Technical reasons for choosing an environment over a command form are that if the definition only involves setting up declarations then it never has to scan the content in advance, so list environments or longtable etc can start typesetting and shipping out pages before the end of the environment...
@DavidCarlisle Yeah saw that one, but the one I was thinking of was about newcommand* and \newcommand. I think it is time to post my question without that reference...
Oh, BTW this is one even you could answer (not a tikz one) :-)
@DavidCarlisle Yeah, though about posting a comment when I saw it to ask if they had airports near where you lived. Since you knew more about tree colors so must live in a forest, I thought perhaps you hadn't yet seen a real airplane. :-)
@ClickMe Thanks. Had forgotten about that one, but its not the one I am looking for. Andrew's question clearly answers what \newcomamnd* is for, but the one I was looking for was about just using \newcomand all the time (I think) so not having to worry about the \par issue. Anyway, I thought that would a good reference for my recent question, but decided to post it without that link.
@egreg Yes: I'd say that in general anything about a clearly 'pre-test' piece of code where the development is truly active is NARQ for the reasons that have been raised before on meta. I'll close.
@PauloCereda Of course. If you have an imac or a macbook you need an iphone. Then you need an ipad. Of course to round up the list you need a time capsule ;-) -- Everything is a trap ;-)
@MarcoDaniel In TeX Live 2013 the distinction between TEXMFMAIN and TEXMFDIST has been dropped; the former is the same as the latter for back compatibility. This is why I edited your answer.
So I'm trying to help someone who has made a custom bib file using custom bib and now needs to modify it to use the jabbrv package which does abbreviations of names. There's a function in the bst file bibinfo.check which unless I comment out the call to it I get a bunch of "the literal stack isn't empty " errors. (I know this is a bit cryptic.) The function is:
I don't want to force the item to be there. I just want to replace the function that formats the journal name. So in principle I should leave the bibinfo.check in place.
@JosephWright One more question. The custom-bib generated file uses a function emphasize, which uses \emph. How would I use that function instead of \em ?
@AlanMunn: Now I'm sure: if you rename the file which is shared via link, the link is automatically removed from the file, you'll need to create a new one (so shared links don't support file renaming).
@PauloCereda That makes sense. Anyway I've used my own web space for the file in question. Then I don't fill up my dropbox with crap. THanks for the test.
@Rico I wonder if it would make sense for us all to have a Stammtisch (or internationalised meetup version) chat room, to announce which meetups and say who is going? There is a Berlin Tex Stammtisch that I've known about for 5 years, and I've never been because I didn't know who would be going.
For the longest time (before I moved to my new office) I had the following on my door (it's from when the first iMacs came out): I think the number of people who actually understood the joke was very small.
david lynch <dfly...@louisville.edu> writes: > Hi, I am wanting a new computer and I am liking the Macintosh because they > seem to be pretty easy to use and they come in all those neat colors. > I've heard a lot about the "imac" and that sounds like a good thing. > However lately I've been hearing a lot about these things called "emacs"
@Rico For months I wanted to go to the Stuttgarter Stammtisch but for various reasons I never made it. If I knew someone from here is going, too, maybe I finally would mark the date in my calendar...
Consider the following MWE
\documentclass{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{description}
\item[$[1]$] Some item
\end{description}
\end{document}
Notice especially the \item[$[1]$]. When I am now compiling using pdflatex I get the error message
! LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a...
I accidentally discovered (here) that a closing square bracket within an optional argument delimited by [ ] can cause problems.
Here is example code illustrating the issue:
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section[Square brackets ([ and ])]{Square brackets: [ and ]...
Psmith, the TeX bot, in fixed font mode: Let's take a look at the last cricket results:
- England 232/10 & 213/10 v New Zealand 68/10 & 207/10 *
- Scotland v Pakistan
- Pune Warriors 172/5 v Delhi Daredevils 134/9 *
- Hampshire v Durham 182/6 *
- Lancashire 176/9 * v Surrey
- Glamorgan v Gloucestershire 284/5 *
- Somerset v Middlesex 252/9 *
- Unicorns 189/9 * v Yorkshire
- Sunrisers Hyderabad v Kolkata Knight Riders 74/3 *
Our cricket expert David might explain these results later on.
@PauloCereda I just found this: dangermouse.net/cricket/scoring.html It's a really clear explanation of the scoring system (in case @DavidCarlisle gets tired of explaining). I like the part "Extra Detail: Who's Winning? This is a highly non-trivial question for cricket. "
@CharlesStewart I attended once, but it is always on the same date as another (business) meeting, so I never had a higher priority to go there. But it will be on wednesday soon (I believe) and perhaps we could both agree on a date and go there...
@DominicMichaelis That's a very different environment, so this is a big achievement. I'm happy to have been the first 100K on TeX.sx. ;-) And, I'm quite confident, also 200K. :)
@DominicMichaelis I joined TeX.sx more than a year after its creation. Some people were already at 40K, IIRC. So I was the first and the fastest in reaching 100K. :) Well, @DavidCarlisle could claim he's been faster, but he registered many months before me. :P
If I recall correctly, Papiro mentioned somewhere in Meta that s/he had ~20 consecutive days here in TeX.sx. Meanwhile, my profile accuses 757. :) But I think no one beats @JosephWright. :)
@DominicMichaelis The difference between the sites can be seen by the Legendary badges: they are 8 for Math.SE and 7 for TeX.sx. We have a narrower user base, but people votes more.
Now that I've "upgraded" to Mountain Lion, I've discovered that Apple has removed RSS feed capability from Mail, and Google Reader is disappearing. Does anyone have suggestions for an RSS feed reader for the Mac?
@dıʞsdoʇ Psmith, the TeX bot: Here is your fortune: Confucius say: if you think we are going to sum up your whole life on this little bit of paper, you are crazy.
Psmith, the TeX bot, in fixed font mode: Let's take a look at the last cricket results:
- England 232/10 & 213/10 v New Zealand 68/10 & 207/10 *
- Scotland v Pakistan
- Hampshire 242/5 * v Durham 241/8
- Lancashire 176/9 v Surrey 169/10 *
- Glamorgan 281/6 * v Gloucestershire 288/5
- Somerset 257/4 * v Middlesex 252/9
- Unicorns 189/9 v Yorkshire 191/5 *
- Rest of Sri Lanka v Sri Lanka Cricket Combined XI
Our cricket expert David might explain these results later on.
Posting it! I think I know how to ask good questions (or rather, I've seen enough bad ones to know how not to ask a question), but it seems that there are waaay too many people that don't do very much of their own work before just giving up and posting a question on tex.se.
@LostBrit I don't know if it counts but you can find many comments pointing to the manuals of the corresponding packages.
@LostBrit But if you point to manuals or google too much then we would have very high unanswered questoin number. Instead posting a basic answer or finding a duplicate turned out to be more efficient for housekeeping.
@LostBrit One thing that all StackExchange sites try to achieve is to be self-contained, so even if googling things will get you an answer, if there's not already an equivalent question on the site, people will be happy to answer here. And those of us who have been here a while are pretty good at either remembering duplicates or searching for them, and then post comments to point to the duplicate, which is much kinder than LMGTFY. :)
@percusse manuals aren't the issue. It's the "I'm looking for an online tool to do x.." questions where the OP hasn't done any basic research of their own. Is the feeling that tex.se should be the first or last stop on a search?
@LostBrit One of huge advantages of the SE model is that answers can be updated. One of the problems with random information on the web is that it's often outdated but persistent.
@AlanMunn That's another good point. But, is there any way though to mark an old answer as possibly out of date? Seems the upvotes and accept as answer approach don't really allow the community to do that.
@LostBrit No, but if someone comes across something that no longer works they can leave a comment (which will notify the person who posted the answer) or simply edit the answer itself. Etiquette prefers the former, but if the original answerer has disappeared, the system allows the latter without any problem.
And the accepted answer isn't necessarily the right one (although it often is), but the most up-voted one usually is (and obviously they often coincide). And you can always leave comments (and we do.)
@PauloCereda thanks! I was digging through the site for some answers (surprise) and thought I'd see what was going on. I do feel rather like a fresher that just ended up in the Prof's lounge, though... :0
@LostBrit Don't worry. The only way for not having questions closed as duplicate is not making questions. That's why I never ask questions on the site. ;-)
\ddangerexercise ^{Powers of ten}: The whole \TeX\ language has now been
summarized completely. To~demonstrate how much you know, name all of the ways
you can think of in which the numbers 10, ^^{Derek, Bo} 100, 1000, 10000,
and 100000 have special significance to \TeX.
The ^^{ notation is used for "hidden entries" in the index
@NicolaTalbot Yes, I know. I have a rather old full version here but wonder whether a) the new version is better (?) or b) what are the alternatives? My new university provides licences for RefWorks, let’s see how that is.
@Qrrbrbirlbel If your university has licences for RefWorks, it's probably better to stick with that instead. (It's possible that the support staff may be more inclined to help with applications they have licences for. Although there's no guarantee of that.)
@egreg The modernistic novelist who writes 200-line paragraphs?
@NicolaTalbot I don’t think we get support but that is a valid point. But, if the worst comes to the worst, they want me to use their Word template. That’s going to be fun, all I’m seeing is a manual bibliography.
Consider the following MWE
\documentclass{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{description}
\item[$[1]$] Some item
\end{description}
\end{document}
Notice especially the \item[$[1]$]. When I am now compiling using pdflatex I get the error message
! LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a...
I accidentally discovered (here) that a closing square bracket within an optional argument delimited by [ ] can cause problems.
Here is example code illustrating the issue:
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section[Square brackets ([ and ])]{Square brackets: [ and ]...
