@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz the more often I read this longish name,

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz and again,

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz the more spammy it looks. Talking to you makes me feel doing spamming.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Greetings from Miami where we surprisingly felt an earthquake yesterday, coming from the Carribean.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz have to remember the spacing, was it @Skillmon like stopanswers.xyz ? :-)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Well I'm just so used to read "st" together that my brain doesn't separate s and t. ſt ligature for me.

@StefanKottwitz Underscores would help, but it would make it even longer.

@FaheemMitha more readable

I wonder if it's considered as spam or not. Such as @Stefanlikesghostwritingthesis.com all the time.

I'm not sure who came up with the whole "append a message to the user name" idea, but it's not such a great idea, imo.

@FaheemMitha well it apparently works as you have now heard of the site. Advertising is supposed to be vaguely annoying

@UlrikeFischer shame about the ducks

@DavidCarlisle much nicer than boring circles. ;-)

@DavidCarlisle I had heard of it before.

@DavidCarlisle oh

@StefanKottwitz I admit that I should've used underscores. I forgot about the fact that SE strips whitespace from names in pings. Now the name is fixed for a month. Did you now have enough fun?

@JosephWright consult the Readme, it's the closest to a documentation you'll get for it. I don't remember why I didn't benchmark it, I guess it was because of the weird non-documentation files.

@FaheemMitha I think it became wide-spread when people started to append things like "reinstate Monica" to their names. But even before that we had formerly frequent users of TeX.SE who did something like that (namely there was a user who appended "boycott SE" to his name).

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz you can ask a mod to change the name sooner, AFAIK, if you really wished.

@yo' we could vote for my name, if a sufficient count of people find it annoying a mod might change it back to my base name, else I'll stick with it until I can change it back (I don't intend to have this "vaguely annoying" advertisement for the rest of my accounts lifetime).

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz well, I see your point. I used to have yo' - boycott.se as my displayname some time ago (it was after the design makeover)

But anyway, it's your name and your decision, I just wanted to mention that you don't have to wait a month

@yo' I know, see my last message to @FaheemMitha (but appearantly my memory tricked me and I screwed up the string a bit)

@yo' and thanks for letting me know :) Still I don't want to change if I'm not too annoying.

@yo' if you support this kind of stuff on OverLeaf, tex.stackexchange.com/q/526264/3929, then I understand why those images (docker?) are relevant

@daleif well, we could have gone for restricted shell escape, but can you ensure that the technology is really safe? Docker is used much more, so there are more people watching for security threats.

Note that we also support bashful, so it's possible e.g. to pull a specific file from the texmf tree if you need e.g. to check its version.

and then you have things like updates and stuff; we currently run 8 different TeXLive versions; without docker this would be a true mess to handle

@daleif And you have also things like this :-)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Yeah, that's what I've been up to

@yo' nice

@JosephWright But I don't quite get it from that file either... The interface is some mixture of ltxkeys, xkeyval and pgfkeys if I get it correctly, I have no idea how to use this correctly and don't intend to spend weeks to learn it.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Like advertismenent, also fun can be a bit annoying ;-)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz sorry, I did not want to annoy you, sorry for that, it was rather "testing" how spammy it can look, unexpectedly.

@StefanKottwitz if you feel it looks spammy go discuss this with the other moderators and if you all agree on it being spammy change it, I don't want to offend or annoy anyone with things like my account name. My top priority is still to help users, I'd love to see this happen on sites which focus on community needs, but if that won't happen I'll still help users.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz just talking with you, how you feel yourself about it and if you might perhaps consider it can backfire, instead of making people like something, you know.

@StefanKottwitz of course it might backfire. Everything can backfire and it is impossible to serve everyone, my sheer existence might offend someone, or the opinions I share, or the way I state otherwise objective content. How would you promote an alternative site? How did you promote texwelt, or did you just creat it and waited until someone stumbles across it?

New unicode-math to CTAN which supports latex2e 2020... and I am up way past bed time grrr. Hopefully nothing goes wrong :)

@WillRobertson you poor guys in down under, having to sleep the whole day:)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I did not even dare to mention TeXwelt at that time on comp.text.tex or mailing lists because of fear I would get grilled :-o

@WillRobertson I can run our test suite with it. Does it also need a new fontspec?

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Creating content, being active in other forums and contributing there while including useful links to TeXwelt threads, or even just in my signature.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz that way search engines find and index a site, rate it, and users can simply find it via search engines, so it slowly can grow itself.

@StefanKottwitz well, there is no "signature" on SE, the closest thing is the user name and/or the profile page (which is almost never visited). So I'd say changing the user name to include topanswers is the closest equivalent to putting it in my signature on latex.org or other forums.

@StefanKottwitz on the content and linking thing: It doesn't feel right to see a question on TeX.SE or similar, import it into TA and then leave a comment to the OP along the lines of "look at <link>, there is a solution to your problem".

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Seems so! SE is very aware of links in profiles and in posts, so they made them non-follow by default.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz well you can create a similar question on TA, answer it there first, then answer here fully and link to TA as reference / attribution. Of cause not link-only answers.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz At some time, there will be cross-posts. Impatient users do. Those can truly be answered on that site you prefer, first, while you point to the cross-post on the other site.

@StefanKottwitz yes, those are easy to deal with. But I still think it's a bit odd to just create a question along with an answer just to provide it as a pseudo reference, after all that question/answer was just created with the purpose of answering the original question.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Yes, that's a point. I remember I just treated cross-posts that way, answering on the preferred site first, copy my answer to the other site with an attribution link back.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz /duck hug

@PauloCereda hi, Mr. Duck!

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Hello, Mr. Rabbit! :)

hmm, javascript live preview and math rendering is rather interesting. Currently playing with typing updates the text right away, stop typing triggers mathjax reload. Not too bad for an interface

@daleif what are you trying to get? I miss a bit of context here :)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz nothing much

Just wanted to do something like this for a while and just figured out how to do it in a manner that does not flicker all the time.

@UlrikeFischer when you have a spare time, could you help us? :)

@PauloCereda sure. What is the problem?

@UlrikeFischer Thank you! <3 We got this issue: gitlab.com/islandoftex/texplate/issues/11

@UlrikeFischer You are our Windows expert, could you try to reproduce it, please?

@UlrikeFischer only the command line execution suffices, the OP created some unusual symlinks which are very suspicious.

@PauloCereda no the article template is not there. I think I mentioned this a few days ago already. Just searching.

@UlrikeFischer Ouch we need to investigate.

I have a C:\texlive\2019\texmf-dist\scripts\texplate\templates\texplate-article.toml but -t texplate-article doesn't work either. I don't think that this is in the search path.

@PauloCereda I get the houston message as well under cygwin

@DavidCarlisle Ouch... :(

@DavidCarlisle thanks

@PauloCereda the end of the message only says it looked in my home dir and the current dir, not anywhere in the texlive tree

@DavidCarlisle Got it, thanks. The application lookup failed.

@PauloCereda you should have used emacs lisp

@PauloCereda if I copy the templates folder in my current folder -t article works fine, so it is really looking in ./templates. Looks as if the path relative to current folder and not to the location of the script.

@UlrikeFischer The application lookup failed, we need to check why. Thank you very much!

@WillRobertson I tried our full test suite with the unicode-math and fontspec (working branch) from the github and I get tons of failures because of the DFLT->dflt change but beside this it looks ok (but it will take a bit time to check all diffs). When will you upload the new fontspec?

@AlanMunn Ducks are very powerful!

@egreg So it seems.

@AlanMunn They can even become a good sauce!

@egreg yay

@egreg oh no

Hello! Is anyone here familiar with beamer?

It looks like if I make one block it won't auto-overflow into the second column. Is there a way to make this be the default behaviour?

@Anthony Yes :)

@Anthony No, there's no auto-flow; the entire thing in a presentation is that you need to design stuff by hand

Cool! Thank you @JosephWright.

@JosephWright ooh a maintainer duck

@JosephWright couldn't one use the multicol package to have auto-flowing contents? (I know it doesn't apply the same eye candy a block would) Also one could perhaps create something using a multicolumn tcolorbox.

@JosephWright also as a feature request, could it be possible to have an \item also input a \strut if it's the first or last item in a list? I always use them to prevent a wiggle effect if two frames have the same number of items in a list, but one with content having a depth and one without.

Another question! I noticed that the template I have has an institute option for the header. If I wanted to make a group field in the header, how could I do that?

It looks like this does the magic: \usebeamercolor{institute in headline}{\color{fg}\large{\insertinstitute}\\[1ex]}

How could I define an \insertgroup command?

@AlanMunn -- Actually, this might be a booby, but since the feet aren't shown, it's hard to tell.

@barbarabeeton Hmm, a booby trap then. :)

@AlanMunn -- Yes, perhaps. (The logical and expected conclusion of a snipe hunt.)

@barbarabeeton Especially appropriate since you were sniping at me. :)

@AlanMunn -- So which one of us is left holding the bag?

Yay super bowl

(I've run out of idioms)

@AlanMunn -- Sounds appropriate.

A question for the linux users. If you have two folders side by side, say folderA and folderB, and in folderB a file testinput.tex, and in folderA a main.tex with this content. Does it compile?

\documentclass[]{article}
\begin{document}
\input{folderB/testinput.tex}
\end{document}

(on overleaf it does and it was driving me mad to understand why it didn't compile locally. )

@UlrikeFischer -- Where are you connected? If you're connected to folderA, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't, but it may depend on how your path is set, and I'm not very good at that.

@UlrikeFischer Only if I'm in the top-level folder and run pdflatex folderA/main.tex

@UlrikeFischer Then the TeX run is relative to the top-level and folderB/testinput.tex is a valid path

@barbarabeeton you mean where the root is? folderA and folderB are root folders.

@PhelypeOleinik well I'm not sure what overleaf is doing. I'm compiling the file in the subfolder and I would expect the top-level to be there. See this:

@UlrikeFischer -- I've always found compiling to be most reliable when connected to the folder (I know that as "directory") where the main source file is located. @PhelypeOleinik's first statement is what I expect. (On linux, the "root" is generally several levels above, and one almost never goes there, but everything else is ultimately relative to the single root.)

@barbarabeeton that what I naturally do locally - and the compilation failed for this reason as the input file wasn't found. The confusing part is that it works on overleaf.

@UlrikeFischer Odd. I'd expect only \input{../folderB/testinput.tex} to work

@UlrikeFischer No this doesn't compile unless, unless you are at the level of folderA and folderB and use the command pdflatex folderA/myfile.tex. It wont work if you're inside folderA.

@UlrikeFischer It probably is running pdflatex folderA/mainX.tex

@AlanMunn I swear you that it compiles without error on overleaf.

@PhelypeOleinik but then how does it find input2.tex?

@UlrikeFischer Oh

@UlrikeFischer I believe you, so @PhelypeOleinik must be right (that works for me too.)

@UlrikeFischer No idea :-)

@UlrikeFischer -- I think you need help from @yo' or someone else with a knowledge of how Overleaf sets up paths. Maybe Overleaf checks all your folders.

@PhelypeOleinik ;-). I suspect they do something odd with texinputs.

@UlrikeFischer Overleaf does run in a dummy path, iirc, but I don't remember all the details of that.

@UlrikeFischer Perhaps... Don't they just use latexmk?

@UlrikeFischer I would guess that when you issue the command pdflatex folderA/myfile.tex the directory is set to the current directory of the command, so it will find anything in either A or B (as it does).

@PhelypeOleinik they do, but with copies of your files instead of the files just as you use them.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I'd expect that to respect the directory structure...

@PhelypeOleinik as I said, I don't recall the details, and perhaps things have changed from a year ago. The main tasks I had were debugging projects of users and answering general questions to them...

@UlrikeFischer Or to put it another way, all your files are in e.g. a project folder (that you don't see) and all commands are issued from there, thereby making both folderA and folderB available. I suspect if you make a further folder inside B it won't be found without specifying folderB/folderC/input.tex

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I wasn't blaming you (although @DavidCarlisle would suggest otherwise ;-)

@PhelypeOleinik I didn't think you were, just wanted to make clear that my memory lacks on that :)

\documentclass[]{article}
\begin{document}
\obeylines\ttfamily
\input{"|ls -la"}
\bigskip
1\input{"|kpsewhich -a input2.tex"}
2\input{"|kpsewhich -a testinput.tex"}
3\input{"|kpsewhich -var-value=TEXINPUTS"}
\end{document}

@UlrikeFischer I officially don't understand how Overleaf does that ^^^

@UlrikeFischer Ah, TEXINPUTS is set to the top-level directory, then folderB/testinput.tex is valid

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Sure, I meant that it's not built-in

@PhelypeOleinik yes after thinking about it I remembered that sharelatex had something similar, so you could put styles and other stuff in the root folder.

Is it possible to have some glue in an \insert that is used between two calls? Say I want something like \insert0{something\vfill}\insert0{anything} and I want that \vfill to actually separate something and anything.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz nothing inserts the inserts by default, the output routine that is inserting them can put whatever glue it likes

@DavidCarlisle but can the output routine put glue inside the insert?

@DavidCarlisle nevermind, can do that using \setbox0\vbox to \textheight{\unvbox0}.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz well it can unbox them into a box of a specified size so the glue stretches

@DavidCarlisle see my previous message :)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz ah as you just said:-)

@barbarabeeton @UlrikeFischer Hi. I'm not at work at the moment to test what I believe is the correct answer. If you drop a message in support@overleaf.com or tom.hejda there, I can have a look tomorrow, or someone else from the team will in-between.

My memory tells me that when the main file is in a subfolder, we add this folder in PATH. The thing is that the compilation is (for various reasons) always run with the main file being copied/moved (not sure which now) to the top-level directory with the name output.tex. But again, I could be wrong here, and I cannot check now.

@yo' seems like my memory didn't trick me completely.

daystobrexit.co.uk

@JosephWright will it jump back for the 11 month transition period?

@JosephWright this site looks like they were proud that they have only 23 hours left.

@UlrikeFischer Hah!

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Not sure who's behind it

@JosephWright me neither, the site doesn't show much interesting information.

@UlrikeFischer As I'll no longer be a citizen of the European Union, I'm not so fussed about taht

Can somebody take a quick look at tex.stackexchange.com/a/526349/117050 and tell me whether that code is ok?

@JosephWright :(

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz No, the fact that we run in a dummy path can be easily checked by compiling this code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{bashful}

\begin{document}
\bash[stdout]
pwd
\END
\end{document}

This will output:

/compile

@yo' but tbh, I forgot almost all Overleaf specific stuff after I stopped working for them. Up to the point that I don't trust my memory :)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz you worked for Overleaf?

@yo' yes, as a member of their support. Unfortunately my schedule was too full to invest more hours into it and they wanted me to work at least 20h a week, so they rather searched for someone who can work more time.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz cool! I didn't know you're a past colleague :)

@yo' it wasn't for too long, 7 months, iirc. Since I'm still a student I couldn't work that much, and if I had decided to work the 20h a week I would've had to pay taxes, my health insurance would've got significantly more expensive and so on. It overall wouldn't have payed out.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I see.

How long time ago was this?

@yo' until June last year.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz oh cool. That's interesting to know, thanks for sharing!

@yo' how long do you work for them now?

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz 4 months (exactly today actually as it's already 31st :-) )

Does anyone here know what a “packed” variable is in WEB? Like in @!alpha_file=packed file of text_char;