@Skillmon Thanks :)

@Skillmon Yes, very true - but I think this way is more workably long-term

@Skillmon Thanks! Everything a bit more difficult than before, it will pass. :-)

@JosephWright you didn't yet react on my comments that are hidden behind the "Load more" button on GH (all the other ones are resolved, hence my prodding).

@Skillmon Ah, I'll sort

@Skillmon I'm sorry but I not willing to learn another programming language to typeset a document :/

@cfr I think it would be great to add a "state" of the package to ctan, such as "experimental", "healthy", "seeking maintenance", "osbolete (with a link to the replacement)". And a complete restyling of the site would be nice too :)

@cfr where did your answer to tex.stackexchange.com/questions/732680/… go?

@EmanueleNardi if you don't intend to alter very low-level functionality, you don't need to programm in lua. It works just like "regular" LaTeX.

@mickep So is it possible in context but not in pure tex?

@Lupino I'm creating a new class leveraging expl3 notation, Skillmon suggested me to use Lua (?) Maybe I didn't understood correctly

@EmanueleNardi if oyu use luaLaTeX, you can use packages that do the lua-layer programming for you. Is if just type area and lines you need?

@Lupino I don't need something so sophisticated, class options, margins, line spacing and changing the font is all I need. I still have to deal with the issue of making the class independent from pdflatex and being able to use it with xelatex for example

@EmanueleNardi in that case, have a look at this sty: github.com/transpect/xerif-latex/blob/main/coco-frame.sty it should be compatible with all TeX engines

@EmanueleNardi you'll just use LaTeX as you're used to, but leave out any \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}, get to use the fontspec package to load system fonts, get better tagging support, can use great packages like lua-ul (if you need underlining or striked out text, this is the solution), or chickenize (if you want to be silly). All that at the cost of a tad slower compilation (but with much more possibilities down the line)

@yo' Love it

@EmanueleNardi LuaTeX is just an engine like pdfTeX.

@DavidCarlisle matrix secrets. :)

@Skillmon Ooh nice! So I can load conditionally the lua-visual-debug package, which are the state-of-the-art functions to check which engine is used?

@EmanueleNardi don't use XeLaTeX anymore, stick to pdfLaTeX and LuaLaTeX instead. (XeTeX's LaTeX support is about to end -- or better formulated to be turned into only fixes, no new features). XeTeX has inherent issues in its mechanisms that makes tagging nigh impossible.

\sys_if_engine_xetex:TF ?

@EmanueleNardi if you're using expl3 there are built in methods for that \sys_if_engine_<engine-name>:TF, otherwise the iftex package.

@Skillmon Nice to know, I thought that XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX were considered the "avant-garde" of LaTeX

@Skillmon I would like to minimize external dependencies, thank you for the confirmation

@EmanueleNardi pdfTeX if you need to be fast but no system fonts, LuaTeX otherwise.

@EmanueleNardi iftex is maintained by the LaTeX project team, so is only external in the sense that you need to load a package. But there is no need to load it if you're using expl3 anyways.

@Skillmon So everything I wrote for XeTeX will work out of the box in LuaLaTeX, right?

@EmanueleNardi almost. If you used intercharactertokens those won't, otherwise it should, yes (assuming you didn't write any driver level code)

@EmanueleNardi XeTeX is known to have other issues besides tagging support as well, transparency is one such field. XeTeX has many issues is beamer as well. All in all I can't recommend using it nowadays.

@Skillmon I used XeTeX mostly because it has an easy and clean interface for changing fonts with polyglossia :)

@EmanueleNardi I would use luatex rather than xetex and babel rather than polyglossia. For the first, see texdev.net/2024/11/05/engine-news-from-the-latex-project

@PauloCereda dinner

@DavidCarlisle oh no

@DavidCarlisle So, as I mentioned earlier in this chat next semester I will be teaching a latex course to about 60 college students, should I tell them to start compiling their documents with LuaLaTeX? Besides opentype font support does it improve compiling performance or are there no other obvious benefits (without using special packages)? For example I usually load the cmap package to make the text of the pdf copyable

@DavidCarlisle out of curiosity; why not polyglossia?

@DavidCarlisle I refer to your blog often to understand the progress of developments but I had not seen this article, thank you very much

@EmanueleNardi There's no need for polyglossia - babel is fine :)

@EmanueleNardi For new documents: LuaLaTeX

@EmanueleNardi We sorted copying some time ago: no cmap needed

@EmanueleNardi It's not @DavidCarlisle's blog, it's mine - I handle 'publicity' for the team (amongst other things)

@EmanueleNardi Note that this statement about XeTeX is basically ex cathedra - we agreed as a team about it and put it in LaTeX News

@JosephWright any news from Arthur, by the way?

@JosephWright What a duck figure! To make up for it, I will try to smooth things over by saying I'm at home battling the flu :)

@PauloCereda Not recently

@JosephWright I want to take this opportunity to express my admiration for you and your TeX colleagues. You are doing work that often goes underappreciated despite the immense impact it has. Thank you!!

@JosephWright I really need to dive the documentation of babel, it's been a while since the last time I read the package documentation, I'm pretty sure It's more mature now if don't need polyglossia anymore

@EmanueleNardi babel is a lot older than polyglossia :)

@EmanueleNardi Get better soon!

@samcarter Thanks, I appreciate it :)

@EmanueleNardi That was some time ago

@Lupino Thank you, do you know any class file written with the new LaTeX3 notation that I can take as an example?

@Skillmon Hopefully all replied to now

@Skillmon I've not rebased the code at this stage - but at some point I will again :)

@EmanueleNardi no, sorry. I still write all my clses in LaTeX2e

@Skillmon I hadn't seen this message, I took note of all the suggestions :)

@EmanueleNardi depends, if they are English math documents pdflatex is still probably first choice (not least because that is required still by arXiv and many journals) if the document needs system fonts or any kind of non latin script, use lualatex

@Lupino babel is (and always has been) the standard latex interface to language support. There was a period around the turn of teh century when babel support was on autopilot and unicode, noticably xetex use was growing, and polyglossia filled a gap that needed filling. But now babel is actively maintained, and xelatex is essentially unmaintained so things are different

@EmanueleNardi babel has its own website under the latex project github latex3.github.io/babel

@EmanueleNardi see comment ^^ re babel

@EmanueleNardi I wrote one recently, but it is merely for private use: github.com/jasperhabicht/zchinr-cls/blob/main/zchinr.cls . It supports bilingual text (German and Chinese) using the babel package. It supports XeLaTeX but also LuaLaTeX. I don't know whether this can help you =)

@JasperHabicht I'm reading it, just being able to see something similar is a \HUGE help <3

There's no way to display code correctly in this chat, is there?

@EmanueleNardi just paste in a multi-line segment then an extra "fixed font" button appears to the right of the send button

aaa
  bbb
     ccc
  xxx
like this

\zchinrsetup{
    issue = {
        year = 2025,
        volume = 23,
        number = 1
    }
}

if your line begins with 4 spaces, it also will be formatted

Ooh relief

@PauloCereda true but not so obvious how to do a second line in that case

> quote maybe?

@DavidCarlisle ooh

xxx
  kkk
     jjj

I also wanted to ask if there's a way to "save" messages, because right now, I'm just copying and pasting your invaluable feedback into a text file. I noticed the star system, but it seems more like a way for the group to indicate a message is interesting rather than something customizable. Will these messages eventually be lost into the void, or is there a way to keep them?

@PauloCereda @EmanueleNardi you can do four spaces at start of each line and (on Windows at least) use <shift>-<return> to add a newline without sending then 4 more spaces before the text on the next line

testing functionality
next line

^^ pity tildes do not work ;-(

@EmanueleNardi they are archived forever and you can save the permalink URL like chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/66788799#66788799 available from the drop down menu on the left, but really if there is a question and answer here that's worth keeping it would have been better to ask it on the question and answer part of the site (or the meta site)

@UlrikeFischer nor backticks :-)

@EmanueleNardi Well, I decided to use key-val settings in this class whereever possible. The idea was to set things via key-val settings and then really just use sematical code for the input

@DavidCarlisle This bit of information is incredibly valuable (to me). On CTAN, I can only see the last update date of a package, but I can't determine if it's recommended for new projects or understand its current status.

For example, @cfr recommended that I avoid suggesting the use of cleveref because it is unmaintained, and I don't believe this is mentioned in the documentation. All I can see is that the last update was in 2018, which is relatively recent compared to other packages that are still in active use.

@EmanueleNardi The date is really not an easy hint. Some packages don't need updates really, such as fonts, but others do. So, you need to know a bit of the changes in the latex kernel to be able to decide whether this package is from one of these areas where a lot happened in the last years.

(And of course a doc won't mention that a package is unmaintained, in the end the package being unmaintained also means that the no updates are made to the doc =D )

@JasperHabicht Wouldn't it be helpful to display this kind of information directly on a package/class page on CTAN? That way, non-technical users would have a clear answer to questions like, "Should I use this package, or is it obsolete? Which package should I use instead?"

@EmanueleNardi well you can search the site. Packages with problems typically generate questions. E.g. tex.stackexchange.com/q/711418/2388

@JasperHabicht I cannot argue with that statement :D

@EmanueleNardi babel is ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/required/babel/base the fact that it's in required not in contrib should tell you that it's a core part of latex (or at least that's what we hoped it would tell you when we chose that directory layout last century)

@EmanueleNardi ctan has not the man power to triage and classify packages. You can add a comment as user if you want.

Hopefully no one will point out at this point the ctan location for psnfss

@UlrikeFischer I can assure you that the typical student doesn't bother to check, I replied to dozens, at this point I would say hundreds of times to the same questions, now I have a pack of slides that clearly say what are the suggested packages to solve specific problems. Something along the lines of ctan.org/pkg/l2tabu

But the problem repeats itself tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3910/…

> "A good list of obsolete packages ... can be found in l2tabu.", which was last updated ~~2007~~ --> 2016.

@EmanueleNardi for most people most of the time it really doesn't matter. people following sites like this pick up fragments of "bleeding edge" code that then means they need up to date versions of everything, but if you have a 20 year old document using 20 year old packages, it probably still works as before

@EmanueleNardi sure, but this wouldn't change if ctan (or you or someone else) creates the next list of recommended packages. People rarely follow recommendations. I have been telling people for years not to use the tabu package, they always said, but they want to and when it finally broke down they complained.

@EmanueleNardi For some packages, this is done, but nobody can review every single package. Only because a package is unmaintained does not mean that it does not work anymore ... there is no sharp edge where you can say: this is unmaintained, don't use it.

@UlrikeFischer It might be a case of professional deformation because I mainly write code using a well-known JavaScript framework, and staying up to date with the latest trends can save you hours of development. Clearly, this reasoning doesn't apply to LaTeX packages.

The 2024 version of the Great Tikzlings Christmas Extravaganza has just been released. It presents mariachi marmots and flower power in San Francisco, has a look at the TUG Annual Conferences 2025, reports on the LaTeX tagging project, takes a foto at a well known location, discovers the hitherto unknown Batbär, and contains many other Christmas surprises. Watch it now on Vimeo vimeo.com/1038963018

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@EmanueleNardi I do not think so.

@EmanueleNardi the information on ctan is supplied by package authors. ctan generally provide information when they have it, but that depends on somebody telling them. moreover, you can look at the author status. when ctan knows, it marks package authors as e.g. deceased or inactive. it also marks packages as obsolete. but marking an lppl package as unmaintained has legal consequences, so, in general, I'd expect them to do that only if the author tells them so. as for 'recommended': by whom?

@JasperHabicht Actually, I decided to investigate whether \ar[l]_-{F^*} and \ar[l]^-{\phi^*} would improve the diagram. There was no noticeable difference.

@EmanueleNardi I expect I deleted it. why?

@EmanueleNardi Hans early realised he needed all kind of helpers and "infrastructure". Many of these still exist in mk IV (LaTeX) and lmtx (luametatex). Some have been adapted to benefit from the newer engines. But you shall also remember that he was very involved in engine development, so if something on that level was needed it was simply added.

tex.stackexchange.com/q/732822/52406 poor potential readers.

@EmanueleNardi LuaTeX has the same support for system fonts, but it's even better (finds fonts by name).

@PauloCereda agent Smith?

@Skillmon ooh

@EmanueleNardi yes, it is still there, but deleted. I tried to correct it after @DavidCarlisle commented (because I couldn't delete it) but I wasn't confidant about the result. but by the time I'd corrected it, I could delete it after all.

@DavidCarlisle ;)

@mickep I'm not sure either of the answers should start 'I suggest' ;). I wonder if this is for teaching ....

@DavidCarlisle -- 'Tis the season.

@DavidCarlisle Did you happen to know that "xi" is a Portuguese interjection used when something goes wrong? Something like "Oh dear!". And, if it's really bad, we'd make it a tad longer: "xii!"

@gusbrs xiiii

@gusbrs let's see if I get that instead of "oh no" vvv

@PauloCereda dinner

@DavidCarlisle xiiiii oh no

@DavidCarlisle @PauloCereda would have to say that after dinner, in which case he wouldn't be able to. :-)