@JosephWright It was running OK (I do it after each change) but now it's looping and I thought I'd backed out all changes, It was far too late last night so I dumped it and went to bed, not looked in detail this morning, but as you were there I thought I'd ask you to do a sanity check:-)
If I want to provide the automatic translation of the output of a command like \listofstuff (expanding in English to List of Stuff) using babel, how I add this for German (List of Krimkrams)... Do I have to use \StartBabelCommand and all that?
@JosephWright OK thanks, was a bit odd, not sure what that was but I forced a clearout of my svn area and now it's working again (had to kill the process externally before) now put stuff back until it breaks again....
Q: I want to write an article using LaTeX. Can anyone suggest a good template for articles? A: The most basic template would be `article` you can do all customizations by hand. On the other hand, `scrartcl` or `memoir` in article mode provide a simple interface to control the visual appearance.
@JosephWright I am anti-template as you all know. But the new user wants to have a template for some reason. And since everything (98%) google turns up is buggy/old/... or a journal template; we get lots of questions asking how to modify a template.
@Johannes_B What I mean is that what is really needed is a richer set of tools in the base classes, so that people don't need templates showing them how to do XXX
I once had a user using a university template. All it did was redefining the sectioning commands. The user wanted to change this. no problem. After a long thim of i want it to be there and this should be that way i realized: The user wanted to have the standard article def's --- I should add that the user wasn't studying at that university and used the class for it the looks.
@JosephWright I think it is basically a naming confusion.
@JosephWright That discussion that arose by the PLOS paper, and i think somehow the hard to use question came from there as well, as well as the discussion on the DANTE-list, really got me thinking.
How can you change the appearance of a TeX template? E.g. The AAS journal template. I don't like having the abstract on the front page and don't manage to force it on another page with \newpage.
@Johannes_B: A lot of misunderstandings is not due to LaTeX (or even Word/LibreOffice etc. itself), but due to the fact that people want to change the template and thereby breaking the guidelines by the university/journal etc. For sure, many templates are badly designed... but not any of them
@ChristianHupfer A well-desigened template for a university (with commands to set stuff on the titlepage and set margins and stuff to the definitions) is ok. But somebody looking for a template to save time ...
Or in other words: Somebody that has no restrictions to the layout and searches for a template and later wants to change everything the template changed ...
@ChristianHupfer Our university has a class for thesis. It does some really really weird stuff. We have a corporate design, that defines Futura as the font. fallback font would be arial. The maintainer is a good friend of mine, but the stuff he does there ...
@ChristianHupfer The class loads greek.ldf by default. You need to switch it off by hand. But as a new user, how would you know that greek has the potential of breaking stuff.
@Johannes_B: My former university does not had one at that time... perhaps there is one now...I have never entered the buildings or looked on the webpage again :D
@JosephWright: At least 'department' specific rules for bibliographies
@JosephWright I just got a good answer badge for saying latex isn't complicated, so it must be true, wonder why it's taking me so long to move a few definitions from one file to another...
Got a stamp in the UK-TUG renewals that features the church in my village: same user did the same last year. A very nice 'personal' touch, particularly as the stamps are from 1972!
Control schemes are often painful to draw, especially if some unity in designed is expected. You'd be disappointed by the poorness of the graphics provided in the main scientific journals. So far in my reading the best design I had the chance to see was some from AAU / UPC about grid connected co...
@JosephWright The questin popped up on main yesterday. I suggested to make a project and invite people to contribute/join. The first comment suggested to move this to main.
I have been using LaTeX professionally almost every day for almost 10 years, so I think I can say that, by now, I more or less know what I'm doing. I also do a lot of ordinary computer programming, in traditional languages like C++ and Visual Basic. As I compare LaTeX to these other languages, th...
Here's my humble attempt to answering this question. Since David asked me in the chatroom whether my answer would include ducks, here's one for obvious reasons: :)
Prologue
I personally believe that complexity is in the eye of the beholder. I commented this somewhere in this site, but IMHO it'...
I'm not sure if I got lost mid-answer, but I'm sick. :)
@HenriMenke: You and @PauloCereda got my upvotes too ... the point is (in my point of view) the question is too broad and not unanswerable (if the word exists in English) ;-)
Initially I voted for reopening this question but after I saw some really low quality answers to it on the review page I reconsidered and voted for closing. Also I made my answer community wiki.
@ChristianHupfer The protection only prevents extremely low quality answers with only a few words. It doesn't protect it from a rant from people who, e.g. dislike programming at all.
@JosephWright only one left is the 2col float order, not sure how I'm going to handle that yet: it's changes through almost all the OR and I want to add them while not losing the \changes log history and not losing the fltrace hooks.
hi all! quick question here: i installed Texmaker lately, i created a new doc with some tikz code there but when i click on quick build i got an error, also there are many packages that are missing like pgfplot, asymptote,... is there a fast way to get them all? or should i change my ide for a more complete one? thnks!!
I'm trying to compile a document that only works with an up-to-date distribution, so I'd like to know: how do I update my distribution? Please provide screenshots where appropriate.
List of answers
MacTeX (Mac)
MiKTeX GUI (Windows XP/Vista/7/8)
MiKTeX Command line (Windows XP/Vista/7/8)
TeX Li...
One of the well-known TeX developers (I am not going to reveal who) has told me that he thinks there is not going to be any actual release of LaTeX3. After all, there is still so much left of it, even after 20 years. Rather, more and more packages will start to use the new syntax, and LaTeX3 will...
@JosephWright I guess that the interface layer will do magic for things like captions and floats; biblatex will require extensive work and TikZ, well…
@JosephWright In my files I have a LaTeX3 version of ucharclasses that's vastly simpler than the current one, where I suggested loops instead of gigantic \ifthenelse branches.
So I know that producing a LaTeX3 package is not really so difficult. It is for packages that do typesetting.
@PauloCereda Yes, I was one of the more than million people there, yes, it was cool (well, not literally) and dense (literally), yes, I'm safely at home :)
@subhamsoni Is the code here on the site? If so, is the question basically a duplicate? In that case it would be better to leave a comment suggesting that it is a duplicate.
@subhamsoni In this case I think the comment is entirely justified. You lifted code verbatim from Peter's answer and I think you should have given the source.
@cfr Hello, I'd like to nominate myself. :) I'm here for one year and it's been a lovely experience - I try to help as much as I can and people in the chatroom just forced me to write my name in this very list, so here am I. :)
@egreg: Now, that basically every TeX Guru (;-)) provided an answer to this strange "complicated" question ... everyone waits for your contribution ;-)
@egreg so did I, I'm not sure it should have been re-opened (it's clearly just fishing for opinion based answers) But since the democratic will was that it was re-opened I gave an opinion:-)
@DavidCarlisle I was tempted to comment that there are many users who may never have seen HTML, so comparing LaTeX to that isn't saying much... :)
As is often the case this discussion turns on a linguistic fact. Adjectives are always interpreted relative to the things they apply to. For example, a big ant is big for an ant, but not big as far as lots of other things go. Similarly for a small elephant. So a complicated language needs a comparison set, and that's not so easy to define. This is how @egreg can (perhaps without irony) say that "TeX programming is not complicated".
@AlanMunn yes agreed but that means I had to compare to something. I think if comparing to C++ (as the OP does) then I would happily say without any irony that tex programming is not complicated.
@DavidCarlisle No, I agree, and in reality the comparison to HTML is quite apt, since both are basically markup languages. I think the real problem with most of these kinds of questions is that people fail to understand the depth of the typesetting problem itself, and the fact that TeX can do other things is just a bonus and was never really a design criterion.
@ChristianHupfer neither can I. This is exactly a case for either a mod decision (usually done on the large sites) or a community decision through meta (which is the case here). There seems to be a strong voice for keeping it open.
@JosephWright indeed. However, until someone states the "cons" opinions in an answer, it can't be taken as a community decision either. Of course, once the community decide, it should be the mods who deliver the verdict ;)
@cfr Aren't you, please, willing to make two answers in meta? One here and another one here? I think you have a lot to say in both ;)
@Hans-PeterE.Kristiansen: Perhaps other users are still interested in it... And there are a lot more of questions that should be closed before your question ;-)
@Hans-PeterE.Kristiansen: You are a 3000 rep user, so you can start the close-vote-rallye yourself -- if others agree, it will be closed then. Alternative option: Delete your question, if you are unsatisfied, but this will delete the answer as well. I would refrain from this severe step!
@ChristianHupfer As far as I can tell that doesn't happen. Are you sure it wasn't because a user was deleted? (Then you lose their votes.) See meta.stackexchange.com/questions/72250/…
@DavidCarlisle I'm waiting for Frank's usual e-mail (although perhaps I could remind him as with my UK-TUG hat on I have that sort of admin ongoing anyway)
Do other non-Germans feel a wee bit jealous when they see the DANTE meet-in-a-pub messages? facebook.com/dante.tex
How can you change the appearance of a TeX template? E.g. The AAS journal template. I don't like having the abstract on the front page and don't manage to force it on another page with \newpage.
Here's my humble attempt to answering this question. Since David asked me in the chatroom whether my answer would include ducks, here's one for obvious reasons: :)
Prologue
I personally believe that complexity is in the eye of the beholder. I commented this somewhere in this site, but IMHO it'...
