TeX, LaTeX and Friends

6:57 AM

@AlanMunn shouldn't pose a problem indeed. Deleted files are ignored. But if you replace all files with empty files, they'll all appear in the cache :-)

Pablo González L

7:49 AM

Hi, sorry for the delay in answering, I'm inclined to fedora-mate just for experience (I don't want to start a rpm vs deb :), in general the MATE environment goes well with old computers (my current laptop is from 2009) and keeps that air of old gnome2. If you use
(https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/32/Everything/x86_64/iso/Fedora-Everything-netinst-x86_64-32-1.6.iso) and you choose well what you want (perl, python,etc) the installation is light only with what one uses and you don't abuse the meta-packages of the debian-based distributions. I've tried with other di…

@AlanMunn I still like opensuse...but there's no way to install it in my old room :( and it consumes a lot of resources...but it's nice :)

@DavidCarlisle In the past I maintained communication with him, but, after leaving the forum, we wrote to each other a couple of times and then he closed ALL and disappeared :(

Paulo Cereda

8:20 AM

quack

yo'

@PauloCereda boo!

Paulo Cereda

@yo' ooh

David Carlisle

8:58 AM

@PauloCereda breakfast

CarLaTeX

@DavidCarlisle Ducks for breakfast? English are strange! :)

David Carlisle

@CarLaTeX stick them to pizza with nutella and have them with fried egg and bacon, you Italians know nothing about food.

CarLaTeX

@DavidCarlisle I don't know why, but I'm feeling nauseous :)

David Carlisle

9:14 AM

@CarLaTeX I don't think I have ever had nutella but @PauloCereda tells me it is good on pizza.

CarLaTeX

@DavidCarlisle Indeed, he is only half Italian

Chief O'Brien

9:35 AM

@DavidCarlisle: If I remember correctly, nutella is produced by Ferrero, which is an Italian company, so the connection to pizza etc. is pretty obvious, not to say: a natural consequence ;-)

CarLaTeX

@ChiefO'Brien Nutella is good, pizza is good, Nutella pizza is a focaccia, not a pizza (I'm Italian, we have no Nutella pizza here)

Chief O'Brien

@CarLaTeX I see ... I don't eat nutella however

David Carlisle

@CarLaTeX I'm sure pizza is a New York delicacy, what would Italians know about pizza?

CarLaTeX

@ChiefO'Brien Neither do I, it is too sweet, in my opinion, but a lot of people love it

@DavidCarlisle Repeat this sentence in Naples and see what happens...

David Carlisle

@CarLaTeX I could do it while handing out Hawaiian pizza

CarLaTeX

9:43 AM

@DavidCarlisle Yes, good idea :)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh no

@CarLaTeX he can survive by singing Santa Lucia

:)

CarLaTeX

@PauloCereda I hope he's a good singer :)

Paulo Cereda

@CarLaTeX Nutella pizza provides courage. :)

CarLaTeX

@PauloCereda :)

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

10:05 AM

@DavidCarlisle guess it's your lucky day:

> New on CTAN: ZzTeX (CTAN Announcements)

3

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz LOL

samcarter_left_tex.se

10:22 AM

@CarLaTeX Saying such a sentence in Naples will make Mount Vesuvius break out

CarLaTeX

@samcarter_left_tex.se Yes, it's likely

samcarter_left_tex.se

10:32 AM

4

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter_left_tex.se LOL

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

11:23 AM

@Rmano seems like the better way, mine was just born out of the minimal-side-effects thought, so I added a new one because I only patched internals... :)

Rmano

11:39 AM

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz ok, thank for the feedback, I will merge

@PauloCereda The same as going with a Liverpool FC flag to Old Trafford...

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@Rmano what's still missing is a behaviour if neither circle nor ieee circle is used for european logic port. Certainly the triangles are a weird choice... :)

Rmano

11:56 AM

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Yes, I agree, but the triangles were there since the start of times, and I do not like making changes that silently change old circuits...

I have a style with the option I like, and the idea is that everybody can have one. Stick it in your TEXMF path and using \ctikzstyle{skillmon} you are done...

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@Rmano I didn't propose changing it (though I personally don't like them and am not used to them, tastes and requirements differ), I only wonder how one could configure the used not-circs on flipflops if one uses the triangles on European logic ports.

Rmano

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Hmmm... Yes, I got it. No, now you can't.

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@Rmano my approach is a bit more drastic, I wrote a package which also adds ports and elements I additionally need (e.g., european comp port, for some reason my professor likes that more than using an op amp for that purpose if one draws a logical network).

Rmano

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz yes, there are infinite variations. What's an "european comp port"? ;-)

Paulo Cereda

12:15 PM

@Rmano ooh Paul McCartney

Marcel Krüger

1:34 PM

@UlrikeFischer LuaMetaLaTeX now has HarfBuzz even on Windows :)

4

Paulo Cereda

@MarcelKrüger ooh

cis

@DavidCarlisle

My problem is, I have some error messages

aaa@bbb ~ $ sudo apt-get -f install zandronum doomseeker
Reading package lists ... Done
Dependency tree is built.
Status information is read in .... Done
zandronum is the latest version.
Try »apt-get -f install«, to correct this:
The following Packages have unfulfilled dependencies:
doomseeker : Depends on: libqt5core5a (>= 5.5.0) but 5.2.1+dfsg-1ubuntu14.3 should be installed
Depends on: libqt5multimedia5 (>= 5.0.2) but should not be installed

Marcel Krüger

2:03 PM

@cis What do you get when running sudo apt-get -f install?

cis

2:28 PM

@MarcelKrüger This is my first line, I think:

aaa@bbb ~ $ sudo apt-get -f install zandronum doomseeker
Reading package lists ... Done
Dependency tree is built.
Status information is read in .... Done
zandronum is the latest version.
Try »apt-get -f install«, to correct this:
The following Packages have unfulfilled dependencies:
doomseeker : Depends on: libqt5core5a (>= 5.5.0) but 5.2.1+dfsg-1ubuntu14.3 should be installed
Depends on: libqt5multimedia5 (>= 5.0.2) but should not be installed
Depends on: libstdc++6 (>= 5.2) but 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04 soll installiert werden

Paulo Cereda

ooh mr. dinosaur is here again :)

@jokerdino how's your beamer adventure, mr. dinosaur? :)

jokerdino

haven't started on beamer yet

Marcel Krüger

@cis You are running sudo apt-get -f install zandronum doomseeker which doesn't do anything because zandronum and doomseeker are already installed (even if they are missing some dependencies). You need to run only sudo apt-get -f install without any additional arguments.

Alan Munn

2:44 PM

@jokerdino Although I use beamer, I find that it has a very high markup-content ratio which is annoying, so I've developed a hybrid approach where I build slides initially with markdown using pandoc which save a lot of typing.

Joseph Wright

@AlanMunn Depends on your slide design, I guess, also your targets (I use beamer with conditionals for handouts + slides + iPad version :))

Alan Munn

@JosephWright Yes, I only use it for talks and haven't played much with that facility. What's special about the iPad version?

Joseph Wright

@AlanMunn Oh, not much: I use 4-up layout in B/W for printed handouts, so the iPad version needs to have the handout content but be single frame per page and keep the colour

Alan Munn

@JosephWright Ah, I see. But you might still benefit from the markdown approach to slide making. I find it dramatically faster. You can work with the produced LaTeX source afterwards, so it's not a black box.

Paulo Cereda

Slides for the first talk are done!

Marcel Krüger

2:52 PM

@PauloCereda Yay!

Paulo Cereda

@MarcelKrüger yay! :)

@MarcelKrüger Now I need to record it and write another set of slides... oh no

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

3:21 PM

@Rmano I'm not even sure it is that widely known, but my chef is using it, looks like the following:

cis

Oh,,,, @MarcelKrüger

aaa@bbb ~ $ sudo apt-get -f install
[sudo] password for aaa:
Paketlisten werden gelesen... Fertig
Abhängigkeitsbaum wird aufgebaut.
Statusinformationen werden eingelesen.... Fertig
Das folgende Paket wurde automatisch installiert und wird nicht mehr benötigt:
zandronum-pk3
Verwenden Sie »apt-get autoremove«, um es zu entfernen.
0 aktualisiert, 0 neu installiert, 0 zu entfernen und 551 nicht aktualisiert.
aaa@bbb ~ $ zandronum
zandronum: Befehl nicht gefunden.
aaa@bbb ~ $ zandronum.pk3

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

jokerdino

@AlanMunn you got anything to point me towards for that markdown + pandoc?

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

@Rmano similar to a Schmitt-trigger, but without the hysteresis.

jokerdino

never mind, I will search engine the stuff.

woah, that was super simple and beautiful

Joseph Wright

3:33 PM

@AlanMunn I'd be happy to see an example :) There's a reason I'm wary of having a full-on presentation lesson on learnlatex.org

@PauloCereda Yay! I'm going to do that tomorrow

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright ooh

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger wow, what does it need?

Alan Munn

@JosephWright This covers pretty much most of what I would tell you. I use a TeXShop engine in place of a makefile, or you could use arara of course. jeromyanglim.blogspot.com/2012/07/beamer-pandoc-markdown.html

@JosephWright I actually do a bit of a mixture, because I tend to make a few slides at a time and then just copy them into my final document rather than create a whole document at once. But that's a detail.

jokerdino

3:48 PM

@AlanMunn I want to clarify something, you use pandoc to convert the markdown into .tex and edit further?

Alan Munn

@jokerdino Yes, that's what I do. Once I have most of the slide content in place I then switch to just editing the LaTeX source instead.

jokerdino

Thanks, I feel excited.

Actually smart and time efficient.

Marcel Krüger

4:10 PM

@UlrikeFischer It shouldn't need anything and just work (TM) with the latest version. (I integrated luaharfbuzz into the library which is needed for kpse)

@cis Something got messed up on your system. Probably it is best to delete the zandronum and doomseeker packages, thenuse apt-get autoremove to delete any leftover packages and then again try to install them and look what it complains about. It looks like some errors got ignored the first time. In any case, you will probably again hit the issue that it is incompatible with your version. (Ubuntu 14.04 is 6 years old after all, most software will be packaged for more recent versions)

For more details, you can probably find better help at AskUbuntu

jokerdino

yeah sure, ask @ Ask Ubuntu

Marcel Krüger

4:29 PM

@UlrikeFischer You might need to copy luametalatex(-dev).lua to the binary directory though depending on when you installed the last version.

Gaussler

Hi, I am developing on my package semantex, which provides keyval-based math functions. I am thinking about whether I could add a feature to it (probably using LuaTeX) that allows the package to “remove itself”, e.g. if you want to publish your paper. I know there are a couple of general questions here about de-macro’ing your documents, and this seems to be an unsolved problem in general. But this is different since this is just one package that needs to be able to remove itself.

Is this possible?

Essentially, my idea is to make LuaTeX write a separate file containing information about what to replace with what

But this requires me to also keep track of line numbers in files, which seems to be a bit difficult in LuaTeX. There is a hacky script somewhere that does not seem to work very well

Alternatively, does there exist a way to edit the file that LuaTeX is currently processing?

Like, LuaTeX renders a line, but then replaces that line by something else? I know this sounds a bit far out, but is it possible?

Marcel Krüger

@Gaussler Possible: Yes. LuaTeX allows you to provide callbacks for opening and reading a file, you could use them to open the file read/write and change the content. !!But please don't do that!! Because of how filesystems work, things get complicated when you change the length of any line. (Increasing the length of one line requires rewriting the entire rest of the file which gets extremely inefficient if you try to do that after every line.

Also it is very dangerous because a error can suddenly destroy your input file.

Gaussler

@MarcelKrüger So, the best idea would be to create a separate file containing (a) position in file, (b) code to replace, (c) code to replace it by?

Marcel Krüger

@Gaussler If you already now how to replace everything, you can just write the new source to a separate file and therefore avoid such issues.

Gaussler

4:45 PM

@MarcelKrüger So, I would use that “do something on each lin” callback, copying each line, but rendering whatever has to be rendered?

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger why is there now a -dev version?

Marcel Krüger

@Gaussler Something like that. Of course it depends on how reliable you can even determine the new text if you only have the TeX sources.

@UlrikeFischer There always was a -dev version to allow testing with both regular and dev LaTeX versions.

There is also a plain TeX version called luametaplain

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger I must have missed that, but I did set the search pathes so that "luametalatex" uses the -dev files. So I should use the -dev lua with this?

Gaussler

@MarcelKrüger Well, so could I do something like this? I add a callback that goes like this: LuaTeX seeks a token. If it was not on the list of commands provided by my package, just add it to the file. If it was on that list, add the TeX output instead

Marcel Krüger

@UlrikeFischer Yes, that's the idea. There is no magic going on though, luametalatex-dev.lua is exactly the same as luametalatex.lua and they just exists such that you can add different searchpaths. Both use symlinks though, so they might lead to issues on Windows. You might have to actually copy the luametalatex.lua file to luametalatex-dev.lua and similar for the init file.

@Gaussler LuaTeX doesn't really have a Token level callback, so you either get a input line and have to identify tokens/expansion etc. yourself, or you pass something back from you TeX code. Then you can access the current line number, but that line number might not be the one you expect when macros are involved.

@UlrikeFischer Currently the separation is a bit pointless though because the non dev version still requires a dev release of luaotfload, so you probably never want to use it with non-dev latex.

Gaussler

4:56 PM

@MarcelKrüger So, in the case where I “pass something back from my TeX code”, I would also have to find a way to make it add all the code that has nothing to do with the package. There does not seem to be an obvious way to do this, at least without a token callback

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger I think I confused something here. Which files go to the bin folder? And which lua-file is referenced in the fmtutil.cnf line.

Marcel Krüger

@Gaussler Yes.

@UlrikeFischer For every copy of luametatex.exe in the bin folder, you need a copy of luametalatex.lua with the name of the luametatex.exe copy but with .exe replaced by .lua in the bin folder.

David Carlisle

@Gaussler you could do something but is the package so big that you need to remove it?

Marcel Krüger

Normally these should be luametalatex.lua, luametalatex-dev.lua and luametaplain.lua

@UlrikeFischer The some files are also referenced in fmtutil.cnf.

Gaussler

@DavidCarlisle Well, the package essentially invites you to write all your math using the package and its keyval syntax. So instead of $ f^{-1}|_{U} $ , you write $ \vf[inv,res=\vU] $ (\vf and \vU are the names I usually use for the variables f and U, but the user defines that themselves). The keyval syntax is set up by the user

So yes, it’s a pretty big thing, and I don’t know how a journal would react

David Carlisle

5:02 PM

@Gaussler yes but why is that an issue, some journals explicitly forbid user defined macros but most dont as far as I know

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger I get an error from fmtutil-sys because of "option --strict".

Marcel Krüger

@UlrikeFischer These in turn will search for files with the name luametalatex-init.lua, luametalatex-dev-init.lua and luametaplain-init.lua in your texmf folder. These -init.lua files must be in the same folder as the dll files. Afterwards, everything follows normal kpathsea rules.

Gaussler

@DavidCarlisle You may be right. But I have not tried to see how they would react yet. It’s a very different way of writing math and requires a lot of functions to be set up

@DavidCarlisle You can see the example in the introduction to the manual: mirrors.dotsrc.org/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/semantex/…

Marcel Krüger

@UlrikeFischer I only heard about --no-strict before...

Does it show any other issues?

Gaussler

It’s still a very incomplete manual, since the package is still in alpha

David Carlisle

5:05 PM

@Gaussler unicode-math (re)defines a couple of thousand user level math commands and completely redefines how math fonts work, how big is big?

Gaussler

@DavidCarlisle Well, what I mean is that in the package, you never, ever write ordinary math. You only write keyval functions

So it is quite a heavy use of macro functions

David Carlisle

@Gaussler latex is a macro expansion language, so yes.

Gaussler

@DavidCarlisle What I’m saying is that I suspect some journals might be significantly more reluctant to accept such a macro-heavy document

David Carlisle

@Gaussler they may, but I'd guess it's more likely that authors don't want to trust a generated version of their work to be the official submission. On use of keyval: tex.stackexchange.com/a/86725/1090

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger it helps not to make typo in pathes ;-). But now I get another error:

fmtutil: running `luametatex -ini   -jobname=luametalatex -progname=luametalatex --lua="C:\texlive\2020\bin\win32\luametalatex.lua" luametalatex.ini' ...
lua error : C:\texlive\2020\bin\win32\luametalatex.lua:48: attempt to index a nil value (local 'file')

Marcel Krüger

5:11 PM

@UlrikeFischer That's a terrible errormessage which means something like: kpathsea did not find luametalatex-init.lua.

Can you try kpsewhich -progname luametalatex luametalatex-init.lua?

Rmano

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz First time I see it. If it's a kind of signal regenerator without hysteresis, I was used to use a simple buffer (or two "not" in series).

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger it is found. How can I try what the %s in the kpsewhich call actually gives?

Marcel Krüger

@UlrikeFischer I just found the issue... The test for windows is currently not really implemented, wait a second.

@UlrikeFischer I always just replace io.popen with print and try running it, there probably is a better way though.

@UlrikeFischer The Windows version works again. The new version has actually been tested on Windows.

But you need to copy the bin folder files again (or find a way to setup symlinks)

Ulrike Fischer

5:33 PM

@MarcelKrüger format successful created.

Marcel Krüger

@UlrikeFischer Great. These issues actually started with another fix: The new startup script learned to properly escape quotes and spaces for Windows, so now passing filenames with quotes or other weird characters should fork on Windows too. (At least doesn't work less than in other programs)

Ulrike Fischer

@MarcelKrüger I will try later a bit more, we are now getting something to eat.

Alan Munn

5:50 PM

I've just successfully made my first javaScript online experiment. #pandemiclife

2

David Carlisle

@AlanMunn what does it do?:-)

cis

I've installed Chronium web browser.

Is there a recommended search tool ("extension"), where you can also add personal pages as a search engine?

Something like that:

Alan Munn

@DavidCarlisle A common thing that we need to do in our research is have people simply give a judgment about how natural or unnatural a sentence is. E.g. if I asked you to rate I built a house last year on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being good, you would probably give it a 5, but if I asked you to rate I built house last year you would proabably rate it 1. We can use this data to infer properties of grammaticality (although also influenced by many other factors, so one needs to be careful).

@DavidCarlisle So this is just a way of running such experiments online. We'd been using a standalone experiment platform in our campus computer labs before.

@DavidCarlisle Sentences can be given in written or audio form.

@DavidCarlisle Most of the heavy lifting is done with some plugins that a group of psych people have written, but since this is my first ever javaScript program, I'm still happy that it works.

David Carlisle

@AlanMunn congratulations:-)

Alan Munn

6:11 PM

@DavidCarlisle Small steps. :)

barbara beeton

6:46 PM

@AlanMunn -- This is a lot more specific than the experiments run by the seminar where I got some of the data for my thesis. All we asked was for a judgment of "okay" or "not okay". Are the answers you get more often just 1 or 5, or is there a significant population of values in the middle? (What's an example of a sentence that would receive a 3?)

Alan Munn

@barbarabeeton It depends a lot on the kinds of sentences you're looking at. For example, compare I never drove a Ferrari vs. I've never driven a Ferrari vs I've never drove a Ferrari. Many speakers accept all three as good, but with varying degrees of acceptability. For you and me, the last one is really bad, but you might like the first one even though not as much as the second.

@barbarabeeton The numbers themselves aren't really important, but the relative patterns of acceptability are.

barbara beeton

@AlanMunn -- So this depends on comparison of multiple options, not jut a "yes" or "no". Makes sense. Thanks. (And I think I probably would never want to drive a Ferrari; the only time I drove a Porsche, I never got it out of second gear.)

Alan Munn

@barbarabeeton No, not really, typically you give one sentence at a time. The comparison is done on the results, not by the participant. Although it's also possible to give two sentences at a time and the judgement is simply "which is better".

@barbarabeeton Each of these techniques can give you slightly different kinds of information.

barbara beeton

@AlanMunn -- Interesting. Can you recommend something to read about using these techniques?

Alan Munn

@barbarabeeton socsci.uci.edu/~jsprouse/papers/Judgment%20data.pdf

barbara beeton

7:01 PM

@AlanMunn -- Looks good. Thanks.

Alan Munn

@barbarabeeton Actually this may be the more up to date version: sprouse.uconn.edu/papers/…

barbara beeton

@AlanMunn -- Since it has "final" in the file name, that's very likely. Again, thanks.

Alan Munn

@barbarabeeton Yes, the first link was very old, since he moved from Irvine to UConn quite a while ago.

Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz

7:41 PM

@Rmano it gets a signal and returns logical 1 if the signal is positive and logical 0 if it is negative, so really just a comparator without an offset, not a signal generator.

Stefan Kottwitz

8:28 PM

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz that topanswers.xyz promotion leads me to sometimes visit that site, I hope you don't mind

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Not sure how often you check that site, but I just let you know that the humiliation of the valuable TeX.SE user continues. The name is badly encrypted in a theorem name, I understand. And in reference to the deleted post, he is wrongly called a non-true mathematician who insults true mathematicians.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I appreciate that you took care of the issue in the first time. And thank you for supporting disentangling things and supporting peaceful TeX focused communication.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I don't have a mail address where I can send that (cannot find a contact address at topanswers.xyz and there's no GDPR information), and I guess neither he or I can go there to clarify that issue without getting a tempestade de merda, so I let you as one of the ambassadors know here. More important, that bad mouthing done by that topanswers.xyz user is addressed to you.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Otherwise tell me how I can let the topanswers.xyz owner know. Or if I should treat this in which diplomaticly hidden channel - that public issue there. I don't add a screenshot here, and I don't add a link. edit: that post is removed now, thanks.

Stefan Kottwitz

9:01 PM

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz And while I'm talking, that user added a link for you, that's about a criminal offense. That's not fun.

Stefan Kottwitz

9:14 PM

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz If you could let the topanswers.xyz site owner know that he is asked to let our site users in peace, that would be great.

Alan Munn

@StefanKottwitz Can we please keep this out of the chat?

7

Stefan Kottwitz

@AlanMunn Just only happy topanswers.xyz promotion in chat is ok? I'm sad about that there, sorry that it broke out of me right now when that happens. edit: thanks to these chat posts, the offensive topanswers.xyz post disappeared from public view. Really sorry that it had to be this pointing out, to make it happen. To me and others: to fix things, try something else next time that doesn't bother us here.

@AlanMunn Thanks for enduring it! I change to a good music channel and try not feeling bad.

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$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends