linking of entities in the generic mark-up of a document to + the desired formatting. These two parts of the design process will + be clearly separated so that it is possible to specify different + layouts for the same DTD. + + The language and syntax of this interface will be as natural as + possible for a typographic designer. As a result, this language + could easily be interfaced to a visually-oriented, menu-driven + specification system. + + This interface will also support \DSSSL{} specifications and + style-sheet concepts such as those used with \HTML{} and \XML{}. + + \item + It will provide an enhanced user-interface that allows expression of + the typesetting requirements from a large range of subject areas. Some + examples are listed here. + + \begin{itemize} + \item The requirements of technical documentation (\eg offset layout,\\ + change bars, etc). + \item The requirements of academic publishing in the humanities\\ + (critical text editions, etc). + \item The requirements of structural formulas in chemistry. + \item Advanced use of the mathematical-typesetting features of \TeX{}. + \item The integration of graphical features, such as shading, + within text. + \item the integration of hypertext and other links in on-line + documents using systems such as \HTML{}, \XML{} and \PDF{}. + + \end{itemize} + + Special care will be taken to ensure that this interface is + extensible: this will be achieved by use of modular designs. + + + \item + It will provide a more robust author-interface. For example, + artificial restrictions on the nesting of commands will be removed. + Error handling will be improved by adding + a more effective, interactive help system. + + \item + It will provide access to arbitrary fonts from any family (such as + the \PS{} and TrueType fonts) including a wide range of fonts for + multi-lingual documents and the specialist glyphs required by + documents in various technical and academic areas. + + \item + The new interfaces will be documented in detail and the + system will provide extensive catalogues of examples, carefully + designed to make the learning time for new users (both designers and + authors) as short as possible. + + \item + The code itself will be thoroughly documented and it will be + designed on modular principles. Thus the system will be easy to + maintain and to enhance. +\end{itemize} + +The resulting new \LaTeX{} will, like the present version, be usable +with any standard \TeX{} system (or whatever replaces it) and so will +be freely available on a wide range of platforms. + + +\section{\LaTeX{} documentation} + +\begingroup +\setlength{\parindent}{0pt} + +A complete description of Standard \LaTeX{} can be found in: +\begin{citations} +\item[\LaTeX: A Document Preparation System] + Leslie Lamport,\\ \AW, 2nd ed, 1994. +\item[The \LaTeX{} Companion] + Mittelbach, Goossens with Braams, Carlisle and Rowley,\\ \AW, 2nd ed, 2004. +\end{citations} + +A recent addition to the publications closely associated with the +project is: +\begin{citations} +\item[The \LaTeX{} Graphics Companion] + Goossens, Mittelbach and Rahtz,\\ \AW, 1997. +\end{citations} + +This \LaTeX{} distribution comes with documentation on several aspects +of of the system. The newer features of the system are described in +the following documents: +\begin{citations} +\item[\LaTeXe{} for authors] + describes the new features of \LaTeX{} documents, + in the file \texttt{usrguide.tex}; +\item[\LaTeXe{} for class and package writers] + describes how to produce \LaTeX{} classes and packages, + in the file \texttt{clsguide.tex}; +\item[\LaTeXe{} font selection] + describes the new features of \LaTeX{} fonts for + class and package writers, + in the file \texttt{fntguide.tex}. +\end{citations} + +For further contacts and sources of information on \TeX{} and +\LaTeX{}, see the addresses on Page~\pageref{contacts}. + +\endgroup +\pagebreak + + +\section{The \LaTeX3 Project Fund} +\label{fund} + +Although \LaTeX{} may be distributed freely, the production and +maintenance of the system does require expenditure of reasonably large +sums of money. There are many necessities that need substantial +financing: examples are new or enhanced computing equipment and travel +to team meetings (the volunteers come from many different countries, +so getting together occasionally is a non-trivial exercise). + +This is why we are appealing to you for contributions to the fund. +Any sum will be much appreciated; the amount need not be large as +small contributions add up to very useful amounts. Contributions of +suitable equipment and software will also be of great value. This +appeal is both to you as an individual author and to you as a member +of a group or as an employee: please encourage your department or your +employer to contribute towards sustaining our work. + +We should like to see funded projects that make considerable use of +\LaTeX{} (\eg conferences and research teams who use it to publish +their work, and electronic research archives using it) include +contributions to this fund in their budgets. %% e-print systems + +We are also asking commercial organisations to assess the benefits +they gain from using, or distributing, a well-supported \LaTeX{} and +to make appropriate contributions to the fund in order that we can +continue to maintain and improve the product. If you work for, or do +business with, such an organisation, please bring to the attention of +the relevant people the existence and needs of the project. + +In particular, we ask that all the large number of organisations and +businesses that distribute \LaTeX{}, within other software or as part +of a CD-ROM collection, should consider pricing all products containing +\LaTeX{} at a level that enables them to make regular donations to the +fund from the profit on these items. We also ask all authors and +publishers of books about \LaTeX{} to consider donating part of the +royalties to the fund. + +Contributions should be sent to one of the following addresses: +\begin{quote}\small\label{addrs} + \TeX{} Users Group, P.O. Box 2311, Portland, OR~97208-2311 USA\\ + Fax:~+1~503~223~3960 \ Email: \texttt{tug@tug.org} + + \noindent + UK TUG, 1 Eymore Close, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29~4LB UK\\ + Fax: +44 121 476 2159 \ Email: \texttt{uktug-enquiries@tex.ac.uk} +\end{quote} + +Cheques should be payable to the user group (TUG or UKTUG) and be +clearly marked as contributions to the \LaTeX3 fund. +Many thanks to all of you who have contributed in the past and thanks +in advance for your generosity in the future. + +\section{Contacts and information} +\label{contacts} + +In addition to the sources mentioned above, \LaTeX{} has its home page +on the World Wide Web at: +\begin{verbatim} + http://www.latex-project.org/ +\end{verbatim} +This page describes \LaTeX{} and the \LaTeX3 project, and contains +pointers to other \LaTeX{} resources, such as the user guides, the +\TeX{} Frequently Asked Questions, and the \LaTeX{} bugs database. + +More general information, including contacts for local User Groups, +can be accessed via: +\begin{verbatim} + http://www.tug.org/ +\end{verbatim} + +The electronic home of anything \TeX-related is the Comprehensive +\TeX{} Archive Network (CTAN). This is a network of cooperating ftp +sites, with over a gigabyte of \TeX{} material: +\begin{verbatim} + ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/ + ftp://dante.ctan.org/tex-archive/ + ftp://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/ +\end{verbatim} + +For more information, see the \LaTeX{} home page. + + +\end{document} + + + |