path: root/info/digests/tex-mag/v1.n5

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*   TTTTTTT       X     X M     M        GGGGGG  A Mostly Unofficial          *
*      T           X   X  MM   MM       G        Publication for Users        *
*      T   EEEEEEE  XXX   M M M M   A   G    GG  Of the TeX Computer          *
*      T   E       X   X  M  M  M  A A  G     G  Typesetting System.          *
*      T   EEEE   X     X M  M  M AAAAA  GGGGGG                               *
*          E                     A     A         Volume 1, Number 5           *
*          EEEEEEE              A       A        Distribution: 365 or so...   *
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     June 25, 1987

     Contents:
     footnote............................................................1
     Letters to the Editor................................................2
     How to write an article for TeXMaG...................................3
     Call for standardization of DVI specials............................4
     The Toolbox..........................................................5





__1
     footnote{One embarrassing moment later}

     As most  of you  probably already  realize,  I just had the joy of re-
     mailing the entire past of TeXMaG when I discovered much to my chagrin
     that  the  previous  issues  of TeXMaG  where  not  being sent  to the
     non-BITNET subscribers,   due  to a bug  (feature?) of  LISTSERV.  Now
     that I have solved that problem, I have suddenly received vast amounts
     of feedback  from all  of the non-BITNET people. (It's kind of nice to
     suddenly have  half your  readership get  something to read).  The few
     comments I  had about  the old  formatting of TeXMaG  were joined by a
     resounding chorus of agreement;  I guess there are a lot of people who
     appreciate shorter lines and larger margins.

     TeXMaG will  continue to be sent  out as a mail file from now on since
     that seems to  be the only way to reach most of the subscribers. Also,
     the  poor soul  whose  system couldn't  decode NETDATA  files will get
     readable copies now.

     This  issue is a  bit low in content, I realize (that's what I get for
     getting a job where you actually have to *do* thins periodically), but
     hopefully between the plea for articles and any inspiration that I may
     get in the next month or so, I should have a good V1N6.

     Enjoy!

     -Don Hosek <DHOSEK@HMCVAX.BITNET>  (or  <U12921@UICVM.BITNET>  for the
     summer)





__2
     **Letters**

     From: Carol Weintraub <MAWEINTR@WEIZMANN>
     Subject: Tex on the MacIntosh
     To: dhosek@hmcvax.bitnet

     Dear Editor,

     I would  like to know  if there is anybody out there using  TeX on the
     MacIntosh??  I have seen a *preliminary*  version of TeXtures run on a
     MacPlus,  but I would like to know if there is a *full* version of TeX
     (V.2  with  *all* the  CM fonts)  running somewhere,  preferably  on a
     MacIntosh II.  We are contemplating purchasing either the MacIntosh II
     or we have just heard of a new system  ``The Publisher'' from ArborTex
     which interacts with TeX on a Sun Workstation.

     If anybody  could advise  us on  either of these two  systems/machines
     please write to:

               Carol Weintraub,
               Technical Secretary,
               Dept. of Applied Math. & Computer Science
               The Weizmann Institute of Science
               Rehovot, 76100 Israel

      Bitnet:  maweintr@weizmann

       Thank you very much!
                                     Carol
     ======================================================================
     Date:     Thu, 14-MAY-1987 09:18 EDT
     From:     Richard S. Holmes <RICH@SUHEP>
     Subject:  improved \split
     To:       u12921@uicvm

     I  tried  out Eric  Skinner's \split  macro and,  lazy bum  that I am,
     rather than  typing in two  paragraphs for it to split, I typed in one
     and duplicated it.  Lo,  I got an overfull  \vbox.  Apparently this is
     the consequence of  trying to  \split two paragraphs of the same size.
     Anyway, a  simple modification of the conditional in \xsplit cured it.

                                             Rich Holmes
                                             rich@suhep.bitnet

%%%------------------------rrrrrrrrrrrrrrip!--------------------------
% Macro: \xsplit
% By: Eric Skinner <ERS2F@UOTTAWA>
% Function: Takes two pieces of text, and boxes them side by side.
%           Column widths and inter-column gap are set by user.
% Parameters:
%   #1: Width of first column, including unit specification
%   #2: Width of space between columns, including units
%   #3: Width of second column, including units
%   ** Warning: Don't exceed page dimensions!
%   #4: First column text.
%   #5: Second column text.
% Registers: \box1,\box2
\def\xsplit#1#2#3#4#5{{
  \setbox1=\vbox{\hsize= #1 #4}    % First column
  \setbox2=\vbox{\hsize= #3 #5}    % Second column
  % If the boxes are output side by side at this point, they
  % will be aligned at the bottom instead of the top.
  \ifdim\ht2>\ht1   % Column two is longer than column one
    % Fill bottom of column one with glue
    \setbox1=\vbox to \ht2{\hsize= #1 #4 \vfill}
  \else
    \ifdim\ht1>\ht2   % Column one is longer than column two
      % Fill bottom of column two with glue
      \setbox2=\vbox to \ht1{\hsize= #3 #5 \vfill}
    \fi
  \fi
  \hbox{\box1\hskip#2\box2}}}
%%%------Cut some more------------------------------------------------
% Macro: \split
% By: Eric Skinner <ERS2F@UOTTAWA>
% Function: Takes two pieces of text, and boxes them side by side.
%           Column widths are set by user.  Inter-column gap is
%           automatically adjusted to make the first column flush
%           with the left margin, and the second flush with the right.
% Parameters:
%   #1: Width of first column, including unit specification
%   #2: Width of second column, including units
%   ** Sum of #1 and #2 should not exceed current \hsize!
%   #3: First column text. Don't do anything REALLY weird.
%   #4: Second column text.
% Registers: \dimen1
\def\split#1#2#3#4{
  \dimen1=\hsize
  \advance\dimen1 by -#1
  \advance\dimen1 by -#2
  \xsplit{#1}{\dimen1}{#2}{#3}{#4}}
%%%------------Tear----------------------------------------------------
     When submitting a letter, please indicate somewhere in the note
     that it is for the letters column.





__3
     *How to write an article for TeXMaG*
      By Don Hosek

     At the  risk of harping  on the same old  chord over and over again, I
     decided that  I would write a  TeXMaG article  outlining what it takes
     to write an article for TeXMaG. (not much)

     The first,  and most  obvious  requirement is to  have an  idea. (Many
     articles  reach publication  without containing  a single idea,  but I
     like to  think I  have standards.)  Your idea  doesn't need  to be the
     greatest  idea known  to mankind  (look what I've been  filling TeXMaG
     with  so far!).  Perhaps you  wrote an  interesting macro,  or finally
     feel you  understand how to use an intriguing feature of TeX;  both of
     these would make great articles for TeXMaG.

     Another idea would be to write about  any interesting  applications of
     TeX  that you may have;  while TeX was  originally designed  for type-
     setting technical papers,  it is being used widely  for many non-tech-
     nical uses (nearly half of the papers  typed in TeX at Harvey Mudd are
     papers for  humanities classes;  the Harvey Mudd  newspaper is typeset
     with TeX).  If you use TeX for  something other than technical papers,
     what sort  of problems did you encounter?  How did you deal with them?
     Were there any problems that left you clueless?

     Do you know  anything about  Metafont?   Few people do,  although many
     would like  to learn more.  Why not write an article about some aspect
     of Metafont?  It doesn't have  to cover the entire  depth of The Meta-
     fontBook;  perhaps  you could  explain  how  you  avoided  the strange
     that cropped up when you tried to generate cmr8 at 100dpi.

     What about  your device driver? Is it developed locally? Does it work?
     Is there  something  that you're  sure your  printer  can do  but your
     device  driver can't?  Why not write a  review of the  capabilities of
     your driver,  or a wish  list of what  you'd like to be  able to do on
     your Acme 2000 using TeX.

     Are you  running TeX on an unusual installation?  (A Cray or Apple II,
     for example)  Did somebody else  port it or was it  done locally.  Why
     not share your  views on using TeX on an odd machine. What limitations
     do you encounter?

     Is your operating system conducive to TeX? How does EBCDIC affect your
     TeXing?  (EBCDIC  makes  TeX on our  3081 a bit imperfect,  to say the
     least)

     I suppose this is  enough diatribe  for one issue. If you have an idea
     for  an article,  feel  free to write it;  if you  aren't sure  if its
     suitable for publication, I'll do my best to convince you. :-)





__4
     Call for standardization of DVI specials
     By Don Hosek

     As  TeX develops  into its maturity,  the need for  standardization in
     other  aspects  of  TeXware is  becoming apparent.   Perhaps the  most
     important goal for standardization lies in DVI-driver \special's.

     I have  discussed this  matter with  Thomas Reid  (TeXrox), and  a few
     preliminary ideas were given.  However,  to propose a  standard to  be
     submitted  to the  TeX  community at  large implies  that  input  from
     the TeX  community was  solicited. It is to this end that I am writing
     this article.  There are  many aspects  of the  grammar of  \special's
     that need to be solidified. Some of these are:

     o Device Dependancy.
     ArborText  has  apparently  done  some   work  on  this  to  date  (my
     conjecture  on  this  is  based  on information  from the  DVIXER User
     Manual);  their suggestion  is to  begin a  device dependant  \special
     with a  three letter  tag concluded  with a colon to indicate that the
     \special  command  is  for  that particular  output device  only.  For
     example, a \special that is Xerox 9700-specific would begin with XER:.
     If this  convention  is  to be  adopted,  then codes  will need  to be
     designated  for each TeX output device.  However, care should be taken
     to make \special's  device-dependant only when necessary.  DVI-drivers
     should be written to ignore unknown \special commands.

     o \special Naming.
     This is perhaps the central problem of \special standardization. What
     should the  command  to print  sideways on the page be called?  DVIQMS
     from Texas  A&M uses  the command  landscape();  Thomas Reid  suggests
     ROTATE=90;  I, personally, prefer landscape (without the ()'s).  Is it
     better to  have \special's  that are easily interpretted by the driver
     or by the user?

     There are  numerous  other commands that  also need  to be  specified:
     printing  on both  sides of the output sheet (duplex printing);  print
     color selection;  graphics inclusion,  &c. This is  not an  exhaustive
     list,  of course,  and I  would appreciate  receiving  suggestions for
     standard \special commands that do not appear above.

     o Graphics.
     The primary use of  \special's in current  device drivers  is graphics
     file   inclusion.    Graphics   files  included  should  be  processed
     intelligently  (for  example,  extraneous  PostScript  material  in  a
     MacDraw document should  be removed),  and perhaps,  following on  the
     model of  DVIQMS,  options should be permitted on the graphics include
     facility to add or remove commands from the graphics file.

     DVIIMP  (which  is present  in most  TeX distributions  in WEB  source
     format  contains  another  idea  for graphics  inclusion:  it provides
     graphics ``primitives'' to draw points,  lines, circles, and ellipses.
     Standardized  graphics  \special's  such  as  these could  be used  to
     enhance LaTeX's  picture mode,  or be  used in  new macros  to provide
     convenient device-independant graphics.

     o \special Scope.
     It was pointed out in TUGboat v. 7, no. 3. that the random paging of a
     DVI file  implicitly  prohibits \special's  that are global in nature.
     DVIXER  deals  with  this  problem  by  permiting a  sequentialreading
     command  line  option  to  insure  that  global  \special's are  read,
     DVIQMS makes  no such  provision,  but does contain global \special's.
     Since it  is fairly easy to  modify output routines to emit a \special
     command  on  each  page,  it  should  not  be  too  difficult  to make
     \special's local to the page on which they appear.

     The  suggestions  listed  here are  by no  means intended  to be  all-
     inclusive there are many aspects of the  problem that were not covered
     in this article. I would like to have a preliminary document outlining
     the proposed  standard  for  DVI files  available for  publication  in
     TUGboat for issue 3 of this year,  and a final draft for the beginning
     of 1988. I encourage contributions from the TeX community at large for
     this project.  My E-mail address is:  BITNET: DHOSEK@HMCVAX,  or ARPA:
     DHOSEK%HMCVAX.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU; my postal address is:
              Don Hosek
              Platt Campus Center
              Harvey Mudd College
              Claremont, CA 91711

     This article  will also  be printed  in TUGboat  and in TeXMaG (BITNET
     electronic ``magazine'').





__5
     **The Toolbox**

     From Charles Karney <Karney%PPC.MFENET@ANLVMS.BITNET>, we have a macro
     that returns the current day of the week from TeX internal counters.
%%%------------Start Cutting------------------------------------------
% \dowcomp returns integer day of week in \dow with Sunday=0.
% \downame returns the name of the day of the week.
% E.g., if \year=1963 \month=11 \day=22,
% then \dowcomp ==> \dow=5 and \downame ==> Friday which happened
% to be the day President John F. Kennedy was assasinated.

% Converted from the lisp function DOW by Jon L. White given in
% the file LIBDOC    DOW JONL3 on MIT-MC (which follows).

%(defun dow (year month day)
%    (and (and (fixp year) (fixp month) (fixp day))
%        ((lambda (a)
%                 (declare (fixnum a))
%                 (\ (+ (// (1- (* 13. (+ month 10.
%                                        (* (// (+ month 10.) -13.) 12.))))
%                           5.)
%                       day
%                       77.
%                       (// (* 5. (- a (* (// a 100.) 100.))) 4.)
%                       (// a -2000.)
%                       (// a 400.)
%                       (* (// a -100.) 2.))
%                    7.))
%            (+ year (// (+ month -14.) 12.)))))

\newcount\dow
\def\dowcomp{{\count3 \month  \advance\count3 -14  \divide\count3 12
  \advance\count3 \year  \count4 \month  \advance\count4 10
  \divide\count4 -13  \multiply\count4 12  \advance\count4 10
  \advance\count4 \month  \multiply\count4 13  \advance\count4 -1
  \divide\count4 5  \advance\count4 \day  \advance\count4 77
  \count2 \count3  \divide\count2 100  \multiply\count2 -100
  \advance\count2 \count3  \multiply\count2 5  \divide\count2 4
  \advance\count4 \count2  \count2 \count3  \divide\count2 -2000
  \advance\count4 \count2  \count2 \count3 \divide\count2 400
  \advance\count4 \count2  \count2 \count3 \divide\count2 -100
  \multiply\count2 2  \advance\count4 \count2  \count2 \count4
  \divide\count2 7  \multiply\count2 -7  \advance\count4 \count2
  \global\dow \count4}}

\def\dayname{\dowcomp  \ifcase\dow  Sunday\or  Monday\or  Tuesday\or
  Wednesday\or  Thursday\or  Friday\else  Saturday\fi}
%%%--------------Stop cutting-----------------------------------------
     My own  contribution for  the month is a macro to permit multiple-line
     page headers.  It works by putting an alignment inside of vtop inside
     of headline. This approach makes it compatible with most other macros
     that may  change  the makeheadline  macro (e.g.  The Toolbox,  TeXMaG
     V1N2).
%%%--------------Cut along perforation--------------------------------
% Macro for multiple line header.
% By Don Hosek <DHOSEK@HMCVAX.BITNET>
% To use:
% \multihead{...}
% If the header has more than one line, separate the lines with \\
\newtoks\multihead
\headline{\vtop{\let\\=\cr\halign{\line{#}\cr
  \the\multihead\crcr}}}
\multihead{\hss}
%%%--------------Tear neatly------------------------------------------





__6
     TeXMaG is an electronic magazine published by the Harvey Mudd  College
     Mathematics  Department  available  free  of  charge to all interested
     parties reachable  by electronic mail. It is published monthly, on the
     last  weekend   of  each   month,   except   when  conditions  prevent
     publication.   Subscription  requests  should  be  sent  to  Don Hosek
     <DHOSEK@HMCVAX.BITNET>    or    send    the   following   message   to
     LISTSERV@BYUADMIN: SUBS TEXMAG-L Your_Full_Name.  European subscribers
     may send the SUBS command to LISTSERV@DEARN,  subscribers on CDNnet
     should  send subscription  requests to  <list-request@ubc.csnet>, and
     JANET  subscribers should  send requests  to be  added to  the list to
     Peter Abbott,  <ABBOTTP@UK.AC.ASTON.MAIL>.  Back issues  are available
     from    Don   Hosek   <DHOSEK@HMCVAX.BITNET>.   Article   submissions,
     contributions  for the Toolbox,  and letters to the  editor are always
     welcome and should be sent to <DHOSEK@HMCVAX.BITNET>.

     Other publications of interest to TeX users are:

     TeXHAX.  Arpanet mailing list for persons with questions, suggestions,
     etc.. about TeX, LaTeX, metafont and related programs. Submissions for
     this list should  be sent to <TeXHAX@SU-SCORE.ARPA>.  BITNET users may
     subscribe by sending the following command  (as an interactive message
     or  as   the  first  line  of  a  mail  message)  to  LISTSERV@TAMVM1:
     SUBS TEX-L your_full_name. The list is peer-linked to other listserves
     in the United States and Europe. Internet subscribers may subscribe by
     sending a request to <TeXHAX-REQUEST@SU-SCORE.ARPA>. The TeX-L mailing
     list is a ``hybrid;''  i.e., it is both an ARPAnet redistribution, and
     a BITNET discussion list.  Submissions for  TeX-L  (only --- they will
     _not_  be   forwarded  to   TeXHAX)  may  be  sent  to   TeX-L@TAMVM1.
     LISTSERV@TAMVM1  also has file archives that may be of interest to TeX
     users on BITNET,  including the  files in the SU-SCORE FTP directories
     and back  issues of  TeXHAX.  For a  list of files available, send the
     following command to LISTSERV@TAMVM1: GET TeX FILELIST.

     Unix-TeX. Arpanet mailing list specifically for users of TeX under the
     Unix operating  system.  Submissions  for this  list should be sent to
     <Unix-TeX@WASHINGTON.ARPA>. Requests to be added or deleted  from  the
     mailing list should be sent to <Unix-TeX-Request@WASHINGTON.ARPA>.

     TUGBoat.  A publication by the TeX Users Group. An excellant reference
     for TeX users. For more information about joining TUG and  subscribing
     to TUGBoat send (real) mail to:
                 TeX Users Group
                 c/o American Mathematical Society
                 P. O. Box 9506
                 Providence, RI 02940-9506, USA

    Specials  thanks  to Peter  Abbott  for  setting up  the JANET  redist-
    ribution.  Also thanks to  the University of  Illinois  for giving me a
    summer job.