@FaheemMitha Seems the package will need to be given the status “unmaintained”.

@FaheemMitha This will happen “if there is no Current Maintainer, or the person stated to be Current Maintainer of the work cannot be reached through the indicated means of communication for a period of six months, and there are no other significant signs of active maintenance.” A “reasonable attempt to trace the Current Maintainer (and the Copyright Holder, if the two differ) through the means of an Internet or similar search” must be made.

@JosephWright I pinged you on GitHub like half a year ago. Could you have a look at this some time please? github.com/pgf-tikz/pgf/issues/561

@Circumscribe I guess it's necessary to wait then. In the meantime, you could prepare an upload. That could take 6 months easily.

@Circumscribe you could ask them to count from github.com/drehscheibe/soul/issues/1 (in which case the 5 months are up already)

@FaheemMitha Um, I do hope I wouldn't take that long :/.

@DavidCarlisle I got another reply and the proposal is to start the timer on this date for all of his packages. (That'd include crop, @UlrikeFischer)

@DavidCarlisle Not definitive though, they'll discuss the topic in a few days.

Hi! A couple of days ago, I uploaded my LaTeX package, SemanTeX, to CTAN, see ctan.org/pkg/semantex. Its aim is to provide a more semantic and object-oriented approach to typing mathematics. Any comments, ideas, and suggestions are welcome! (You are also more than welcome to tell me that you think the idea of the package is stupid and that it fixes something that isn’t broken, or that it is too large and will make the document run too slow.)

@Circumscribe Well, that's based on the assumption that you will be doing other things as well. And things generally take longer than one thinks. Especially when it's not your job.

@Gaussler Do you have a usage example available?

@FaheemMitha Yes, sure. But the idea of the package is a bit too complex to fit all in the chat, so it’s easier to get this idea by reading the introduction to the manual. But here is one example from algebraic geometry: Suppose you want to take a sheaf F, restrict it to U and take the stalk at u. In traditional LaTeX: $\mathcal{F}|_{U,u}$. With SemanTeX: $\sheafF[res=U,stalk=u]$

@Circumscribe yep Petra CCed me, thanks

@FaheemMitha The two bugs that I'm aware of would require really minor changes.

@FaheemMitha So everything is a command, and the interface is keyval-based. Even elementary functions are commands. So for e.g. a function f, you get a command \vf (v stands for variable). Deriving the function n times and taking the complex conjugate can be done by typing $\vf[der=n,conj]$.

@DavidCarlisle Then you'll also have seen that someone apparently actually successfully got in touch with him by sending a postcard a few years ago. :D

@Circumscribe didn't I suggest a letter? ;-)

@UlrikeFischer You did, and it apparently would likely have worked :)

@Circumscribe yes that sounded familiar, I may have been in the loop at that time as well:-)

@DavidCarlisle should I try with a letter (I don't know what Petra wrote)?

@UlrikeFischer I'll forward

quack

@PauloCereda excellent dinner last night

@DavidCarlisle oh no

@Gaussler Is \sheafF user defined? Also, do you do algebraic geometry?

@Circumscribe There are probably others. Did you do a search?

@FaheemMitha Yes, \sheafF is a user-defined command. Everything is user-defined and object-oriented, so \sheafF is an object of a class. I used \sheafF since this is one of the standard commands that the manual uses as an example. As for my work, I do a lot of things, in a range from algebraic geometry over algebraic topology to geometric representation theory. I cannot really call myself an expert of either field, though :-)

@Gaussler Sounds fancy. Your work, I mean.

@Gaussler That sounds like a good idea. Putting some structure on mathetatical representation.

Possibly portable to other fields/areas too.

Presumably this is not yet in TeX Live.

@FaheemMitha It is completely customizable by the user. It can be used for most mathematical entities. I show in the manual how to define commands for e.g. cohomology, homological algebra, topology, etc. No, it is not a part of TL20. Depending on how they update their library, I hope and expect that it will be a part of TL21

@barbarabeeton ooh dragons

@Gaussler macros get added all the time, if you put it on ctan with an open source licence karl usually adds it to texlive within a day or so

@DavidCarlisle ooh the force

@DavidCarlisle It is there with the standard LaTeX 1.3c license (which I don’t really know what is xD ). Comments and ideas are more than welcome :-)

@DavidCarlisle ctan.org/pkg/semantex

White on black seems to be all the rage now. In PDF documentation, that is.

@Gaussler oh it will hit TL soon then. :)

@PauloCereda Nice :-)

@Gaussler hey it's already here!

[paulo@cambridge ~] $ texdoc -l semantex
 1 /usr/local/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/doc/latex/semantex/semantex.pdf
   = Package documentation
 2 /usr/local/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/doc/latex/semantex/README.md
   = Readme
Enter number of file to view, RET to view 1, anything else to skip:

@Gaussler ^^ good job :)

@Gaussler can't look at your package now but you may be interested in the mathml refresh community group w3.org/community/mathml4 semantic annotation being very much a subject of discussion here, on the tex side David Farmer's pretext system (which I would guess is a lot simpler in scope) mathbook.pugetsound.edu/latex-conversion.html is discussed, that's used in production for some calculus courses as far as I understand.

You could also look at Bruce Miller's latex markup used for the digital library of mathematical functions

@DavidCarlisle what has Mathematics ever done for us?

@PauloCereda fed my family

@DavidCarlisle ooh so yesterday's dinner was fake news :)

@Gaussler Nice to see documentation that is documentation, and doesn't just dump a bunch of LaTeX code.

@PauloCereda Helped to create the atomic bomb. You're welcome.

@FaheemMitha Thanks :-). I tried to make it accessible and user friendly. Note that it is still in alpha, though, some features are missing, and not everything is documented yet. And there is a chance that some LaTeX3 gods can tell me how to do everything completely differently in order to avoid a lot of x-type expansions and \exp_not’s everywhere. But so far, the package is functioning and has been tested quite thoroughly to get rid of expansion issues. You can do almost all “normal” things now

@PauloCereda [45/49, 01:56/02:05] auto-install: semantex (55363) [243k] ... done

@Rmano :)

@JosephWright Thanks for reviewing this 12 year old ticket ;)

@HenriMenke :)

@HenriMenke That's nothing ...

@JosephWright ooh four Yorkshiremen

@barbarabeeton twitter.com/scale_banana/status/1267400800600457216

@UlrikeFischer: Looks like crop has a second maintainer as of today (CTAN link). It's the person who sent the letter before, and he's already planning to update the package to fix some bug(s). I don't know if they're the same bug(s) you'd like to see fixed. (He got permission from the author to update the package.)

@Circumscribe thanks. I don't have concrete problems with crop now, but it is good that it can be adapted in future if we change some externals regarding the shipout.

@FaheemMitha The package is quite intricate and it probably has more bugs that would likely require a significantly better understanding of it than I currently have.

@Circumscribe Fair enough. I just thought you could go through the question threads for soul, here on TeX SE, and see if anything pops up.

@daleif not that I know of. Lemme try to see

@DavidCarlisle I'm glad the fix seems to do the trick!

@daleif I couldn't find any menion of \footnotesize in all of overleaf.com/learn that would be flawed in this way...

@yo' when I start to type \foot I see it too:

@UlrikeFischer ah I see! Dammit, that's flawed really (and I see I completely missed for @daleif meant!)

this is so sinful :-( I'll see what I can do about it.

@yo' ooh rm -rf /

@yo' it happens with \large too.

@UlrikeFischer ooh

@PauloCereda not a good idea to post this online...

@yo' oh

@UlrikeFischer yep, just saw that. I'll investigate which all macros do this wrongly and either correct it or file an internal ticket for this.

Thanks both for finding this! @UlrikeFischer @daleif This has to be corrected of course, it's too bad.

@yo' where does the list of suggestions comes from? some choices are bit odd.

@UlrikeFischer that's what I have to find out :-)

@yo' if I start with \sec I get as suggestion \usepackage{adjustbox} with the s, e and c of \usepackage highlighted.

@UlrikeFischer yeah, the system is not really perfect, however, I consider this a mere UI issue; the one with \large{} is much worse...

@yo' it probably explains why we're seeing an unexpected increase in users using that syntax. Seems to me (I usually don't use overleaf, but had to help a student), thst it is all macros. Though I have not tested on say alpha

@daleif @UlrikeFischer Not really, I discussed it with devs and actually simply both \large and \large{$1} are in our list of suggestions. The list was, however, auto-generated from Overleaf gallery examples by checking the most commonly used macros, so it didn't go through any sanitazion. I'm filing an internal ticket to at least remove the malacious items.

There are other things as I see now, e.g. \left[$1] (makes sense to the computer, doesn't make sense when you know what it does)

@yo' yes working well now thanks. (just putting gentle pressure on latexonline to catch up:-)

@DavidCarlisle hahah

@yo' I would guess the latexonline version will be more popular even for people with an overleaf account, as there is something satisfying about seeing it run on the same page, but really that's only for people running the examples as given: you wouldn't want to make too many changes to the examples in a system with no real editor features, and no method of saving your work.

@DavidCarlisle My thinking too

@DavidCarlisle yeah, and I saw you wanna be clear about the benefits of each option, which is IMHO great.

@Gaussler -- I've started to take a look. I haven't gotten very far, but I'll be considering these two audiences in this context: trained production and copyeditors working on math journals, and potential readers who must depend on audio presentation. (For the latter, I would also look again at T.V. Raman's "Aster" production.) My initial concern is that the editing task might require fairly deep knowledge of the subject matter, knowledge not possessed by many otherwise competent editors.

@JosephWright see the comment on my ja examples commit?

@DavidCarlisle ooh German

Ja und nein

Hallo ich bin ein Erpel

Ja ein Bier bitte

Nein, das ist nicht gut

@DavidCarlisle No

@PauloCereda -- Very pretty, but rather bloodthirsty when they grow up, I believe. (I was once stared down by a preying mantis; it was rather disconcerting. That beast was nearly 15 cm long.)

@barbarabeeton wow I think I never seen one too close...

@PauloCereda -- This one was sitting on top of a parking meter, not much more than a meter (distance!) away.

@barbarabeeton oh my!

@barbarabeeton Aren't they those things that look rather like a leaf?

@barbarabeeton praying mantis? You wrote "preying".

@JosephWright I just noticed it came to ll hang on I'll mail you

@FaheemMitha -- They are often rather bright green, but more slender than a leaf. Both "praying" (from the inactive position of the front legs) and "preying" (because it's a hunting insect, catching and devouring other, not always smaller, insects) are accepted spellings.

@barbarabeeton Ok. Not much of a threat to a human, I would have thought.

arara needs JAVA... :(

@PauloCereda

And: it seems, that JAVA crashes the (current) VLC-player.

@JosephWright forwarded by mail

@barbarabeeton had it paid?

@DavidCarlisle /s/praying/paying/g :)

@FaheemMitha -- No real threat. They're sometimes kept as pets, often in lower school classrooms. But when one is walking peaceably down a street and turns to see a quite large specimen staring intently at one, it's rather a surprise.

@PauloCereda @PauloCereda Better you learn Bavarian right away:

@DavidCarlisle -- I doubt it. I think it was simply lurking, waiting for lunch to pass by.

Here I wish I had a WYSIWYG editor ...

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz

Any tips for me, to make this proper? :()

% arara: lualatex
% arara: clean: { extensions: [aux, bcl, log, gz ] }

%\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\documentclass[margin=5pt, tikz]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.markings}
\usepackage{xintbinhex} % Decnumber --> Hexnumber

\usepackage{fontspec}
\newfontfamily{\myfont}[Path=../Fonts/, Scale=1]{msyh.ttf}

\begin{document}
\pgfmathsetmacro\Dec{12362}
\def\Fontsize{\Huge}
%\def\Fontsize{}
\def\Symbol{\myfont\Fontsize\symbol{"\xintDecToHex{\Dec}}}

\pgfmathsetlengthmacro\symbolwidth{0.5*width("\Symbol")}

@barbarabeeton I see.

@cis there is no need to do \symbol{"\xintDecToHex{\Dec}}} that is using some complicated macros to turn the number to hex and then using " to turn it back again, just use \symbol{\Dec} (\pgfmathsetmacro\Dec{12362} could be written \def\Dec{12362} as well) also I think you want width(\Symbol) not width("\Symbol") you are taking the width of the character surrounded by quotes.

@cis why do you need it in hex?

@cis no the prefix " in tex means read as hex, so you you can go \symbol{16} or \symbol{"A} which is the same thing but you are do doing \symbol{"\xintDecToHex{16}} which is just slow and weird, converting to hex, then converting back.

@cis so as I say above \symbol{\Dec} or simply \symbol{12362}

@DavidCarlisle Aaaahaaa.... Learned something again. Thx.

Could we split that up among several people? :()

Here we go again...I wonder if this will cause no end of trouble for us like the \\ debacle.

@AlanMunn GO 2020

@AlanMunn Not so sure: it's basically GitHub-flavoured MarkDown, by the look of things

@AlanMunn I'm reading the specs now :)

@PauloCereda Fancy writing a LaTeX/expl3 parser ;)

@JosephWright For real? Sign me in!

@PauloCereda At the moment, I'm just wondering really, but it might be ... fun

@PauloCereda They've got a formal spec, so there is somewhere to start

@JosephWright :)

@AlanMunn I see list indenting is more formalised, so probably there will be fixes needed after edits

commonmark.org/help

@JosephWright Go 2020 2: the aftermath

@AlanMunn -- Yeah. I just got an email promo message from StackOverflow touting their "improvements". I'm shivering in my shoes. (Well, sandals, since summer is almost upon us.)

@barbarabeeton meanwhile, I am freezing. :)

@barbarabeeton :)

@barbarabeeton I see the TUG2020 plans are looking good: hope it's not too stressful for the board!

@PauloCereda -- And what, pray, is the temperature reading on the thermometer?

@barbarabeeton oh right now it's 27C, but it will get close to 13C in an hour or so. :)

@JosephWright /wpp poke

@JosephWright -- So far, it hasn't really hit the board too hard. I'm just hoping I'll be able to view most of the presentations. My connections are very limited.

@barbarabeeton I assume Zoom allows recording and so viewing later

@JosephWright ooh data leak sharing

@JosephWright -- Yes. That's what I'll have to hope for. But it does make it hard to ask questions.

@JosephWright yep, zoom does that. However, I would have preferred Google Meet -- it does it now too, but it's much more easy-going: you simply devote a Google Drive folder and the recording appears in the folder in couple minutes.

@yo' ooh nice!

@yo' Depended I guess on access to a corporate account: I note Adelaide Uni is providing the Zoom set up

@JosephWright that's correct

@PauloCereda For example, we are banned from anything other than Teams and BlackBoard Collaborate at work, so we'd be no help

@JosephWright OL uses GMeet actually

@yo' Ah, right

@JosephWright and also Zoom, for that matter

@yo' But you are not on the TUG board, whereas we know an Australian academic who is ;)

@JosephWright :-) still if needed, I could just ask, you know :-)

@yo' There are lots of options ... for example the LaTeX team are back on Skype, haing tried and had 'fun' with Google Hangouts

@yo' I'm not involved in the organising ;)

@barbarabeeton You wouldn't know that summer is upon us yesterday. It was 60° in the house.

@JosephWright neither am I (other than that I applied to be a mod)

@yo' I applied for that too :)

@AlanMunn -- Same here. After three days of almost-too-warm weather, last might the furnace kicked back on. But @PauloCereda has a different tolerance than we do.

@JosephWright yay!

@JosephWright /poke

@yo' yay

@JosephWright @yo' don't let anyone ask questions to me :)

@AlanMunn oh no it's F not C

/quacks in Celsius

@barbarabeeton 15C?! Brrrrrrrr

@PauloCereda ideal conditions for spending active time outside

@yo' in a sunny spot. :)

@PauloCereda -- Well, time to put on a shirt with long sleeves.

@barbarabeeton indeed!

@PauloCereda -- But I didn't say a wool shirt.

@PauloCereda passed weekend about 10C and a long rain, and we spent the whole weekend outside

@yo' ooh

Is it possible to pass in command line parameters to a tex document? Im using miktex-lualatex and i have a template latex document that will be customized for different people with their name. is there a way I can pass their name as a text string to miktex when it generates?

Nvm, i got it! I used the def command, the issue was I was using single quotes, using double quotes around the commands fixed it