TeX, LaTeX and Friends

Paulo Cereda

12:10 AM

@FaheemMitha This is definitely not IA. :)

yo'

12:22 AM

@PauloCereda quack!

Paulo Cereda

12:44 AM

@yo' Quack! :)

yo'

@PauloCereda I'm getting my luggage ready

Paulo Cereda

@yo' Yay!

yo'

it's very difficult I tell you

Paulo Cereda

@yo' :(

yo'

not only I have so much stuff, but I really start getting sentimental ... :'-(

and all the people opening bottles of wine and saying "we'll miss you" don't help :D

Paul Gessler

2:36 AM

Rise of the Planet of the Ducks

AKA what happens every time I tell myself I'm going to sit down and learn about all this expl3 business... xD

Sean Allred

3:41 AM

Is it just me, or has spam really gone waaaay up in recent months? tex.stackexchange.com/a/235812/17423 Could this have anything to do with SE opening up its write API? (I use it fairly extensively – it's very well-protected from what I cant tell.)

Faheem Mitha

5:13 AM

@PauloCereda IA?

Joseph Wright

7:46 AM

From c.t.t.

Faithful readers of the CTAN-Ann messages may have noticed the
sudden disruption of the service about two and a half weeks ago.

This was not for lack of noteworthy submissions, nor had
the CTAN team gone on a collective holiday or on strike.
What had in fact befallen us was the -- gradual -- loss
of our second "main host" at Cambridge.

As a matter of fact we had been suspecting for some time that
this host was running more or less unattended, but on Thu
March 12 it definitely ceased to pick up the packages that

Johannes_B

@egreg @jfbu Thanks for taking care of that polyglossia hebrew stuff. Another well received question answered.

egreg

@Johannes_B A pity I didn't see it earlier. The problem was self-evident, it just needed a short investigation.

Johannes_B

@egreg I had to do a minor edit to get it back on main. Nice that this is resolved now.

@egreg What bothers me, are there no hebrew polyglossia users?

egreg

@Johannes_B I proposed the fix to Arthur Reutenauer.

@Johannes_B Don't look at me: I just know aleph.

Johannes_B

@egreg I've seen the issue. But Arthur wasn't very active recently, if i recall correctly?

@egreg :-D Same here

Joseph Wright

7:58 AM

@Johannes_B Possibly not

egreg

@Johannes_B He replied to a bug report some days ago.

Johannes_B

@JosephWright Hopefully this is fixed soon.
Gotta go, guys. See you.

Joseph Wright

@Johannes_B yes

Paulo Cereda

@FaheemMitha: AI, I am stuck with the acronym in Portuguese.

David Carlisle

8:17 AM

@JosephWright oops, have you head from Robin recently?

Joseph Wright

9:04 AM

@DavidCarlisle Have spoken to him by 'phone this morning (thanks to @barbarabeeton for tracking down his number)

David Carlisle

@JosephWright did UKTUG get any further with looking at a new node after last AGM?

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle E-mail on this in a second

David Carlisle

@JosephWright OK

user4275686

How to learn the LATEX type setting? Is there any tool that can make it easier?

Joseph Wright

206

Q: What are good learning resources for a LaTeX beginner?

Which book (free or otherwise) was the most useful to you when you started learning LaTeX? I am frequently asked this question by friends who want to learn LaTeX, and I recommend the book which got me started, The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2ε, but I feel that there might be better option...

egreg

9:18 AM

@DavidCarlisle Long and detailed answer gets the tick. :P

David Carlisle

@egreg mine? At least it was original researched text, not just a copy of someone else's answer posted earlier, with a space token added:-)

@egreg oh you mean you stole my tick. Disgraceful!

Paulo Cereda

10:17 AM

2

yo'

12:19 PM

@JosephWright Can I ask you please, can you remove close votes? (asking just out of curiosity, but needed to say, this is slightly related)

yo'

12:50 PM

How long should be an abstract for TUG? Is two sentences not enough?

Johannes_B

1:02 PM

@StefanKottwitz I think Marco deserves the Botschafter medal as well, mrunix.de/forums/…

Faheem Mitha

1:35 PM

@yo' yo

Sorry, just can't resist.

yo'

@FaheemMitha 'yo!

@FaheemMitha :)

Faheem Mitha

So, TUG 15 excitement.

Oh, July. Long time.

barbara beeton

@yo' -- depends what the two sentences say. if there's enough to make the selection committee think that there's a good talk behind it, and that anyone reading the abstracts with a view toward deciding on that basis to attend, then that'll probably do.

yo'

@barbarabeeton ok, thanks. I think it would be enough here, but I'll give it some time and decide later on.

David Carlisle

@barbarabeeton I thought the usual abstract was "oh go on then, I'll do something if you stop nagging"

barbara beeton

1:40 PM

@DavidCarlisle -- only for you, david, only for you.

Paulo Cereda

Should I apply for a Skype talk?

barbara beeton

@PauloCereda -- it's been done before.

Paulo Cereda

@barbarabeeton oh

yo'

@PauloCereda YES!

Johannes_B

@DavidCarlisle I am not quite sure if i should laugh or cry about tex.stackexchange.com/questions/235919/…

\usepackage{color}
\usepackage[
    %round, %(default) for round parentheses;
    square, % for square brackets;
    %curly, % for curly braces;
    %angle, % for angle brackets;
    %colon, % (default) to separate multiple citations with colons;
    comma, % to use commas as separaters;
    %authoryear,% (default) for author-year citations;
    numbers, % for numerical citations;
    %super, % for superscripted numerical citations, as in Nature;
    sort, % orders multiple citations into the sequence in which they appear in

Paulo Cereda

1:55 PM

@yo' <3

Faheem Mitha

Something going on with the Cambridge CTAN server?

What group was in charge of that?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Yes

@FaheemMitha In what sense 'in charge'?

@Johannes_B Oh goodness

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Owned and managed, I guess. I thought it was some UK group. Was I wrong?

Johannes_B

@FaheemMitha Local user group? Administrator?

Faheem Mitha

@Johannes_B ?

Joseph Wright

1:57 PM

@FaheemMitha Depends on your POV

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright That's a bit cryptic.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha The server used was paid for by UK-TUG some years ago, and as such the node is sometimes referred to as the UK-TUG node

Faheem Mitha

If it depends on a point of view, no wonder there are issues.

Johannes_B

@FaheemMitha @JosephWright and i try to shed some light on your question.

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Ok.

What OS does this server run?

Dinner time! Later, guys.

@Johannes_B Will try or have tried?

Johannes_B

2:00 PM

@FaheemMitha Both i guess :-)

Faheem Mitha

@Johannes_B :-)

David Carlisle

@Johannes_B apart from it being a little long, it doesn't generate the error stated

Faheem Mitha

@Johannes_B Perhaps both? And at the same time.

Johannes_B

@FaheemMitha enjoy your meal - 맛있게 드세요

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Pass

Johannes_B

2:02 PM

@DavidCarlisle I was just about to try it out.

Faheem Mitha

@Johannes_B What language was that? Elvish runes?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Server is currently in Cambridge University Computer Lab and administered by Robin Fairbairns, who has done that for years

Johannes_B

2

A: Sorting bibliography entries of similar author and year

The default sorting scheme with biblatex is nyt (name, year, title). You can choose from a couple of predefined schemes, some more information can also be found in biblatex sorting by date. In the following example, we use booktitle = {Korean cuisine}, sorttitle = {Korea...

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Oh, Ok. I see.

Hopefully it runs Debian. If it doesn't, it should.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha No idea: down to RF

@FaheemMitha Possibly running an older distro (SlackWare?)

@FaheemMitha Robin has retired, which means it will need to move at some stage

barbara beeton

2:06 PM

@FaheemMitha -- even if a formal tex group funds a ctan site, there still has to be some responsible person on site. the person at cambridge retired last fall; we have good reason to thank him copiously for his long and faithful service, and now hope that he is able to enjoy his well-deserved retirement.

Joseph Wright

@barbarabeeton Indeed

@barbarabeeton I spoke to him this morning (thanks for phone number suggestion)

@FaheemMitha I'm having some discussion with the CTAN team about the status of the Cambridge node as I'm UK-TUG Secretary/webmaster

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright YEAHHHH

Joseph Wright

@PauloCereda I really don't know, of course

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright Being a UK-TUG member, please poke me if I can be of service. :)

Joseph Wright

@PauloCereda Server moved from Aston to Cambridge in the early 1990s, dates in the public logs start in 1996

@PauloCereda Of course

@PauloCereda First there has to be some discussion with the CTAN team, including of course Robin, about what is the best plan for the future

Paulo Cereda

2:19 PM

@JosephWright Cool.

Poke me at any moment.

Johannes_B

Reading DIN standard about typography and or how a document should look like is just ridiculous. No wonder supervisors ask for documents with almost no margins, sans-serif and deactivated hyphenation but still justified text. That is madness.

yo'

No, no and no! ISO hyper-super-best-in-the-world-standards may be (not are) a good choice for technical reports, regulations etc. But they are the worst choice for communicating things to normal people. The only case when they are a good choice in such case is when they coincide with the notation you chose for another reason. — yo' 38 mins ago

@Johannes_B Yes, it is madness. But I would much more prefer to call it stupidity.

Johannes_B

@yo' I had a little bit of hope, but ISO 690 is just as ugly.

yo'

@Johannes_B :D

Johannes_B

1

Q: Making a paperback book from a LaTeX file

I was directed here by the good people at Ask Metafilter. This site will only let me post 2 links, so for the others please look there. I need to reformat a LaTeX document: PDF for printing as a paperback. at the Asquith Press Book Printing Service in Toronto. What's the ideal format for a PD...

floats geometry books

David Carlisle

2:32 PM

@yo' stick to ISO 40314, it's brilliant.

yo'

@DavidCarlisle Funny that you can buy ISO standards specification.

David Carlisle

@yo' I can't afford that one.

yo'

@DavidCarlisle I don't understand why I see the price in CHF, but it is several hundred euros, and I don't think anything ISO ever created is worth that much.

It seems to me that international scientific unions are much better in making standards than ISO, DIN or IEEE are.

^^ finally it fits in the right panel. Let's make an ISO for chat messages, it would specify a given length and a font size at least 30 px, so that even my myopic friend can read it.

Paulo Cereda

@FrancescoEndrici: Ciao!

David Carlisle

@yo' for things like web standards yes. For safety at work standards, etc, possibly less so. The cost per standard never really used to matter as they were only bought by government supported libraries anyway so it was just a way of helping to fund the organisations (not over-funded from what I've seen) problem is when they reach areas governing end user developers where either the standard needs to be publicly available or it will be unused, they haven't got a good model yet

Faheem Mitha

2:41 PM

@JosephWright Ok. I think Robin Fairbairns is active on comp.text.tex, or was anyway. I remember he answered a few of my questions once. But that was a long time ago.

tug.org/interviews/fairbairns.html says he is a sysadmin at CUCL, so it makes sense, I guess.

When I was at Cambridge, they didn't use computers. I mean, they had them, but it was a bit of a joke. And they weren't very useful. As I recall, my college refused to give me an email address, so that didn't help. Friendly people.

yo'

@DavidCarlisle well, you need not take me too literally. But my point is: IAU manages to define the time etc. very well, and they IMHO deal with much bigger problems. ISO deals with trivial stuff, but seems to make it just overly complicated because they're a bunch of bureaucrats. And your point about "end users" is precise: I'm not ever going to follow the math notation ISO even if I thought it's a good idea, simply because I can't know it.

Faheem Mitha

Cambridge is a bit of a computer hub now, I think. Half the UK Debian devs seem to be located there.

@barbarabeeton Excuse my ignorance. I don't know anything about TUGs.

Looks like CTAN has three main "nodes", per WP, anyway.

CTAN

CTAN (an acronym for "Comprehensive TeX Archive Network") is the authoritative place where TeX related material and software can be found for download. Repositories for other projects, such as the MiKTeX distribution of TeX, constantly mirror most of CTAN. The Perl archive, CPAN, is based on the CTAN model. == History == Before CTAN there were a number of people who made some TeX materials available for public download, but there was no systematic collection. At a podium discussion that Joachim Schrod organized at the 1991 EuroTeX conference, the idea arose to bring together the separate ...

Oh, the American one no longer exists. If I understand correctly.

David Carlisle

@yo' This came up in chat the other day, I really should post an issue on unicode-math. It makes the problem seem much worse as it has "iso" options for math implying that ISO as a whole has taken some view on math typography. But that isn't how ISO works. One particular group of engineers felt it useful to standardise markup in their area, and if they bother to write it up, and no one objects, it can (and was) standardised by ISO.

@yo' 80000-2 math markup doesn't need to affect you any more than the standard for a UK three pin plug. Unfortunately Unicode-math just references ISO as an organisation and doesn't seem to mention which standard those options follow.

Faheem Mitha

Once upon a time, there was something called TeXhax.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha still is

barbara beeton

2:53 PM

@FaheemMitha -- wikipedia isn't always up to date (or necessarily definitively correct in other ways). it is true that the u.s. ctan host is no longer in existence, and hasn't been for several years.

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Ok

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha tug.org/pipermail/texhax

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Yes. I see.

@barbarabeeton I don't believe everything I read on WP. Or anywhere else on the net, for that matter. Or, for that matter of fact, anywhere else. Even peer reviewed journals are routinely wrong. I do, however, believe TeX answers by members of this forum.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha even @egreg's?

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Especially @egregs.

David Carlisle

2:57 PM

@FaheemMitha strange:)

barbara beeton

@FaheemMitha -- the members of this forum are very good at "self policing", and if someone gives a wrong answer, s/he is very quickly informed of that fact, and why it's incorrect.

Faheem Mitha

I see texhax says it is for general questions, but the kind of questions look very technical. It doesn't look like a general support forum.

@barbarabeeton Indeed. In WP it is just as likely to go the other way.

I know that people still use comp.text.tex, but afaik it's the only place for TeX support. Aside from here, of course.

egreg

3:09 PM

@DavidCarlisle :)

Joseph Wright

3:43 PM

@FaheemMitha Which one, when?

@FaheemMitha Robin used to do Windows admin until his retirement

@FaheemMitha Has varied over time: several core nodes was the right model when it was set up

@barbarabeeton As a core node: there's still a mirror there

barbara beeton

@JosephWright -- yes, thanks. (i do still rely on it as a mirror; depending on what i'm looking for, i'm very particular -- the "random" mirror selection doesn't always deliver what i need. i try really hard to avoid going to the german core node, except to post new package versions. they've got more than enough to worry about, and i'm grateful that they do such a good job.)

Joseph Wright

@barbarabeeton I traditionally have used the core node at Cambridge as it's a one-hope JANET stop from here :-)

@barbarabeeton JANET is the UK academic backbone: very fast

Andrew Cashner

Can we use array or something to apply a command to every element of a tabular column just by specifying in the preamble? For this question: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/235951/…

barbara beeton

@JosephWright -- yes, i remember janet from pre-internet days. my first e-mail account was on stanford sail, accessed via modem, long distance. communication is almost too easy now.

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Sorry. Which one what?

Joseph Wright

3:55 PM

> my college refused to give me an email address

@barbarabeeton They are still about: we (UEA) connect to Cambridge for the JANET backbone

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Oh, so which college? Trinity.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Ah, big, rich, not known for giving stuff out very easily

David Carlisle

@AndrewCashner yes but if it is in a tabular there are answers allready (eg giving each range a different colour)

Andrew Cashner

@DavidCarlisle Just found collcell

Faheem Mitha

4:11 PM

@JosephWright Not the nicest people. The only time in my experience when an email address has been considered a valuable commodity. I wanted an email address because I was applying to US colleges. I remember I had to write a request letter to the Fellow in charge, and he wrote back that he didn't think I had a real need!

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha I'm guessing that this was some time ago

Faheem Mitha

Though I found Cambridge academics in general to be some of the most unpleasant people I've met.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Trinity didn't have the best reputation for helpfulness when I was doing my PhD, but that was very much hearsay

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Yes, it was. These days you go to gmail.

Or the other 1000 other options out there. But gmail seems popular.

Personally, I prefer buying a email hosting service.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha I meant that e-mail addresses at universities have been given out as-standard to people for many years. I certainly had one from being an undergrad, almost 20 years ago now

@FaheemMitha Certainly: while I have a GMail account it's really not that important, as morningstar2.co.uk is a domain I own and pay for proper e-mail support

Faheem Mitha

4:14 PM

@JosephWright I don't remember all the details, but even at that time it was a little odd to make an issue of an email address.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Indeed

Faheem Mitha

I remember being quite shocked, but didn't do anything at the time.

I think the Trinity people had the people they approved of, and the people they didn't approve of. If you were in the latter category, they would mostly ignore you, I think. Though this was a long time ago.

@JosephWright what hosting service do you use?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Currently for that one easily.co.uk but other stuff such as my blog is hosted by m247.com

barbara beeton

@FaheemMitha -- there are other sources listed at ams.org/tex/additional-sources. admittedly, it needs an update (on my list), and it's english only; there are good forums in other languages too, german being the one i know best.

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright email hosting? or web hosting?

@barbarabeeton I see comp.text.tex, texhax, and here. The others are specialist forums.

Joseph Wright

4:19 PM

@FaheemMitha morningstar2.co.uk is just an e-mail redirect, so Easily do that. My blog has web hosting. The split happened because UK-TUG were on M247 so when I took over as webmaster I wanted a 'test' account, which is where my blog started

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright is Easily your main email host then?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Yes

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Ok, and you are satisfied with them? I use Luxsci, out of Boston. Well, near Boston.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha The current webmail they provide is not great, and although I use it only rarely that's a bit annoying. However, SMTP/IMAP access has always been good so I am unlikely to move it!

Faheem Mitha

They use sendmail for some reason. And they have a clunky web mail interface, but they have been pretty reliable. 0% downtime as far as I can tell. $10 per month. I chose them because the worst thing anyone could find to say about them was that they cost too much.

Apparently $5 per month is the sweet spot for email hosting.

Joseph Wright

4:22 PM

@FaheemMitha Sounds about right

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Is that what you pay?

Or the Uk equivalent?

Paulo Cereda

I was in the bus station last week when my cellphone rang. It was quite surprising to hear a girl nearby saying to me, "Is that the Doctor Who main theme?"

Faheem Mitha

Easily's front page looks like a registrars.

@PauloCereda And was it?

Paulo Cereda

@FaheemMitha Yes, my ringtone.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha £20 per year per account with 200Mb mailbox

Faheem Mitha

4:24 PM

I thought of changing my ring tone to the Kim Possible theme, but couldn't figure out how.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Yes, of course

Faheem Mitha

I'm one of those Neanderthals without a smartphone.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Domain itself is £9 for two years

@FaheemMitha Same here

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright That's a good price.

@JosephWright Nice to know I'm not alone.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Pretty standard for the UK

Faheem Mitha

4:25 PM

@JosephWright ok

I think Luxsci gives more space though.

But I don't use any. Download everything to my machine.

I don't really understand why anyone would choose to use Sendmail these days.

Weird, people ask LaTeX questions on AskMe.

Paulo Cereda

@FaheemMitha KP's phrase So what's the sitch? was translated to Que hay? in Spanish.

Something along the lines of What now?

Faheem Mitha

Ask Metafilter, that is.

@PauloCereda That's a poor translation. How about "no big"?

Paulo Cereda

@FaheemMitha Not my favourite sound. :)

Johannes_B

@FaheemMitha I am a penguin and don't have a smartphone as well.

Faheem Mitha

@PauloCereda ?

Paulo Cereda

4:33 PM

@FaheemMitha I don't like the sound of that translation.

Faheem Mitha

@Johannes_B you're a penguin? I didn't know that. A penguin with a computer, apparently.

You and Paulo should get together. A penguin and a duck. You could have adventures together.

Maybe they'll make a comic about you.

Johannes_B

@FaheemMitha I think at least @Paulo knows i am a penguin :-)

Faheem Mitha

@Johannes_B takes one to know one.

Paulo Cereda

Guess which one is @Johannes. :)

Johannes_B

@PauloCereda If the one falling down is called template then the other one is called Gunnar ;-)

Paulo Cereda

4:37 PM

@Johannes_B LOL

Sean Allred

5:14 PM

@PauloCereda future arara 4 users be like

Paulo Cereda

@SeanAllred ooh <3

barbara beeton

5:43 PM

@SeanAllred -- there's always one headed in the opposite direction.

cfr

8:23 PM

@JosephWright The UK-TUG stuff is really, really helpful. I'm adapting it a bit, of course. Could you tell me how long the course is designed to take? Judging by the timings, I'm guessing it is a bit shorter than the one I'm teaching. I'm meant to provide 7 hours of stuff, with 1 hour of breaks/lunch interspersed. But I will probably be a bit generous with the breaks as I don't think that is really enough.

Joseph Wright

@cfr Ours has typically run from about 10 am to 5 pm with the last hour for 'Q&A' and a reasonable lunch/coffee break built in. Seven hours sounds like hard work all round.

@cfr The UK-TUG sessions have always had a very good 'staff'/'student' ratio so we've exploited the breaks to allow free-form questions. That's much harder with just one of you: Kate Jeary in Cambridge runs courses like that and has a very tight ship.

cfr

@JosephWright Thanks. Yes. I might have to need the loo a lot during the breaks or it will be unmanageable.

Joseph Wright

@cfr When are you doing this?

cfr

@JosephWright Wednesday. I'm running a follow up one in June if I survive this one.

Joseph Wright

@cfr Ah

@cfr So we should expect new members on Wednesday/Thursday!

cfr

8:30 PM

@JosephWright Eh?

Well, Overleaf should, anyway!

But, yes, very likely...

Joseph Wright

@cfr I shall feed back to the committee and 'course team' that we've been helpful :-)

@NicolaTalbot Will I am sure be happy to take the real credit (the structure is hers)

egreg

There are more things in heaven and TeX, @percusse, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. :)

2

Hey!

@Iplodman Hi!

What's up? :)

8:39 PM

@Iplodman Shakespearean mood. ;-)

Iplodman

I'm being Dickenzian (?) at the moment ;P

Reading Great Expectations c:

egreg

@Iplodman Great novel! I love Dickens.

Iplodman

He's great :p

I'm slowly reading through them when I have a few spare moments.

egreg

@Iplodman In my LaTeX course I use the incipit of “David Copperfield” as an example of the quotation environment. I'm sad to say that no student knows it.

Iplodman

D:

I own a hardback copy of it ;P I haven't started on it yet c:

egreg

8:46 PM

@Iplodman I read it both in Italian and in English.

Iplodman

It'd be difficult to read it in another language, it seems to me.

egreg

@Iplodman I found out that the original version is much better! The translation is unable to render the different language registers. It requires some effort, but it's worth it.

Iplodman

^

;P

Do you read the first edition (unedited, indecipherable text) or the newer editions? ;P

(Joking, but I don't find fun in the original writings.)

egreg

@Iplodman I have the Penguin one.

Iplodman

Same here :p

Frank Mittelbach

8:53 PM

guys I need some help ...

Iplodman

@FrankMittelbach 'Sup?

egreg

@Iplodman Bought in a bookshop in Victoria Street, London.

@FrankMittelbach Fire away.

Frank Mittelbach

I need a somewhat save way to remove white space (from a possible larger number of \addvspaces at the end of box)

safe

include \vspace but leave \vspace* in tact

Johannes_B

Can somebody have a look at the first sentence of chapter three in texdoc mathmode (January 30, 2014 is available on my machine). Is that a good wording?

Joseph Wright

@FrankMittelbach multicols?

Frank Mittelbach

8:56 PM

by recent attempt was based on a wrong assumption that \vspace and \vspace* differ in the fact that only the latter has a \vskip0pt at the end

but they both have (and I should have known)

@JosephWright yes ... this is going to kill me one day

egreg

@FrankMittelbach Hey, if \vspace* had \vskip-1sp …

Joseph Wright

@FrankMittelbach Finish xor, check xgalley, do the job properly?

> This means, that every formula gets its own paragraph (line).?

Johannes_B

@JosephWright Exactly, this sentence.

Joseph Wright

@Johannes_B No, not a good sentence

Frank Mittelbach

so here is my latest attempt (which I think might work though it is not tail recursion safe right now) but it looks ugly

\skip0=0pt
\edef\the@zero@skip{\the\skip0}
\def\remove@discardable@items{%
\unpenalty
\edef\@tempa{\the\lastskip}%
\ifx\@tempa\the@zero@skip
\unskip
\edef\@tempb{\the\lastskip}%
\ifx\@tempb\the@zero@skip
\else
\unskip
\ifnum \lastpenalty=\@M
\vskip\@tempb\vskip\@tempa\relax
\else
\remove@discardable@items
\fi
\fi
\else
\remove@discardable@items
\fi
}

Joseph Wright

8:58 PM

@Johannes_B The subject is not in the sentence itself but rather the section header, the comma is a splice, ...

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg yes 1sp would have or even better -1sp I guess but that is not an option

Johannes_B

@JosephWright I am more worried about the word paragraph.

Joseph Wright

@Johannes_B Oh, the technical, not the English, quality

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg question is which cases are not covered by this?

Iplodman

@egreg I went up to London to get books today, incidentally ;P

Joseph Wright

9:00 PM

@Johannes_B Not really right either, is it :-)

Johannes_B

@JosephWright Yep, i would be ok with the single word line. Or did i miss something (like a few days back) once again?

egreg

@FrankMittelbach Well, it doesn't really catch \vspace*, but only a \penalty10000.

@Iplodman Nice job!

Iplodman

:p

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg well it does sort of ... it catches a zero skip followed by a nonzero skip followed by a penalty 1000 which is kind of what \vspace* produces any better suggestion (without changing \vspace*)?

at least that's the intention

egreg

@FrankMittelbach Let's all typeset in one column.

@FrankMittelbach I don't think you can do better as you can't catch a rule.

Frank Mittelbach

9:08 PM

@egreg that would help

Johannes_B

\ProvidesFile{ltmath.dtx}
[2005/11/10 v1.1g LaTeX Kernel (Math Setup)]

% \begin{macro}{\]}
% Produces |$$...$$| with checks that |\[| isn't used in math mode,
% and that |\]| is only used in math mode begun with |\]|.
% \begin{macrocode}

egreg

@FrankMittelbach With \lastnodetype you could.

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg you mean checkin that in front of the penalty there is a rule?

you could do that but it still doesn't really prove its \vspace

egreg

@FrankMittelbach Of course: that information is lost.

Frank Mittelbach

on the other hand if somebody says \nobreak\vspace then I think from a UI perspective it would make sense to keep the space in that case too (which the above code should do)

Johannes_B

9:11 PM

@FrankMittelbach Any chance that you have been sitting over ltmath.dtx and can explain why there is the makebox in the definition of \[?

Frank Mittelbach

@Johannes_B one problem at a time ... yes I think I do

Johannes_B

@FrankMittelbach Nice, thanks.

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg to recap ... what I'm trying to do is to remove spaces from the bottom of a column, for example if somebody goes \columnbreak after an end{itemize}

Paulo Cereda

@egreg ooh Giselle Bündchen. <3

Frank Mittelbach

as then you really want the last item to end the column

Paulo Cereda

9:13 PM

@FrankMittelbach multicols is so awesome I can't think of my life without that package. :)

Frank Mittelbach

so one needs to backup by an arbitrary number of \addvspaces

egreg

@FrankMittelbach That's what I thought you were trying to do.

Frank Mittelbach

and if there ends up being a break after a \space then that should vanish too

but not if it was a \vspace*

at leas that's my thinking

so I need to figure out if it is a vspace * and if so stop removing stuff and put it back (sort of)

my previous attempts where all wrong in one or the other use cases .. the last one worked nicely with \addvspace but failed on \vspace as it kept the space and only removed the 0pt after it

egreg

@FrankMittelbach Yes: it's impossible to be certain of it. It could be a \nopagebreak\vspace{3pt} and not a \vspace*, but it would be quite the same.

Frank Mittelbach

this one now gets further but it looks horribly elaborated

@egreg somethign like that under my "logic" should stay too and it would ...

so in summary nothing looks obviously wrong but nothing looks like it could be simplified much !?

it is not tail recursive but I guess there is no need to through in millions of expandafter as the number of spaces to removee will be reasonable (at least as an assumption)

egreg

9:18 PM

@FrankMittelbach I can't see anything better.

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg thanks ... will then put it in tomorrow and wait for the next error report :-)

@Johannes_B so why do you want to know?

egreg

@FrankMittelbach Or you could change \vspace* inside multicols. ;-)

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg thought of this but again that is kind of hmmpf

Johannes_B

@FrankMittelbach I can't figure out (with my limited knowledge) why you (or whoever it was) is placing a makebox there, more specifically with a width of .6\linewidth.

Frank Mittelbach

it all comes down to the TeX limitation of doing a proper \unskip on the main vertical list

egreg

9:20 PM

@FrankMittelbach I understand, that's why I added the ;-) smirk

Frank Mittelbach

@Johannes_B Leslie

not hour fault

our

Johannes_B

@FrankMittelbach Hm.

@FrankMittelbach Pressing the arrow-up button, you can edit the last message ;-)

Frank Mittelbach

@Johannes_B why should I bother I make so many typos and this is faster :-) but thanks anyway I didn't know that ... indeed it does

Johannes_B

@FrankMittelbach Once again, the answer to one of my kernel questions is: Leslie.

@FrankMittelbach :-)

Joseph Wright

@FrankMittelbach Yup, finish xor, xgalley, ... like I said

egreg

9:22 PM

@Johannes_B With amsmath there's no \makebox

Frank Mittelbach

@JosephWright next time around

@egreg yes

Johannes_B

@FrankMittelbach If you could check if this contains a typo in ltmath chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/20823119#20823119

Frank Mittelbach

hint hint

Joseph Wright

@FrankMittelbach Indeed

@FrankMittelbach We will have lots to talk about at the TUG meeting

Frank Mittelbach

@Johannes_B don't quite get the reference

Johannes_B

9:24 PM

15 mins ago, by Johannes_B

\ProvidesFile{ltmath.dtx}
[2005/11/10 v1.1g LaTeX Kernel (Math Setup)]

% \begin{macro}{\]}
% Produces |$$...$$| with checks that |\[| isn't used in math mode,
% and that |\]| is only used in math mode begun with |\]|.
% \begin{macrocode}

@FrankMittelbach ^^^^ Shouldn't \] close only stuff opened with \[ (instead of \])?

Or is it that late at night, that i ...

Frank Mittelbach

ah that :-) ok now I got it

yes that is oe rather was a bug

in the documentation I just updated it

@Johannes_B anyway you still want to know why the box?

Johannes_B

@FrankMittelbach Interested, yeah sure. There has to be some reason, right?

Frank Mittelbach

has to do with \shortdisplayskip an the like

sorry meant \abovedisplayshortskip

Johannes_B

@FrankMittelbach Ok, thanks. Gotta look a bit deeper in the code.

Frank Mittelbach

@Johannes_B more a question os style ... Leslie doesnt like the shortskips to be applied in that case so he put something in front wide enough to have the normal skips applied (why .6 don't ask me :-)

egreg

9:37 PM

@Johannes_B The main problem is when \[ appears in vertical mode, for instance just after another \[...\]. In this case, the “short skips” would be used, making spacing non uniform, so the \makebox is wide enough to guarantee the non short skips enter the scene, if I interpret well the code. Of course this is just a workaround for not having proper multiline displays: LaTeX was unusable for serious math typesetting until amslatex was released.

Johannes_B

@egreg This seems to be matching @Frank's explanatin. Thanks guys. :-)

egreg

@Johannes_B As an AMS-TeX user, I was immediately struck by the appalling aspect of eqnarray.

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg well amstex was around ... but LaTeX was for Leslie's work and he didn't need much math ... yes eqnarray is wonderful :-9

Johannes_B

amsmath.dtx is opened. Goota look around a bit. Seems to be a bit more complicated than the code by Leslie. :-)

Frank Mittelbach

@Johannes_B Leslie was concernt with document structure amstex was concerned with typestting really complex (short) math articles

Johannes_B

9:44 PM

@FrankMittelbach Well, i don't need that many math, but it is very interesting.

Frank Mittelbach

we (that is Rainer and I) then got comissioned to rewrite the amstex code to fit LaTeX conventions and integrate with it ... and that is what eventually became amsmath (initially it was a special format call amslatex

@Johannes_B it's a good enough excuse and if you would ask Leslie he would probably say that he doesn't remember so it is kinda safe :-)

Johannes_B

@FrankMittelbach That happens with @DavidCarlisle all the time. :-D

Frank Mittelbach

@Johannes_B that he doesn't remember or that he claims it was Leslie's fault?

Johannes_B

@FrankMittelbach Actually, i have seen both :-)

Frank Mittelbach

@Johannes_B what's your age?

Johannes_B

9:55 PM

@FrankMittelbach Too young to remember anything. Soon after i was born, the GDR ceased to exist.