TeX, LaTeX and Friends

Ariel

12:11 AM

@MartinScharrer what is the font in your manual for MWE?

Martin Scharrer

@Ariel fourier

\usepackage{fourier}

Ariel

@MartinScharrer thank you! looks very good!

Martin Scharrer

@Ariel Took me a while to find a good font for my packages. I think I just the one from the etoolbox manual then.

user19161

How about using the Ubuntu font? :-)

Ariel

@JasperLoy :) it looks good in the operating system but slightly weird on formal docs

@JasperLoy recent viewing of the Avengers (and hence the new icon?) :-)]

user19161

12:21 AM

@Ariel Yes, it reminds me of Comic Sans MS. I am on Ubuntu 12.04 now, with GNOME shell though.

Ariel

@JasperLoy I thought you said you didn't like it?

user19161

@Ariel Nope, don't even know about the movie. Just suddenly felt like it. I may call myself Clark Kent in a few days!

user19161

@Ariel I did not like the Unity shell, but GNOME shell is fine. I will wait till Debian Wheezy comes out in December and compare the two.

Ariel

@JasperLoy hee hee. its my subconscious speaking. I want to see the movie - more as a break than anything else. But I am overridden with guilt about completing the dissertation so I really can't see it or take a break. AARRGH. I want to get done. this has dragged out too long.

I don't know how people complete their PhDs. The last few months are the worst.

At least I don't have to deal with M$ word.

user19161

@Ariel You are doing statistics?

Ariel

12:26 AM

@JasperLoy more or less - applied statistics within cancer epidemiology.

user19161

@Ariel Hmm, OK. I have forgotten all my statistics now. I studied math as an undergrad. Maybe I'll apply to grad school in a couple of years if things go well.

Ariel

@JasperLoy what field are you planning to go into?

user19161

@Ariel Math.

Ariel

@JasperLoy Of course. :) (I smile because almost everyone here is into maths of some sort or the other)

user19161

@Ariel Er, well, math is everywhere. Arithmetic is everywhere for one. :-)

Ariel

12:31 AM

@JasperLoy Maybe but maths is highly prevalent in this particular chat room. :)

user19161

@Ariel Er, actually I don't find it so. I find Ubuntu more highly prevalent here.

Ariel

@JasperLoy timing!! whenever I come in here, its around 4-5 mathematicians discussing the intricacies of LaTeX and finer examples.

@JasperLoy I remember you asked me in what way I would like the stat.stx to be like tex.stx.

user19161

@Ariel Yes, and the way is? Ubuntu talk? Math talk?

Ariel

The responses here are thorough, always fast and incredibly efficient. Its a model Q&A community where real developers are around and genuinely interested in helping everyone who maybe be facing problems. But the stats.stx is apathetic at best

Its possible that many questions are frivolous and far beyond the scope of that forum. For example, I have seen questions like: "here is my data, what test shall I use?", those are the classical "do-it-for-me" Qs. But on the whole, the community does not have a whole lot of participation.

user19161

@Ariel Hmm, what do you mean by frivolous questions? Poorly written questions on Stats?

Ariel

12:39 AM

@JasperLoy maybe frivolous was a wrong adjective. More "not-taking-any-effort-to-find-answers" than frivolous.

The more I think about it maybe I am being harsh. Maybe the two communities really are not comparable.

percusse

@PeterGrill I have a very stupid construct :)

\newdimen\myradlen
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\radofnode}[1]{
\pgf@process{\pgfpointanchor{#1}{north}}
\pgf@xa=\pgf@x
\pgf@ya=\pgf@y
\pgf@process{\pgfpointanchor{#1}{south}}
\pgf@xb=\pgf@x
\pgf@yb=\pgf@y
\pgfmathparse{veclen(\pgf@xa-\pgf@xb,\pgf@ya-\pgf@yb)}
\setlength\myradlen{\pgfmathresult pt}
}
\makeatother
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[circle,draw] (A) at (0,0) {Some text};
\radofnode{A}
\node[draw,circle,minimum height=\myradlen] (V) at (2,0) {};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

I think I tried something fancy but failed

user19161

@Ariel But does Stats cater to questions of all levels? For example, Math is supposed to.

percusse

The easiest is to find the distance of the node's opposite anchors such as (A.south) and (A.north)

Ariel

@JasperLoy I am not sure. That's the thing. I think it was started for statistics with some moderate proficiency assumed beforehand (and possibly an assumption that question-askers would alleast know basic concepts before they proceeded to ask something...)

user19161

@Ariel Hey, with regard to what we said in the other room, I've shared so much stuff there that I won't want the whole world to know. They're all buried deep in the transcript!

Ariel

12:48 AM

@JasperLoy oops! and transcripts are searchable! {Just kidding.. and trying to unsettle you a bit ;-)}

Supper calls. See you later!

Martin Scharrer

Ok, mwe is sent to CTAN.

Anyone an idea why the Dante upload page redirects to the UK upload page?

user19161

By the way, the site tug.org.in was down for a few months but it is OK now.

Peter Grill

1:14 AM

@percusse Seems to work... I did not realize it was going to be so involved -- Should I post a question so we can have this available if we need it?

user19161

1:33 AM

@Ariel How was supper?

Ariel

@JasperLoy quick. :) papayas + apples + almonds + lemon + bread toast and butter.

@JasperLoy what time zone are you in?

user19161

@Ariel I'm in Singapore, UTC+8.

Ariel

@JasperLoy Wow! I always wanted to go to Singapore!

user19161

@Ariel Where are you?

Ariel

Buffalo, NY. GMT - 4

user19161

1:37 AM

@Ariel Well, nothing much to see here. Does not appear on the smaller world maps!

user19161

@Ariel Yes I happen to remember that NY is 12 hours behind, so just convert AM to PM and PM to AM.

Ariel

@JasperLoy Are you kidding? I did a paper on Singapore when I was in high school. Its the most fascinating place. You have so many cuisines, the best of many cultures, a government completely committed to keeping everything squeaky clean, old and awesome architecture. Did I say, fantastic cuisine?

user19161

@Ariel You writing about S is unbelievable, haha. Hmm NY, that's where the SE offices are I think.

Ariel

Someday I want to learn Chinese. I am forever hunting down new Teas.

user19161

@Ariel I am Chinese, and I speak Chinese and English.

Ariel

1:43 AM

I mean to write a new message but ended up editing my old one. sorry about that! And now its too late to place it in context and reedit

user19161

Ha, there are people who write a message and then delete it before 2 min so that others can't read it!

Ariel

@JasperLoy Whoa, I just deleted one of mine! I didn't notice there was a delete button!

percusse

@PeterGrill I might be a good idea. I can't think straight right now.

There must be a very simple way to do this but I can't make any sense with the simplest requirement.

user19161

@Ariel Yes, remember you can only do it within 2 min. After that you must flag for mod attention which is not a good idea because that will attract attention from the entire team of SE mods!

user19161

@Ariel You mean you like Chinese tea? I usually drink tea but not Chinese tea.

Ariel

1:47 AM

@JasperLoy I LOVE tea of all kinds. Mostly black but a lot of green and red.

user19161

@Ariel So you must know that there is only one tea species right?

user19161

Coffee on the other hand has different ones I think.

Ariel

@JasperLoy I have been trying to make sense of this website for a long time now: tea-sci.com/baike/…

user19161

@Ariel Have you tried using google translate?

Ariel

@JasperLoy Heh, leads to hilarious results. I went armed with knowledge from the google translate of that website and the lady in China town in NYC stared at me as it I was completely nuts. I suspect I mispronounced something so it sounded like gibberish to her.

user19161

1:51 AM

@Ariel Ha, there is a Chinatown here too!

Ariel

@JasperLoy I think there is a Chinatown in every major city here! There is also little italy, little india and little mexico. Come to think of it, I wonder why they are not Italytown, Indiantown and Mexicotown

user19161

@Ariel There is a Little India here too! Well I know you have all the News: York, Mexico, Jersey, etc.

Ariel

NY state has a lack of creativity when it comes to names. We have Greece, Holland and even a Delhi - all remote suburban/ semi-rural communities deep within NY.

user19161

There is a Holland Village here!

Ariel

@JasperLoy :)

user19161

1:58 AM

@Ariel OK, I'm off for now. See you.

Village

6:18 AM

The ConTeXt wiki front page has three new chapters from the manual, and asks for feedback, but does not say who to contact. I have some suggestions for the chapters. where should these be sent?

Andrew Stacey

7:16 AM

@Jake I removed the attribution from your answer as I'd removed the comment so it looked confusing otherwise - I don't think that that point is worth attributing.

Just found out about rosettacode.org/wiki/Draw_a_sphere There is an obvious omission there.

Jake

7:35 AM

@AndrewStacey The omission is indeed obvious, but I wouldn't immediately know how to fix it. The ball shading gets close, but most examples on the Rosetta Code page generate "proper" (i.e. non-circular) highlights. Do you know off the top of your head how to do that in TikZ?

Jake

7:58 AM

0

Q: How to draw a shaded sphere?

Andrew Stacey pointed out that the Rosetta Code entry "Draw a Sphere" doesn't have a TikZ entry yet. Is there an easy way to draw a "properly" shaded sphere using TikZ? The ball shading would seem an obvious choice, but it uses a circular highlight, which is not what it would look like in realit...

Martin Scharrer

8:19 AM

@PauloCereda: I finally found time to package my listings add-ons: bitbucket.org/martin_scharrer/lstaddons

Paulo Cereda

9:04 AM

@MartinScharrer How nice! :)

Paulo Cereda

9:24 AM

I'm off to the ophthalmologist today for a new eyeglass prescription. So you guys behave while I'm gone. :)

Martin Scharrer

@PauloCereda No promises!

;-)

Paulo Cereda

@MartinScharrer Oh. :P

Cya, friends! :)

Andrew Stacey

@Jake As there's no TeX solution of any type, you could broaden your question to allow any TeX-based solution.

I'm going to have to study the code that led to these pictures very carefully:

Jake

@AndrewStacey I thought about that, but decided against it because in that case there wouldn't be "the one" answer. Maybe I should turn it into community wiki in that case?

tohecz

10:06 AM

I have a question about the markup here: how do you cite a multiline code inside an itemize? The classical 4-space indent does not work...

Jake

@tohecz blank line before the code block, and 8-space indent

Andrew Stacey

@Jake I wouldn't turn it CW - good answers are going to take some work so it seems harsh to take away rep for that.

tohecz

@Jake 8-space indent is the key, thanks!

Jake

@AndrewStacey Yeah, so I guess I'll just leave it as it is. Keen PStricks users might post an answer anyway ("use pst-sphere and compile with xelatex").

Martin Scharrer

10:34 AM

Ah, my mwe package is now on CTAN. Hopefully TeX Live and MikTeX will pick it up in the intended form.

Faheem Mitha

11:00 AM

Is there some way to get LaTeX to produce the " symbol?

Martin Scharrer

I just uploaded to CTAN my two add-on packages for listings I wrote for two answers. They are also available at bitbucket.org/martin_scharrer/lstaddons

Manuals and TDS ZIP file under bitbucket.org/martin_scharrer/lstaddons/downloads

user19161

@AndrewStacey It looks like the Ubuntu 12.04 animal, the Precise Pangolin.

user19161

11:25 AM

@MartinScharrer Congrats! Is this what people do here, write answers and then packages? :-)

user19161

@Jake The sphere on the right seems to be playing tricks on my eyes. It appears to have some movement on it, probably because of the way it is shaded.

Faheem Mitha

I'm looking at

Martin Scharrer

@JasperLoy Well, sometimes.

Faheem Mitha

10

A: How to get straight quotation marks?

The OT1 font encoding does not contain a " character. However, T1 does. \documentclass{article} \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} \begin{document} "foo" \end{document}

Martin Scharrer

@JasperLoy See:

20

Q: Which questions led to the creation of a new package?

TeX.sx occasionally inspires people to be ingeniously creative and write cool packages. Let's have a list of all the CTAN packages that originated in a question on TeX.sx. I suggest a single CW answer for starters, listing the packages alphabetically, following this pattern: babyloniannum by R...

discussion big-list

Faheem Mitha

11:30 AM

Is \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} standard? Will it break anything?

N3buchadnezzar

I feel like using the "dothisforme" tag now.. =(

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha yes it's part of the core distribution so as standard as \documentclass{article}

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle But apparently not the default. My interest in it is that " displays itself. By default it doesn't.

Faheem Mitha

11:48 AM

Can anyone give an explanation at a layman level of the implications (if any) of using \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}?

egreg

Nice one

1

Q: How do I run a windows executable in linux shell script?

I have an executable program (no source code, just the compiled executable) that was made in windows (.exe extension). It doesn't use any graphics... it simply reads and writes files. I want to be able to run it in a linux shell script so that I don't have to switch operating systems to get my ...

shell-script windows executable

OP says, commenting the answer to use Wine, "Is there a way to run it without Wine?" Oh!

Torbjørn T.

@FaheemMitha Have you seen tex.stackexchange.com/questions/664/… ?

Brent.Longborough

@PauloCereda + Everyone: If ever there was a good advert for memoir, it now lies in the answers to this question (I'm surprised I missed it earlier):

9

Q: Adding page number to the even page right after \part

Friends, I've never used \part{} before, so bear with me. =) Consider the following code: \documentclass[twoside]{book} \usepackage{lipsum} \begin{document} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{titlepage} My title page. \end{titlepage} \cleardoublepage \pagestyle{plain} \frontmatter \tableofcontents \c...

header-footer parts

David Carlisle

12:09 PM

@FaheemMitha well if you don't load a class file such as article, then the default behaviour is to generate an error for any input. So you have to start somewhere. OT1 is the default encoding rather than T1 as T1 (and 8 bit fonts generally) was not available when (La)TeX started. you should probably use \textquotedbl which is defined via \DeclareTextSymbol{\textquotedbl}{T1}{\"} to get a straight quote

is "I'm DavidC, go away" an acceptable answer to a new user? tex.stackexchange.com/questions/54221/…

6

tohecz

@DavidCarlisle So you made a second account and now you pretend you did not?!!!

egreg

12:26 PM

@tohecz He started using Windoze, but doesn't want others to know. ;)

Faheem Mitha

@TorbjørnT No, I haven't. Thanks.

David Carlisle

@egreg I use windows at home and at work, it's lovely, best thing ever

2

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Thanks for your reply, but I don't follow the latter part.

"you should probably use \textquotedbl which is defined via \DeclareTextSymbol{\textquotedbl}{T1}{\"} to get a straight quote"

If I just use \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} then straight quotes (") work.

Are you perhaps saying I only need to "import" part of the T1 encoding?

David Carlisle

instead of going "foo" and remebering to use a font encoding where that makes straight quotes go \textquotedbl foo\textquotedbl then you get straight quotes if the encoding supports it and a warning error otherwise

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Oh, I see. So \DeclareTextSymbol{\textquotedbl}{T1}{\"} doesn't do anything if \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} is defined?

But will give an error if it is removed?

Or do I actually need to use \textquotedbl for this to work?

David Carlisle

12:37 PM

@FaheemMitha you don't need to issue that command (the T1 setup does that). If you only have one font encoding in the document then " and \textquotedbl are essentially the same and of course " is easier to type, but fragments of tex code get copied from document to document, and you may end up with T1 for English and Tx for some other language and then being explicit about encoding-dependednt features is better practice

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Ok, I see. So the \DeclareTextSymbol{\textquotedbl}{T1}{\"} is defensive programming?

David Carlisle

That command is run when you do \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} if you then use the long form then the text you actually write (the important bit:-) will work (or give an error) for any encoding, an for an encoding that doesn't have straight quotes by default it is easy to define \textquotedbl to do something (for example get the straight quotes from T1) so your actual text doesn't meed to be changed.

But if you use " in the text then need to fit in with some other document that is forced to use (say) OT1 encoding then it s harder to make your text get straight quotes without editing the text.

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Ah, thank you. That is very clear and explicit.

So, in summary, you are saying - use the long form?

I.e. \textquotedbl

For portability across encodings, so to speak.

David Carlisle

Yes. Hopefully the system won't complain about this comment being too long:-)

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle: The above feels like it should be in an answer somewhere. :-)

David Carlisle

12:49 PM

@FaheemMitha well that's why you should ask questions on the site not here. Then we can answer and get lots of points and catch up with egreg!

4

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle I'd never catch up with egreg. Well, maybe if I posted three questions a day, and annoyed the hell out of everyone.

Oh, sorry. You meant you. Careless reader.

@DavidCarlisle: Well, you could add it as a comment to TH's answer or even a separate answer.

tohecz

If somebody edits my post, can I talk to him in comments by @somebody ?

Faheem Mitha

@tohecz Yes, I think so. Or even in chat. I think they prefer that chatting happens in chat. :-)

they meaning the SE overlords.

Does chat work for any registered user? Or do they need to have been here?

Ariel

1:05 PM

@FaheemMitha @tohecz if someone addresses me in chat here, I get a notification in my "stackexchange inbox" even if I am not here or on the site. Clicking on the notification takes me to the comment directly.

tohecz

@Ariel thanks

@lockstep I don't get why you removed {spacing} tag from my question.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha done: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/7735/…

Martin Scharrer

1:29 PM

I think we should have a Meta post which explains the common LaTeX terms. A lot of people confuse things like "image" and "figure", "class" and "template" etc. It might be good to have such a post.

5

Gonzalo Medina

@lockstep: 60K! Congratulations!

2

Faheem Mitha

@Ariel : Thanks for the confirmation. Also, I think SE emails you about your global inbox if you haven't checked it for awhile.

@DavidCarlisle Great! Upvoted. Thanks for your comments, David.

So, a lazy question for a lazy day. Does anyone know anyone who gets paid to work full time on TeX?

@DavidCarlisle: Typo: "teh second group"

I recall David Kastrup trying to do this, and he had major problems.

Ariel

@FaheemMitha I sometimes get criticized for not "keeping it simple" and "using M$ word instead of arbitrary complicated things like LaTeX (what is that?)" . ;-)

Faheem Mitha

@Ariel Heh. Happily, nobody has ever said that (arbitrary complicated things) to me. How many people think you mean rubber? :-)

@DavidCarlisle: I second Martin's request for screenshots.

Ariel

@FaheemMitha Too many. Including my advisor who definitely thinks I am borderline nuts. But then I once got asked "What is linux?" So I am not really surprised.

I think I am just in the wrong field. I need to switch.

Faheem Mitha

1:48 PM

@Ariel : It's a cold cruel world out there. What do you do, if you don't mind me asking?

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha @MartinScharrer image added as requested;-)

Ariel

@FaheemMitha Cancer Epidemiology (mostly applied statistics). (SAS and M$ Word are the old weapons of choice. But R and LaTeX are increasingly used by people who value open source and cross-compatibility. The conflict is because the older folks in the field are unwilling to see the merits of not using walled software and because there is a small learning curve they are not willing to climb)

Martin Scharrer

@DavidCarlisle wonderful!

Faheem Mitha

2:26 PM

@DavidCarlisle Excellent

@Ariel Yes, people are ignorant, and tend to stick to what they know. And I don't understand how any scientist can justify using proprietary software. For one thing, anyone trying to reproduce their results would have to purchase the software, which Is Not Cool.

lockstep

2:41 PM

@tohecz I thought your question was about margins, for which the spacing tag normally isn't used, though it's a kind of spacing.

@GonzaloMedina Thanks!

Faheem Mitha

@Ariel So, what field would you like to switch to?

Ariel

@FaheemMitha a younger field... metagenomics maybe.

user19161

@FaheemMitha One may switch from the field of rational numbers to the field of real numbers to attain completeness in life. :-)

user19161

Oh I just got my unicorn from unicornify.appspot.com, yay!

lockstep

Please close as duplicate:

3

Q: Change the type of equation numbering in document class article

I have written my thesis in document class 'article' (don't ask me why). Now I want to number my equations by sections, i.e. in section 1 they should go 1.1, 1.2, ..., in section 2 they should go 2.1, 2.2, ... I don't want to change the document class (e.g. to 'report') because then I would have...

numbering

tohecz

2:48 PM

@lockstep it is about spacing in general I think, even parindent, line-spacing etc. so I thought that the very general tag is the proper one (and I actually used it because it's used here as well: Squeezing scientific paper to fit within page limits

@lockstep done

lockstep

@tohecz I see ... I'll re-add spacing.

tohecz

@lockstep Thanks for that! I felt it would be rude to revert your edit without an obvious reason.

lockstep

@tohecz I'd say the OP may always revert an edit. :-)

tohecz

@lockstep It is always better to discuss with the editor when you have the chance ;)

Faheem Mitha

@JasperLoy Funny. :-)

@Ariel Ok, though never heard of that before now.

Ariel

3:02 PM

@FaheemMitha Its computationally more intensive than traditional statistics because it involves sequencing and analyzing vast genomes - not only ours but also the genomes of microbes that live within us. Outdated software with no active targeted development (eg. SAS) are impossible to use in such cases. So by default you HAVE to rely on open source reproducible code.

user19161

@Ariel I read SAS as side-angle-side which defines a triangle. :-)

Faheem Mitha

@Ariel Hmm. R isn't good for large datasets though.

Ariel

@JasperLoy Behold: sas.com/?gclid=CL3Q0_Gx5K8CFUZN4Aod8ml3Cw (the evil)

@FaheemMitha That may be true now, but it can play well with other databases though. There is a lot of interest in developing more efficient strategies for big data in R.

Faheem Mitha

Yes, SAS blows, I have to agree. I have nightmarish memories of trying to get their graphing stuff to work in the late 90s. It was broken. But doesn't stop them from making piles of money. A la Microsoft. My working hypothesis is that SAS users are morons. I actually worked in a group that seemed to use SAS a lot, and they certainly fit that description.

@Ariel Other databases? R is not a database. But yes, you can use databases with it. Though statisticians don't know anything about databases, usually.

@Ariel The best way of working with big data in R is to use R as little as possible, IMO. :-)

Peter Grill

@egreg: According to the UK TeX Archive, \path is no longer recommended?? Do you disagree, and should I add this info to the answer? I actually don't recall seeing \path before.

Faheem Mitha

3:15 PM

@Ariel: Any experience with pl/R? Though I don't even know if you use PostgreSQL.

Ariel

@FaheemMitha Never said R was a database. Ambiguous use of the word "other" I guess. :) Meant "other" as in external databases. Though databases are needed for big data management, eventually analyses of these data is focused on smaller subsets. Or in metagenomics, the relationships between these subsets. I am still exploring the field and looking at the methods they use - so its all new to me, but I am not averse to learning. :)

@FaheemMitha An interesting post: r-bloggers.com/why-we-need-to-deal-with-big-data-in-r

Faheem Mitha

@Ariel Right, obviously the best thing if possible is to do as much stuff outside R as possible, preferably in the db itself. It that is not possible, it becomes more difficult.

R copes very very badly with large data sets. Even not so large data sets, in my experience.

Ariel

@FaheemMitha Right now, I am not even looking at big data. I am doing things in R that can just as easily be done with SAS. I guess I am tired of the limitations and the insularity of what I am doing. I don't even know where I am going but I definitely don't see any future in this field for me.

Faheem Mitha

Though personally I don't use R much at all.

@Ariel Ok. R is certainly 10^6 times better than SAS. That has to be said.

Ariel

@FaheemMitha So you deal with a ton of datasets and databases?

Faheem Mitha

3:26 PM

@Ariel No, not much. I got shangied into working with some data in 2008. It was not really research, really more just abuse, but it eventually turned into this

I got invited to turn this into a book chapter, which I'm working on right now.

So, having worked on that project, I do know a little bit about databases. Though nothing compared to a professional DBA.

I used to think databases were kind of a joke, but having used them, I've moderated that opinion somewhat. They are invaluable when it comes to working with data - and not just large data sets. Though really the only people who seem to know anything about them are DBAs. Statisticians don't, or at least I've never met one who does.

egreg

@PeterGrill I meant the \path command provided by url.sty, not the path package.

It uses \url, but does not produce a bogus link when used with hyperref

Ariel

@FaheemMitha thanks for that link - very cool! Its hard to know about data management when you are in statistics. Because you are struggling with statistics itself. :) At least statisticians know statistics. I am starting to think that epidemiologists don't know even statistics, let alone databases. Hehe

Peter Grill

@egreg Ok. The only mention in the url.pdf is that it exists...

egreg

@PeterGrill Yes, the documentation is rather scanty. :(

Faheem Mitha

@Ariel True, lots of people don't understand statistics. Even some of the time, statisticians.

@Ariel: However, if you are or are thinking of working with data, I strongly recommend acquainting yourself with PostgreSQL, and sooner rather than later. Think of it like revision control for text. You wouldn't go with revision control, would you?

Ariel

3:37 PM

@FaheemMitha I use svn for all my R code and latex docs. So yes, I am very familiar with version control (svn, at least) Revision control sounds the same, is it? Thank you for that suggestion! What does your group use for analyses?

Faheem Mitha

@Ariel Yes, by revision control I meant version control. Same thing.

@Ariel Don't really have a group. Mostly just me.

@Ariel: You'd be better off with distributed version control, though.

Ariel

@FaheemMitha I had to look up the wiki. :) I feel like I am using all the older tools - but they do work well for now. For example, at various points, I have been recommend git over svn. I do a bit of perl for text processing but everyone recommends python. There is so much to learn, its exciting. :) So what do you use for analyses, if not R or SAS?

Faheem Mitha

3:55 PM

@Ariel I do use R, just not for analysis, I guess. My current project is Python/C++/R/PostgreSQL/SQL. The "analysis" is mostly in Python and C++. Python calls R. R is mostly for graphs in this project. My approach is sufficiently unorthodox that pre-existing R code would probably not help much. ggobi is pretty cool - I've been learning that.

Python/C++ is an unwieldy combo, so I've been considering alternatives. Common Lisp looks promising, but would take a while to learn.

user19161

Python was voted best programming language and best scripting language by linuxjournal.com readers last year.

Ariel

@FaheemMitha This is getting more and more interesting. Isn't the underlying code for R written in C (or is it C++, not sure...) I remembered something I saw a while back: cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Rcpp/vignettes/… Its a package that lets you use C++ within R.

@FaheemMitha I saw one of Hadley Wickham's talks on ggobi and graphing - it was very impressive. He was talking about taking output from ggobi and directly putting a latex layer on it for final presentation.

@JasperLoy yeah, somehow there seems to be a lot of antipathy towards perl. I have to says its very useful though (regardless of how ugly and hacky it looks). It is after all called the duct tape - the earliest duct tape on the net. :)

user19161

@Ariel Well, I just happened to read that post, I don't know any programming languages!

Peter Grill

@egreg Have updated the answer: Line overflow with long filenames and urls as per your suggestion.

egreg

@PeterGrill I've seen. Nice answer!

Faheem Mitha

4:13 PM

@Ariel R is written in C, yes. And you can certainly use C++ as a backend. Dirk has a thing called Rcpp for example.

Peter Grill

So glad there is a daily rep cap limit.. Now I can relax and get some actual work done. :-)

Martin Scharrer

@PeterGrill That's what @egreg thinks every day at 10am. ;-)

Faheem Mitha

@Ariel: Oh, I see you linked to the same thing. But just using R's regular C API is also an option. You can use C++ as long as you do external C linkage. I used Rcpp a long time ago. Don't remember much about it.

egreg

@MartinScharrer I've not hit rep cap today. Yet. :)

user19161

@egreg Actually it's not a good idea to cap. That means rep might be wasted!

Peter Grill

4:15 PM

@MartinScharrer Good point. Actually the real problem for me is that when I need to loop up something I go to TeX.SE first, and then get stuck here for a while... By the time I go back to doing what I am supposed to be doing I have forgotten what I was looking for so hang out here...

@JasperLoy You obviously have not looked at egreg's daily rep.. Don't think there are very many where he does not reach the limit..

user19161

@PeterGrill I know, that's what I meant! If people continue to upvote you after that then it is wasted!

Peter Grill

@JasperLoy Yeah, but like I said it helps me do some "real" work. :-)

David Carlisle

@JasperLoy are you saying @egreg has a bad idea almost every day?

2

egreg

@PeterGrill Last time I didn't reach rep cap was December 6.

@DavidCarlisle I do have many bad ideas every day. :)

2

Peter Grill

@egreg Ok, we can let one day slide.. I hope when you go on your vacation that you'll have a computer with you. :-)

Ariel

4:20 PM

@egreg how many points does it take to reach the daily cap?

David Carlisle

200

egreg

@PeterGrill I'll have it, but vacation is vacation.

Peter Grill

@egreg Yeah, that's what most people like to believe.

David Carlisle

@Ariel but points from accept doesn't count so typically if you get a couple of answers accepted you can get around 230 a day, after that it gets harder

user19161

@Ariel Ah I see you are still unfamiliar with the SE terrain!

egreg

4:22 PM

@PeterGrill In August I prefer my scooter to the computer.

Joseph Wright

@egreg Don't worry, some of us take our laptops everywhere :-)

egreg

@JosephWright Yes, but it's difficult to check TeX.SX while driving in the mountains. :) It's easier on the motorway. ;-)

user19161

@JosephWright Nowadays the kids take their iPhones everywhere!

Joseph Wright

@JasperLoy True

No iPhone here :-)

user19161

I am glad my mobile is still cameraless and internetless!

Ariel

4:24 PM

@egreg remind me to avoid people on scooters checking and answering Qs on tex.stx on their laptops. The vision is scary.

Joseph Wright

@JasperLoy Mine's quite like that, but I think I'm safe from having it stolen :-)

user19161

@Ariel Or worse, people checking SE in their dreams at night.

user19161

@JosephWright Well, I don't like to surf the internet when I am out. Also, there are some places I cannot bring a camera into.

Joseph Wright

@JasperLoy Yes, I'm aware of that issue. My dad used to work in a business with the same issue.

tohecz

@JasperLoy @JasperLoy I like my dumb-phone, too! (And my phone is dumb: no internet or such, on the other hand: waterproof, impactproof, dustproof, and the battery lifetime is 10 days...)

user19161

4:27 PM

@tohecz Waterproof???

Ariel

@tohecz Is that a walkie-talkie? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkie-talkie

user19161

Talking about dreams, I confess that sometimes I do dream about questions or people on SE when I sleep.

Ariel

@JasperLoy a sign that perhaps you are here too much and your subconscious is prompting you about the problem. ;-) {heh}

user19161

I am still waiting for the waterproof explanation...

user19161

There is someone who washes his keyboard in the dishwasher in another room, no joke.

tohecz

4:32 PM

@JasperLoy @Ariel no no no. Very simple cell phone with the waterproof certificate (I think it's called IP30, it says "up to 30 minutes, up to 1 meter depth")

user19161

@tohecz Whoa, this is new to me. I must try to get a waterproof phone next time. I once dropped one into the toilet bowl. :-(

tohecz

@JasperLoy @Ariel the phone is Samsung B2100. I'm a university teacher and I use my phone as a clock. We use blackboard and chalks so the phone is always white from the chalk dust. The students were really surprised when I put the phone under the tap for the first time ;)

Ariel

@JasperLoy I have actually done that - well close, I spilled an entire cup of tea on the keyboard and washed it in running water. Works quite well. There is also this absolutely insane demonstration about how you can rescue your laptop from liquid spills. grynx.com/projects/wine-in-laptop

user19161

@Ariel Hmm OK. I will say something stupid now. One can rescue the laptop but not the tea in this case.

Ariel

@JasperLoy hahah you could possibly buy a 1000 more cups with the cash it would take to fix the laptop.

tohecz

4:48 PM

@Ariel still, there are teas whose price for one cup is similar to a price of a low-end laptop...

user19161

@tohecz Only crazy people drink them. :-)

tohecz

And what "crazy" means? :-/

Ariel

@JasperLoy you cannot be sure none of us here are not crazy. (how is that for abuse of double negatives)

user19161

@Ariel Whoa, parsing error. I, for one, am crazy. Details omitted. :-)

Ariel

Actually that was a triple negative. Even worse than double negatives.

user19161

4:58 PM

@Ariel Yeah I just try to negate the negatives in pairs, but that may not give you a sentence with the same meaning in English.

Ariel

@JasperLoy So how does Chinese work? Do you have double negatives as well?

user19161

@Ariel If you want to say something like "you cannot not do this", sure, it exists in Chinese.

tohecz

@JasperLoy Haha We do not have such construct in Czech! You have to say like "In no way you can not do this" and even that would be strage.

Ariel

@JasperLoy Hmm.. so there is space for confusion. :)

@tohecz I was in Prague some years back and was at a hotel in the outskirts of town (super-awesome metro btw!) No one spoke English and I ended up learning 20 Czech words. It was a very cool experience.

tohecz

@Ariel I suppose there was "pivo" as one of the words ;)

user19161

5:07 PM

@Ariel Certainly. Most of the universe is vacuum.

Ariel

@tohecz hehehe, I wish. I had to look that up right now. (I don't drink. :)) I can actually remember some of the words I learnt sůl, černý pepř, zelenina, zelená paprika, čas, hudba, brambor, cibule

user19161

@Ariel Never had alcohol at all?

Ariel

@JasperLoy I get completely disoriented with around 10ml or less. I suspect some genetic trait related to alcohol metabolism.

user19161

@Ariel Actually the same applies to me! But I have gotten more used to drinking a bit now and then since I do it with friends sometimes.

Ariel

5:36 PM

I have been trying to resolve a font error with the urw-garamond fonts. Apparently I am missing a file called texnansi.enc. I have garamond installed. But I don't seem to have a garamond specific directory under '/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/fonts/enc/dvips/' Do you think I should create /urw/garamond or /urw or just put it under /base? Does anyone have an idea?

I commented on this thread: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3214/… but the windows specific path I was pointed to doesn't give me any guidance.

David Carlisle

@Ariel texnansi was Y&Y's font encoding which got called LY1 (by me as it happens) when latex support was added. You probably don't want that these days and can use T1 encoding?

Ariel

@DavidCarlisle I am definitely missing something here. Even if I add \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} to my preamble, \usepackage[urw-garamond]{mathdesign} gives me the texnansi not found message (If you think its not duplication, I will add this as a question - or just add to the comments on the same thread)

David Carlisle

5:53 PM

well i get $ kpsewhich texnansi.enc
c:/texlive/2010/texmf-dist/fonts/enc/dvips/ly1/texnansi.enc

ie texnansi is the ly1 support file, of course it may be that some encoding fines refer to each other (texnansi was basically a non standard version of latin1 just as the corresponding windows code page is a non standard version of the iso standard)

Ariel

Hmm.. I have no ly1 directory under /texlive/texmf-dist/fonts/enc/dvips/ either...

David Carlisle

@Ariel well that's why you haven't got texnansi.enc :-)

Ariel

@DavidCarlisle :-) So, which package would I need to install? Sorry for being so dense!

David Carlisle

@Ariel no idea:-0

Ariel

I am going to try creating the /ly1 and putting the texnansi.enc into it..

David Carlisle

6:10 PM

@Ariel for testing it would be enough to have it in current directory save running rehash etc, I have that but havent got th efont so die at the next stage

Ariel

That works! (my earlier ly1/ idea did not work)

tohecz

I might be stupid, but is it possible to make TeX automatically break align envrironment onto two pages it if appears at the bottom?

David Carlisle

@tohecz \allowdisplaybreaks

tohecz

@DavidCarlisle It works like \allowbreak or is it sort of switch?

David Carlisle

it;s a global declaration 9it just changes the inter-line penalties used in the display)

tohecz

6:19 PM

ok, works pretty fine, thanks!

(I tried to search for a solution at the site but with no success

Ariel

@DavidCarlisle I am testing the rep cap... So you say you can't go beyond 230?

David Carlisle

@tohecz you should have searched for \allowdisplaybreaks that turns up a few hits:-)

Ariel

And I found 3 more solutions - I had given up on!!!

David Carlisle

@Ariel no, I just meant 230 was a typical amount as that's 2 accepted answers plus upvote rep capped at 200. with bounties you can get arbitrarily high, and even just with upvotes and accepted answers you can get 15*no-accepted-answers. i got over 300 once i think, some people manage that regularly

tohecz

@DavidCarlisle substitute some_people -> @egreg

Ariel

6:30 PM

@DavidCarlisle I reached my vote limit! o.O who knew. hehehe (I have an evil afterglow now) thanks so much for helping out with the font problem. I am not very clear about it but it WORKS!

user19161

@Ariel You are one of those who like to use CAPS!

Martin Scharrer

6:58 PM

Finally a tikz-timing question again. Ok, I had to quickly check my own manual before I remembered how to do it.

I like documentation, then I don't have to remember everything about my own software ;-)

7

Peter Grill

@egreg: Looking for a good \vec, I came across you answer to Palatino, roman \chi and the math mode. But with $\vec{ABC}$ this yields CABC?

Faheem Mitha

7:13 PM

Hi. This has probably been asked and answered somewhere already. I have an article with multiple sections. Say Section 1 and Section 2, with subsections for each. But for section 2, I want the counter to just return the subsection number, ie instead of 2.3 I just want 3. If this has not been asked, I can ask it.

Hmm, this looks sorta similar.

5

Q: How can I get the section.subsection number without the chapter number?

How do I get the number of the current subsection in a report, without the chapter number? What I'm wanting to do is produce a requirements list as follows using the enumitem package: \documentclass[a4paper, 11pt]{report} \usepackage{enumitem} \newlist{requirements}{enumerate}{1} \setlist[requ...

sectioning numbering

David Carlisle

7:28 PM

@FaheemMitha do you still want the subsection to reset to 1 each section, or do you just want continuous numbering?

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle I was probably not being clear. I want one section to be treated specially, such that the subsections within that section (there will be no subsubsections) will only return the subsection number for a reference. So \ref{foo} if foo is the label for the subsection will only give 3 if the subsection is the third subsection. i.e. the section number will be ignored. I'm writing this up as a question - though it is probably of somewhat niche interest.

lockstep

The following question could be closed either as "too localized" or as a duplicate:

0

Q: Change token of biblatex alphabetic style

I have used biblatex for some time with the alphabetic style for my work. But now I have to change the token (e.g. [KK09]) in front of the items of the bibliography to a longer version: On two authors it should look like this: [Author1 Author2, Year] With three or more authors: [Author1 et. al....

biblatex

Paulo Cereda

I'm back! :)

What did I miss?

Faheem Mitha

7:44 PM

Does LaTeX object to labels like 'note.1'?

Paulo Cereda

@MartinScharrer I thought of a blog post about the importance of using correct definitions. But it's still in the larval stage. :)

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha \setction{aaa}\let\saved\thesubsection\renewcommand\thesubsection{\arabic{subsec‌tion}......\section{next}\let\thesubsection\saved

@FaheemMitha no

Faheem Mitha

Apparently, yes. Hmm.

@DavidCarlisle : Not really following that. Still working on the question.

Paulo Cereda

My ophthalmologist showed me those letters to guess. With the new lens, I got all of them right, except the last one. It had an intriguing shape, and I murmured something like "it looks like a sans Z, but the kerning is bad". Then I said, "wait a minute, is that a 2? He said, "Yes, it is!". I got mad and said, "but you told me the pattern to follow was letters of the alphabet!" He smiled at me and said, "well, at least you got the last symbol right, which means your lens are good now." :D

Red herring!

egreg

@PeterGrill It works only with one letter as argument.

I've added a caution about this.

@FaheemMitha I guess you're using hyperref, which uses something like that.

kahen

8:06 PM

Pretty nice simple solution to the \vec problem. And any more sophisticated one would have to be insanely complicated - probably involving detokenizing #1 to find out if it contains anything "objectionable". Personally I just use \underline or \bm for vectors. It keeps things nice and consistent regardless of what kind of character is used for a vector.

underline is nice because it's consistent with writing on the blackboard :)

Martin Scharrer

@PauloCereda One day this larva will be a beautiful butterfly!

Paulo Cereda

@MartinScharrer Someday. :P

Faheem Mitha

@egreg No, just my manual numbering.

So, my question.

0

Q: The numbering of and references to the subsections of a given section should only use subsection numbers

I have an article with multiple sections. Say Section 1 and Section 2, with subsections for each. But I want one section, say Section 2 here, to be treated specially. This question has two parts. For section 2, I want the counter to just return the subsection number, i.e. instead of 2.3 I just ...

sectioning cross-referencing

Wordy title...

Paulo Cereda

8:31 PM

@egreg: I watched a mass today in a chapel for Carlo Borromeo. :)

egreg

@FaheemMitha So \label{note.1} should be acceptable.

Faheem Mitha

@egreg Ok. I was getting errors. Would having hyperref defined cause it, possibly?

Hmm, yes it seems so. Without it, no errors. With it, error.

egreg

@FaheemMitha Yes, I guess. hyperref uses internally labels made of your labels and some suffix.

Faheem Mitha

ERROR: Paragraph ended before \Hy@setref@link was complete.

@egreg Great. Mystery solved. :-)

Mico suggests using an enumerate environment in the notes section wrt my question above. Should I make this a separate question, or append to my current question?

lockstep

8:57 PM

Can be closed as a duplicate, based on the OP's last comment:

2

Q: Clash between tikz externalization and references to plots

I am trying to implement references to plots using there legend image with pgfplots. I use the example on page 164 of the manual: \documentclass{article} % This part of preamble works \usepackage{pgfplots} \usepackage{pgfplotstable} \pgfplotsset{width=7cm,compat=newest} % This part of preamb...

tikz-pgf cross-referencing pgfplots tikz-external

egreg

9:24 PM

This one needs the crystal-ball-required tag

0

Q: Single entry in list of tables using datatool + longtable

I'm using the \DTLdisplaylongdb from datatool in order to create a multi-page table with longtable. How do I provide a caption that only shows up once in the list of tables? (Right now it's showing an entry for every page of the table.)