TeX, LaTeX and Friends

barbara beeton

1:51 AM

@DavidCarlisle -- LaTeX hardly existed when you were a student.

2

Paulo Cereda

8:31 AM

@DavidCarlisle your rubber probably had latex in it. :)

Oh we are talking about LaTeX...

AlexG

Why does @yo' s comment receive a different kind of star (a hollow one)? What is the difference to the usual black one? (chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/41?m=55746890#55746890)

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@AlexG pinned by mod.

AlexG

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Pinned? By whom, how to pin (in chat) and what does it mean?

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@AlexG by a moderator, it'll stay longer in the top right view.

AlexG

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Ah, moderators, I see.

daleif

9:07 AM

@UlrikeFischer my local tlnet mirror just got the memoir update, seems Karl overlooked it monday

Ulrike Fischer

@daleif yes, he wrote this on the texlive list - it happens (and so sometimes it is good to remind him or to ask on the texlive list).

daleif

9:35 AM

@UlrikeFischer I know

With siunitx say I have a table column S[table-format=-1.4] and a cell contains (.123), I know there is an option to have it ignore the ()'s anyone remember the name of that option?

ahh, parse-numbers=false also gives me what I wanted (just alignment on the .)

well, almost

Paulo Cereda

10:21 AM

arara is 9 stars from 300!

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda latex3 is 18 stars from 1000

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh

daleif

What the F did I just press? In a breif moment my emacs had the text set with a straight right edge (by adding spaces) and then it went away. Never seen that before.

Ulrike Fischer

@PauloCereda bearwear is 1 star from 3!

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer fixed :)

Ulrike Fischer

10:35 AM

@PauloCereda now it is 1 star from 4 ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer ooh

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@UlrikeFischer bearwear seems to be very attractive to all kinds animals: stars from a duck and a koala :)

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz oh, I didn't know that you can see who stared. I never looked at this.

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz there's a lady too :)

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@PauloCereda Quack :)

Paulo Cereda

10:50 AM

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz ooh quack

@MarcelKrüger hi Marcel, the IoT now manages the TL and ConTeXt images at Docker Hub too.

daleif

How long is it since anyone have seen this syntax for figures? I don't think I've seen it before

\begin{center}
\leavevmode\epsfysize=3.5in
\epsfxsize=5.7in\epsfbox{redacted.eps}
\end{center}

Rmano

@PauloCereda and a squirrel too (unifying avatars...)

Paulo Cereda

@Rmano ooh

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

bearwear: now 1 star from 5 :)

Marcel Krüger

11:17 AM

@PauloCereda Thanks for letting me know :) Did you have any problems with GitLab or is this more of a cosmetic addition?

Paulo Cereda

@MarcelKrüger just an addition. :) GitLab has been great for us, the Hub acts like a mirror. :)

@MarcelKrüger We are now Gold in GL, so we can get some build benefits. :)

yo'

12:14 PM

I'll start a League for banning packages that do a single thing, do it badly and offer ridiculously limited customizations. Who's joining?

4

mickep

@yo' Could we add a package that does the banning somehow?

yo'

well, I think that's possible:

\newwrite\banpackage@out
\def\banpackage#1{
\openout\banpackage@out=#1.sty
\closeout\banpackage@out
}

Paulo Cereda

@yo' ooh can we have cookies?

yo'

@PauloCereda definitely. We'll write the packages' names in the topping and then eat the packages.

mickep

Yeah, lets upload such a package, with a fixed list of banned packages, and never update it again. :)

Phelype Oleinik

12:18 PM

@yo' Lucky for you, LaTeX 2020-10-01 has \disable@package@load :-)

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@yo' can we also ban packages that do many things, do all of those badly?

Paulo Cereda

@yo' ooh

yo'

@PhelypeOleinik oh, that's a big argument for getting Overleaf update to 2020-10-01 :D

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz ahem physi ahem cs ahem

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik could the kernel disable the kernel? ooh self-reference

mickep

@yo' The only question would be, should that package itself be in the list of banned packages? Hmm....

Paulo Cereda

12:19 PM

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz ooh yes

@mickep ooh this is deliciously Godëlian

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@yo' consider me joined!

Paulo Cereda

I probably got the accent wrong too

yo'

@PauloCereda quite :D

Phelype Oleinik

@yo' Looking forward to that :-)

yo'

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz yay!

Phelype Oleinik

12:20 PM

@PauloCereda Only if it could travel back in time. This is usually easy, but not in TeX :-)

mickep

@PauloCereda Gödölïän

Paulo Cereda

@mickep ooh

@PhelypeOleinik bah time travel is not a problem :)

@PauloCereda See? :)

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@PhelypeOleinik well, making sure a package isn't loaded was never that hard (just define opt@<name> and ver@<name>).

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik ^^ see my reply, I reply to myself. :)

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda Ooh, two hearts

Paulo Cereda

12:21 PM

AND IT WORKS

@PhelypeOleinik ooh timey-whimey wibbly wobbly

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda :-)

Paulo Cereda

@yo' would you like to see an Easter egg too?

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@yo' should add a \write\banpackage@out{\errmessage{This package is evil and thus banned from the realms of the rightous TeXnicians!}}.

2

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz But that would pretend the package is loaded. \disable@package@load inhibits that (but the effect usually is the same)

yo'

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz oh and all of this needs immediate probably :D

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

12:25 PM

@PhelypeOleinik with the new hooks, could we in theory disable the package being loaded and still throw an appropriate banishing message?

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz could we hook the author too?

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz

\disable@package@load{definitely-not-abntex}{\errmessage{This package is evil and thus banned from the realms of the rightous TeXnicians!}}

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@PauloCereda we could certainly call the author Hook.

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz ooh Peter Pan

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@PauloCereda :)

Paulo Cereda

12:27 PM

@PhelypeOleinik YES I WUB YOU

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda <3

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@yo' probably we shouldn't use the approach to create all those packages with the banned message, but utilize LaTeX's hook mechanisms then. Would be cleaner. Can we call the package nag++? Because it does the same as nag, but more efficient?

Paulo Cereda

PS5 Teardown: An up-close and personal look at the console hardware

►

yo'

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz or keep a list of packages the user called, and inject "I'm a sinner as I use \LaTeX\@ packages \commaseparatedlistofusedbannedpackages\@ in my document!" at random places in their text.

Ulrike Fischer

12:42 PM

@yo' which packages do you have in mind?

yo'

@UlrikeFischer I don't really wanna name, but one I recently met is called optidef and it's quite a typical example of what I mean.

Paulo Cereda

Friends, the Island of TeX now manages the TeX Live and ConTeXt images at Docker Hub as well, so pick up your source! Thanks to the awesome @HenriMenke for making this possible! hub.docker.com/u/texlive hub.docker.com/u/contextgarden gitlab.com/islandoftex/images/texlive gitlab.com/islandoftex/images/context

5

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

12:58 PM

@yo' Oh, I haven't stumbled upon that one yet :) If the recent release didn't break it, I would've included catoptions in that list.

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@PhelypeOleinik How does \disable@package@load works? Can I use it in a class to prevent users loading incompatible packages?

Ulrike Fischer

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz well you can, but we explicitly defined only a command with @ and not some user interface, because one should use it with great care. If a class silently removes packages you can get quite angry users.

Paulo Cereda

1:29 PM

@UlrikeFischer ooh great care

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@UlrikeFischer Well luckily one does not need any user interface to use something in latex2e :)

daleif

@UlrikeFischer (memoir looks the other way.....)

Ulrike Fischer

@daleif well if you emulate all the functionality they probably don't remark that something is missing -- until the package extends its code and the emulation doesn't follow.

daleif

@UlrikeFischer exactly

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

1:50 PM

@UlrikeFischer Well, throw an error and you're not silent :)

Phelype Oleinik

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz After \disable@package@load{<pkg>}{<action>}, an attempt to \usepackage{<pkg>} will: 1) check if <pkg> is already loaded and if so do the usual option-clash test; otherwise 2) check if <pkg> exists (file substitutions taken into account), and issue an error if missing; otherwise 3) check if <pkg> was disabled, and if so it executes <action> instead of loading <pkg>.sty.

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@PhelypeOleinik Thanks a lot for the explanation! That's a really useful thing to have!

Phelype Oleinik

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz So answering your second question, yes, you can do \disable@package@load{bad-package}{<code>}, then any attempt to load a bad-package will execute the <code> instead, which may be an error message, or loading a replacement package, or even loading the package with patches applied before and/or after (though for that you also have hooks)

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Glad you like it :-)

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

> even loading the package with patches applied before and/or after

That's even better!

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Prediction: The next beamer release will include a beamer-conflicts.tex file which is full of \disable@package@load{enumitem}{\ClassError...}\disable@package@load...

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

1:54 PM

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz only for my internal version :)

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz But you're the one who knows about those, better teach the users...

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz "teach the users": I can't even count how often I have written "don't load zzz with beamer" - I bet if one would measure, these keys on my keyboard would be much thinner than the others :)

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz understandable.

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz just in time :)

Phelype Oleinik

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Hm... I just noticed that you get a loop (obviously) if you do \usepackage{bad-package} within the alternative code... Better find a way to trap that...

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

1:59 PM

@PhelypeOleinik A loop is better than letting the user load it :)

Phelype Oleinik

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz A very dramatic way to do so :-)

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@PhelypeOleinik user of the evil package deserve no sympathy :)

Phelype Oleinik

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz :-)

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Ruthless

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz nag++ it is. We should write some database with dependencies of evil packages, so that we can find them all and destroy them!

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

Tricky question: should I eat my cookie now or later?

3

Paulo Cereda

2:02 PM

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz ooh

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz really depends.

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Can we throw them into a volcano?

2

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz ooh volcanoes

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz well, we can print them and when I visit a volcano the next time I promise I'll throw them in!

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz People don't listen to nagging, you'd need yell-loudly++

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

2:04 PM

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz :) great!

@PhelypeOleinik You mean YELL-LOUDLY++?

yo'

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz now and later

Phelype Oleinik

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz YES! :D

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@yo' I'm afraid there is only one and I can't stop after half of it

yo'

Replicator (Star Trek)

In Star Trek a replicator is a machine that can create (and recycle) things. Replicators were originally seen to simply synthesize meals on demand, but in later series much larger non-food items appear. The technical aspects of replicated versus "real" things is sometimes a plot element. == Origins and limitations == Although previous sci-fi writers had speculated about the development of "replicating" or "duplicating" technology, the term "replicator" was not itself used until Star Trek: The Next Generation. In simple terms, it was described as a 24th century advancement from the 23rd century...

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz ^^ Star Trek to the rescue!

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@yo' :) I hope it works better than en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

arg, the ' in the url breaks the link :(

yo'

2:11 PM

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz yeah, try this one

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Not_entirely_unlike

Paulo Cereda

ooh don't panic

yo'

Or with %27 in place of the apostrophe: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Paulo Cereda

and bring the towel

yo'

Phrases from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comic science fiction series created by Douglas Adams that has become popular among fans of the genre and members of the scientific community. Phrases from it are widely recognised and often used in reference to, but outside the context of, the source material. Many writers on popular science, such as Fred Alan Wolf, Paul Davies, and Michio Kaku, have used quotations in their books to illustrate facts about cosmology or philosophy. == The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42 == In the radio series and the first novel...

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

2:12 PM

@yo' Good to know, thanks!

yo'

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz If you click "Read" on top right in wiki, it'll give you a much safer URL, no matter what your URL looks like

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@PhelypeOleinik but then the package's name should be yell-loudly or YELL-LOUDLY as it doesn't add upon yell-loudly (which, afaik, doesn't exist).

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz You can write a stub just to add upon it :-)

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@yo' Neat trick, I'll have to bookmark that

yo'

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz I'm now a URL expert, after trying to write a generator for "Open in Overleaf" URLs for example documents :) (I was actually successful to do that, but it took a while)

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

2:18 PM

@yo' :)

@yo' Speaking of overleaf: is there are reason templates can't be directly downloaded as zip?

yo'

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz I think it's a measure against scraping -- this way you need to be logged in to download a template

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@yo' ah, makes sense

Alan Munn

3

Oops

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@AlanMunn if it was written with LaTeX the author forgot to include the YELL-LOUDLY++ package.

2

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn ooh not-so-cleveref

3

Also the Y thingy in the table/figure thingy looks like it is being beamed up (@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz).

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

2:28 PM

@PauloCereda :D

Alan Munn

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I think it was done in LaTeX, although I don't know if the original text was or whether this is DeGruyter generated TeX from Word source. But it's bad in two ways: most of the the trees are labelled as tables, but in linguistics they're usually numbered like equations, and in fact many of the trees are numbered like that. So I suspect this is badly proof read by the author, but not their source.

@PauloCereda That's because it has been. (It shows something that is not pronounced in that position.)

Paulo Cereda

@AlanMunn ooh

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz ^^ linguistics should be classified under Star Trek in the Dewey thingy.

> In 1816, the United States designed a fort to shield itself from a Canadian invasion. However, the engineers accidentally built the fort in Canada.

5

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@PauloCereda source (because obviously hilarious)?

Alan Munn

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Fort Montgomery v.1

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz neatorama.com/2013/11/24/…

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

2:42 PM

@PauloCereda well, not as hilarious as I thought, on the contrary, quite an understandable error.

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz :)

Paulo Cereda

3:03 PM

ooh

raf

4:11 PM

Hi, can anyone please check this issue? tex.stackexchange.com/q/565635/114006

matt

4:34 PM

@PauloCereda ooh, a standalone

@yo' ooh, a fellow trekkie

barbara beeton

@yo' -- I object to that use of \@, when a simple \ (slash space) has the same effect, is more compact, and is easier to explain.

Paulo Cereda

@matt ooh

matt

meta ooh

yo'

5:19 PM

@barbarabeeton I don't think I'll ever agree on that one :-)

barbara beeton

@yo' -- Then we'll just have to agree to disagree. (I'm just following the TeXbook.)

yo'

@barbarabeeton I agree on that one :-)

barbara beeton

@yo' -- Granted, the \@ is LaTeX, but how do you explain to a newbie (in a way that's easy to remember) that when it is placed before a period, it indicates the end of a sentence, but when it occers before a space, it's an ordinary space? (Before a period, for basic TeX a \null gives the desired result. Slash-space works the same in both basic TeX and LaTeX.)

yo'

@barbarabeeton Can I be bold and naughty enough to say that I don't care much about plain? :)

barbara beeton

@yo' -- That's okay, but if "plain" TeX (notice that I said basic, not "plain") TeX didn't exist, neither would LaTeX.

yo'

5:32 PM

and then, this is my personal preference. It probably comes from the fact that I worked in environments that required a lot of automation, and \@ is quite fool-proof. What would I teach? I dunno, I never needed to really think about this :)

@barbarabeeton point taken :) but really, I only need to care about LaTeX coding at the moment...

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@yo' I'm voting for \ as well here!

barbara beeton

@yo' -- Well, TUGboat gets submissions in plain, LaTeX, and ConTeXt. (Even occasional items in pandoc or mp4.) So it's important to be able to tell the difference and "do the right thing". Fortunately, I've got Karl to keep me honest.

yo'

@barbarabeeton ah yes, different people, different scenarios :)

barbara beeton

@AlanMunn -- Eek! But table captions are usually (traditionally?) placed at the top. So here, it's tough to figure out what's wrong without looking at the code. (But, indeed, not good!)

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@barbarabeeton Don't be scared, but my bachelor's and master's thesis both use captions placed below tables (stupid template provided by the chair, looks horrific tbh. -- and I had to recreate it in LaTeX, it was only a Word template)

barbara beeton

5:48 PM

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz -- Very brave of you!

Alan Munn

6:16 PM

@barbarabeeton Well it's been immortalized in book form, so no looking at the code. In fact they shouldn't have been figures at all since normally such things are numbered like regular examples. If it had been my book I would have been screaming at the production people...

barbara beeton

@AlanMunn -- Didn't you know that production people wear earplugs? <grin> (Now I'll have to apologize to my friends who are production people.)

Alan Munn

@barbarabeeton :)

barbara beeton

6:34 PM

@daleif -- A little bird told me that you've managed to survive your position as "problem solver" for 18 years. Good for you! Keep it up! I hope your victims (er, subjects?) appreciate it.

daleif

7:05 PM

@barbarabeeton well, next year I've been in our yellow buildings for 25 years, started as a student and never left. Never even applied for a job just got asked to help with some stuff the rest is history. Even though I don't work as much with latex as I used to.

Ulrike Fischer

7:55 PM

@DavidCarlisle so slow ...

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer 😛

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle ;-)

Ulrike Fischer

8:54 PM

@PhelypeOleinik did they decide not to install revtex4-1 in texlive? I still have an old version, and this isn't really good, a missing style would be better than getting an \endgroup error.

Phelype Oleinik

9:19 PM

@UlrikeFischer I sent 4.0 and 4.1 to Karl yesterday night (unfortunately after his update hours), so I'd expect them to be on tomorrow's update

@UlrikeFischer Karl is just pulling CTAN in. I'll keep an eye

Ulrike Fischer

@PhelypeOleinik ah, ok. That's then ok (I just came across it as this emulateapj class loads 4.1).

Ulrike Fischer

9:55 PM

@PhelypeOleinik when I run on a command line pdflatex \relax \input test it compiles fine, when I do latex \relax \input test nothing happen. Can you reproduce this?

Phelype Oleinik

@UlrikeFischer No, both work the same for me. The diff of the logs only contains minor stuff due to dvips vs. pdftex backends

Ulrike Fischer

@PhelypeOleinik curious. I get this both in miktex and texlive.

Phelype Oleinik

@UlrikeFischer Strange. How "nothing happens"? It hangs, or it waits for input, or...?

@UlrikeFischer In other news, revtex4 and 4-1 are alive (tears of joy): tug.org/svn/texlive?view=revision&revision=56589 tug.org/svn/texlive?view=revision&revision=56590

Ulrike Fischer

@PhelypeOleinik I found the reason. there was a latex.py in the test folder (don't ask me why it is old).

Phelype Oleinik

@UlrikeFischer Sneaky snakes :-)

Paulo Cereda