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Welcome to the Public folder at Blue Sky Research's
ftp server!  If you can use the World Wide Web,
check out http://www.bluesky.com/.

This file contains:
       *A brief decription of each subfolder.
       *A little talk about binhexing and compression.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%  What's here?  %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

*****3rd.party.unsupported
In this directory are some editors and
macros.  They aren't necessarily current
(but they may be newer than what you have)
and we can't give much help with them
(hence the name unsupported).
"00_contents" describes the contents.
New in this area is the CoolNetTools directory,
which has some binhexing and unstuffing
utilities, and Fetch.

*****demonstration
These are some QuickTime movies which demonstrate
some of the abilities of Textures and show off our
unique interface.

*****fonts
This is where you'll find TeX metrics and
screen fonts for Textures.  Some virtual
fonts live there as well.  There are no
PostScript fonts there.  "00_fonts" describes
the contents in more detail.

*****formats
Precompiled formats live in this folder.
If you see an "incompatible format file"
message in your TeX log and you don't want to
recompile them yourself, you may find a new
one here. "00formats.abs.txt" should have
more details.

*****graphics
In this folder are macros for including pictures
in Textures files.  Several of them come with their
own documentation, and they are detailed in
"00Graphics.abs.txt".

*****information
The Frequently Asked Questions list lives in 
this folder, as does the sales info file.  Install 
help in the form of Textures typeset windows of the
install guides.  Help with printing is there too.

*****latex
In the latex directory are two different kinds of 
latex: the older, supposedly-obsolete-but-still-
useful LaTeX 2.09, and the brand new, work-in-progress
LaTeX2e.  Both contain complete, ready-to-run, 
precompiled Textures-ready LaTeX installations.
Please read "00latex" for more details, and the 
readme files for each LaTeX for installation 
instructions.

*****metafont
This directory contains the Blue Sky Research
Macintosh version of Metafont.  It's totally
unsupported, so you're on your own, and please
be considerate of other users when deciding to
download such a large file.

*****sources
These are the source files for recompiling formats.
The file "00sources.abs.txt" describes what each
file is.

*****updates
When a new bugfix comes out and we make a new 
version of Textures, an updater to the most current 
version will be found in this folder.  
More info is in "00updates".

*****utilities
The utilities folder contains (close to) the latest 
versions things like BibTeX, EdMetrics, and such---
Textures utilities.  "00utilities.abs.txt" describes
each file.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Binhexing and Compression %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Why do all those files have the suffix .hqx?
How do I use them?  Why's it say "this file must
be translated with binhex4.0" at the beginning
of each file, and how do I do that?

Well, the short answer to these and other questions
is "Go out and buy Stuffit Deluxe".  I heartily
recommend it for all your compression and translation 
needs.  It will translate not just binhex, but uuencoded,
tar'ed, arc'd, and many more file formats.  It has a
nice intuitive interface, it's speedy, and dropstuff
and dropexpand have improved my quality of life immensely.

There are other options:  there's a free unstuffer from
Alladin which I'll try to find and put on our server.
If you aren't using Fetch and you're getting to us
from a Mac, first get Fetch from ftp://ftp.dartmouth.edu.
Most of the things I said about Stuffit apply to Fetch, and it's free! 

***Fetch tip: when transferring files, set
the mode to Text.  Fetch will start the text transfer,
ask for a save location, then ask to translate the binhex
for you.  Say Ok!***

Compact Pro is an excellent shareware compression utility.
You can find it in the compression/translation folder at
your local info-mac mirror.  It will also translate
binhex.

Why Binhex?  Well, it's a pretty standard file format.
It allows files to be safely sent over the 'net.  Fetch
will auto-translate it.  People on other platforms (why
would you use anything but a Mac?) can often translate
binhex.  

What is binhex?  It's a way of taking binary files and
changing them into plain old ascii text.  Ascii text
is the lowest common denominator on the internet, and
will fly safely through any gateway, pathway, route, 
platform, or whatever. 

Thanks for reading!  It makes my job easier :-)
--Ben

Ben Salzberg        |  (Email to <faq@bluesky.com> for
Blue Sky Research   |  the Frequently Asked Questions list)
Ben@bluesky.com     |  Web site!-->[http://www.bluesky.com]