@DavidCarlisle You around for a quick question please? How can I know the depth of list (itemize) nesting?

@yo' \@listdepth

\documentclass{article}
\makeatletter
\newcommand\LD{\the\@listdepth}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\begin{itemize}
\item \LD
\item
	\begin{itemize}
	\item \LD
	\item
		\begin{itemize}
		\item \LD
		\end{itemize}
	\end{itemize}
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

@AlanMunn thanks. Too late, however, I needed a quick fix and TikZ's [overlay, remember picture] was enough :)

@yo' Killing flies with a bazooka, I see. :)

@AlanMunn well, I just needed to number all my items consecutively in the margin (for easy later reference), so using TikZ's ($(O-|current page.north west)$) somehow helped.

@AlanMunn but other than that, yes, I'm good at this :-)

(I actually wondered whether 100 remember picture's slows the computation; it does not.)

@yo' lol

@yo' Thank heaven for fast computers.

@yo' not yesterday, no:-)

@santimirandarp if you mean for a texttual o-slash as in Norwegian or Danish, then yes.

\documentclass{article}
\pagestyle{empty}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\begin{document}
K\o benhavn
\end{document}

@santimirandarp Oh gosh.

Where is my I WILL NEVER MESS TEXT AND MATH MODE sign when I need it?

@santimirandarp well, it's a text symbol, as far as I know

"Non-ASCII Letters" implies textmode

in math mode you have e.g. \varnothing from {amssymb}

@santimirandarp you're welcome

Hi

I am trying to use beamer with notes. So, for each slide, I have another slide on the right with notes.

Right now, I am using http://iihm.imag.fr/blanch/software/osx-presentation/.

I would like to try Skim, but I am not sure if Skim can do that

Do you know how to do it in Skim?

I just would like to do it in Skim, in case osx-presentation stops working unexpectedly

I know you can write built-in notes with Skim

But I would like to use the notes that I created with beamer by using \usepackage{pgfpages} and setbeameroption{show notes on second screen}

If not Skim, do you suggest another tool to do this task?

I personally like pdfpc

@StrongBad Yes, I looked at those

But I would like your suggestions based on your experience

I have another problem

Essentially, the rendering of each image takes like 1 second. When it first appears it is a little blurred. I don't want this to happen. What do you suggest? I also would like to maintain the resolution of my images

I am using beamer

@nbro I don't use osx, so I don't know. I think that can happen with most of the software and they all try and do different buffering without loading everything into memory and crashing. I tried Pympress and Impressive and didn't really like them and finally settled on pdfpc. Just download a bunch and try them out. It usually doesn't take long to switch between them.

It is the first time this happens

Previously, I had never noticed these lags

It will be annoying for me and for the audience to notice these lags at every slide

I can't have those

@nbro does it still happen if you page through all the slides first (to get the images cached at the right resolution) I've had that with some pdf readers (not on osx)

@DavidCarlisle Unfortunately, it still happens

Even with only one image it happens

Maybe some option I am using?

@nbro are they images or tikz pictures with 1000000000 paths that must be drawn?

Each image has dimensions 1143 × 1292 and about 65KB

They are .png files

@nbro and the resolution of your projector? (or more exactly the resolution of whatever fraction of the screen you are using for images)

I am using a mac, 15.4-inch (2880 x 1800)

@nbro This is a known problem with PDFkit based previewers. Acrobat Reader may be immune from it.

@AlanMunn Using osx-presentation it seems it doesn't slow down the rendering

@nbro Sorry I didn't read back far enough. I don't know much about notes view presentations.

@UlrikeFischer Have you seen tex.stackexchange.com/questions/493058/…? It looks kind of familiar. Didn't we have a problem regarding reordering of these characters before?

@nbro This initial blur is a known problem with skim, also preview and any other pdf viewing software that uses Apple's standard pdf libraries. It's been like that for at least a year; super annoying. For some reason, it does not happen with osx-presentation. Possibly because it uses lower level libraries? (Edit: I guess I am just echoing what it said in the link posted by @AlanMunn above.)

But osx-presentation, although it kinda works, it is a little rudimentary. Do you suggest alternatives?

I am trying to install pdfpc.github.io

@nbro I don't know of any, sorry.

But I am getting an error. Super-annoying when I haven't even finished preparing the presentation

> Cricket 19 Is Now Available For Xbox One

@DavidCarlisle ^^

Another day, another TeX error I don't understand. Can someone explain why I'm getting an error from this TeX file?

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\usepackage{ifthen}
\begin{document}
\typeout{value of blank string condition is \ifblank{  }{\boolean{true}}{foo}}
% value of blank string condition is \ifblank{  }{\boolean{true}}{foo}
\end{document}

This involves three different macros, so the chances are that I'm using one of them incorrectly...

If I use the commented out line, it compiles. But the one with \typeout doesn't. I get:

! Argument of \boolean has an extra }.
<inserted text>
                \par
l.6 ...ition is \ifblank{  }{\boolean{true}}{foo}}

I'd bet a nickel it has something to do with expansion.

@cis 'formulary' is a pharmacy term. I have no word for a book(let) that stores mathematical formulas.

@cis That sounds fine to me.

@AlanMunn Glad to hear that.

@FaheemMitha What do you think \boolean{true} does?

@AlanMunn That's a very good question. Let me check.

@FaheemMitha Hint, not what you think it does. What are you actually trying to do?

@AlanMunn Trying to understand some pre-existing code of mine, which isn't behaving the I would expect it to. :-)

\boolean is defined in the ifthen package, right?

@FaheemMitha Yes

Trying to read the documentation now.

@FaheemMitha \you can only use \boolean in \ifthenelse

@AlanMunn To answer your question, I thought it returns the TeX equivalent of true. But now that I think about it, there are actual macros that could be used directly. For example, \BooleanTrue in xparse.

@DavidCarlisle Oh? Only there and nowhere else?

@FaheemMitha why would you expect that it works anywhere else?

@FaheemMitha no there is no "tex equivalent of true" the model of booleans in xparse is not the same as that in ifthenelse or etoolbox

@DavidCarlisle Dunno. I can't even remember why it's there. I was just looking at some old code of mine, and I realised I didn't understand what it was doing. When I dug into it, I was getting some unexpected behavior.

Was just trying to track down what was going on.

@FaheemMitha but that could never have done anything (ifthenelse hasn't changed in decades)

@DavidCarlisle I don't follow. What would \boolean do in code outside \ifthenelse?

@FaheemMitha it will not do anything useful, and since it has two arguments it will generate an argument error if you follow the first argument by } as in your code snippet above.

@DavidCarlisle I see. I wonder what it's doing in my code. Here's the relevant line. It's a condition passed to datatool's \DTLforeach.

[\ifblank{#2}{\boolean{true}}{\DTLisSubString{#2}{\RowID,}}]

Here #2 is a string. But I suppose without the context, it would be a bit obscure.

@FaheemMitha it can not possibly be doing anything remotely useful.

@DavidCarlisle I believe you. I'm about to replace that code with some code that I might actually understand, but I was just looking at it.

BTW, I suppose that if two packages both defined \boolean, then there would be a conflict resulting in an error?

It seems like the sort of generic name one would expect to have been taken already.

@FaheemMitha yes but ifthen is in latex/base so the other package would be wrong and should use different name

@DavidCarlisle Oh

I wonder why it was never giving any errors in my code. Strange.

@FaheemMitha There are lots of situations where \boolean won't give an error but outside of \ifthenelse there is no chance that it is doing anything sensible

@DavidCarlisle I see.

Well, I was in the process of writing a question, but I guess I should abandon it.

@MarcelKrüger I was away (training the chess kids ...). I will have to test, but if arabluatex is involved one should ask Robert.

BTW, is \typeout a reasonable choice for debugging purposes, if I want to write output to both the terminal, and the log?

I found egregs answer - tex.stackexchange.com/a/69480/3406

@FaheemMitha yes or \PackageWarning etc (which are more or less the same0, or \show or ...

@DavidCarlisle Any reason to prefer one over the others?

@FaheemMitha typeout is most general Packagewarning formats th emessage in a package-specific layout but is otherwise essentially the same, \show acts like an error messag eso not something you can leave iin the code but for one off temporary bugging, has its uses

@DavidCarlisle Ok. egreg's answer mentions several others. E.g. \wlog.

@FaheemMitha wlog is log only, not the terminal and doesn't set \protect so isn't safe for arbitrary latex code.

@DavidCarlisle Ok. I'll stick with \typeout then. Thank you.

I have a png figure. I would like to position some math formulas in some part of this png figure. How can I do this?

@nbro Using TikZ would be my choice ...

Do you have a simple example?

I have only used tikz to draw objects like circles

@nbro A popular link is tex.stackexchange.com/questions/9559

Ok, thanks. I will look at it

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
  \node at (0,0) {\includegraphics[scale = 0.25]{example-image-a}};
  \node at (0.5,0.5) {$y = mx + c$};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

@nbro ^^^

Thanks, that's really helpful

Do you advise any?

If you have to insert several nodes using a trial and error approach it is a little annoying

@nbro You mean from the point of view of positioning?

@nbro TikZ it at its best when you use relative positions, defining anchors and the like

If so, you could superimpose a grid on top to tell you where to position.

@FaheemMitha That too ..

@FaheemMitha Yes, it is a little annoying to have to position by trial and error

@nbro Yes, it is.

@nbro @nbro For your question. Have a look on tikz-onimage...

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{onimage}

\begin{document}

\tikzset{every path/.append style={ultra thick, rounded corners}}

\begin{tikzonimage} [width=.9\textwidth]{PRODPIC-1461.jpg}[tsx/show help lines]\sffamily
    \draw[red, rotate around={-15:(0.265,0.3)}] (0.03, 0.15) rectangle
    node[fill=white,rounded corners, fill opacity=.5, text opacity=1,rotate=-15] {Tastatur} (0.5,0.45);
    \node[white] at (0.7, 0.8) {Lampe};
\end{tikzonimage}

\end{document}

@nbro You might find tex.stackexchange.com/q/469210/3406 of interest.

Asked for that very purpose.

@JosephWright regarding harftex: tex.stackexchange.com/q/493058/2388

@UlrikeFischer Yeah, the question I've been asked though is not 'comparison with LuaTeX' but 'comparison with XeTeX' ...

@JosephWright ah, right. but the op switched to lualatex to color the arabic.

@UlrikeFischer Ah, right

@UlrikeFischer I've forwarded the link

@JosephWright I was on a conference call about Chemistry this afternoon, and took an action item to ask someone who might know something about it. Could you suggest anyone?

@cis Sadly the onimage package is nowhere to be found. Do you have a link?

@AlanMunn google suggests gist.github.com/samuelstjean/40e4173afedd91ab56cc

@DavidCarlisle Oooh

@DavidCarlisle How did you end up on a call about chemistry???

@JosephWright I was wondering about that at the time...I'll drop you a mail

@DavidCarlisle Cool: I'm intrigued!

Maybe that link could be helpfull too: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/30427/…

@yo' in other news, happy belated birthday! Greetings from mum, dad, Fubá and me. :)

@cis Thanks

Wow: github.com/jemmybutton/byrne-euclid

@PauloCereda pale imitation using context. Euclid and Byrne used latex for the originals.

@DavidCarlisle ooh

@PauloCereda Isn't that a huge amount of work? Who has time for something like this?

@FaheemMitha lots of people, naturally.

@DavidCarlisle It looks like a one person effort.

@FaheemMitha yes I meant lots of people have time for hobbies.

That looks like hard work, as hobbies go.

@FaheemMitha so is for example maintaining latex, or running a marathon. or playing a couple of rounds of golf every week

@DavidCarlisle I agree about LaTeX. I'm not sure what I think about golf.

But at least by being a LaTeX maintainer one gets to be celebrated and admired.

@FaheemMitha whether or not you like golf isn't the point, but thousands of people find a few hours a week for their hobbies, so if your hobby is transcribing euclid into metapost it is not surprising that someone finds time for that.

@FaheemMitha hmm let's ask @egreg if he agrees with that assessment:-)

@DavidCarlisle egreg?

@DavidCarlisle Unusual hobby. metapost is the successor to metapost, or the PDF version, or something.

@FaheemMitha ask egreg if he celebrates and admires the latex2e authors/maintainers:-)

@DavidCarlisle Ok. But why single out egreg?

@FaheemMitha why not? (Because I know he will try to avoid passing any compliments:-)

128 questions metafont, 320 questions metapost.

22,814 questions tikz-pgf.

Though I'm not sure if meta{font|post} do exactly the same things as TikZ.

@FaheemMitha metapost is built in to luatex (alongside tex and lua) and is the natural drawing mechanism in context.

@DavidCarlisle Oh. Not TikZ?

@FaheemMitha @DavidCarlisle I wonder, why (neraly) nobody used to drawing graphs and curves with pstricks in the ~1990ies ...

@cis It's possible that pstricks isn't that easy to use. At least, for casual users.

As opposed to, say, hobbyists.

Though most of the planet would probably think that about TikZ too.

@FaheemMitha I learned in school from a math-teacher: There is currently no commercial writing program in the trade, with which one can set fractionals (sometime in the 1990s).

@cis Learned what?

@FaheemMitha Correct, he dis-learned me... :()

@cis Huh?

@cis i used pstricks a bit in the 1990s but even loading it was tricky for many people (not everyone had a sun workstation at the time...)

@DavidCarlisle LaTeX from 3.5 inch floppy-discs?

@cis the first machine i installed latex on had two of those (but no hard drive)

@DavidCarlisle All of them, except grumpy Britons.

@egreg Oh great ...

@egreg what a thing to say about Chris and Joseph

@DavidCarlisle :)

@DavidCarlisle Ah, I heard the first LaTeX-visualisation, it was only on the Amiga.

A suggestion please for this answer

@cis OzTeX v. 1 came in eight 3.5 inch disks.

@Sebastiano ? there is an answer posted already.

@Sebastiano Why would you put a bounty on a question for which the answer seems to be "update your distribution"?

It seems to me to be a comment rather than an answer. I accept your valuable advice, thank you.

@AlanMunn No no, you're right. That seems like a comment to me so far.

I wanted to know your opinion because you're better than me.

@Sebastiano why does it seem like a comment? what other answer would you want?

@Sebastiano Right, but there can be no other answer, since the solution is simply to update the package.

@Sebastiano you may as well award the bounty to that answer otherwise it will be wasted

David maybe add a screenshot or something else that proves that it's just a package update problem. I don't know :-( in fact I asked for your friendly opinion.

Seen in the ChemFig docs:

@DavidCarlisle, @egreg ^^^

@JosephWright Great!

Yes, David, I know that; I'm interested in helping others in the best possible way. If you tell me that the answer is correct, I will wait a few days and assign the bounty.

@egreg Hi Prof. :-)

@egreg I was looking as it seems the author has fixed the 'bond join' issue ... hmm ... actually pretty impressive

@Sebastiano Ciao! Still recovering from my service at the polling station.

@Sebastiano I assume it is correct (I didn't try it) have you any reason to suppose it is not?

@egreg Ahahahah. I have served as president twice. Once as a secretary and I can understand you very well. It's torture :-)

@egreg Lucky you!

@JosephWright People at polling stations in Britain had not much to do, I guess. ;-)

@egreg probably not as depressing as doing the same job in the UK in current political atmosphere here:(

@egreg Well, they'd had more rest ...

Two years ago, in the municipal elections, from 6 a.m. until the next day at 9 a.m. in a row.

@DavidCarlisle Hmm

@egreg actually it was second largest turnout ever for euro elections in the UK so the s staff would have been relatively busy.

@Sebastiano Hi Sebastiano, what did you mean with "I hope to go on holiday with the school as soon as possible"? Sounds interesting ...

@DavidCarlisle I have faith in the best :-) and therefore in you.

@DavidCarlisle As the head of the station I provided the musical background.

@Kurt Hiii :-)

@egreg At this time software, we the pupils, could only get software at some bookstores; and get there programms like MatheAss (="Math-Ace") on floppy-discs. So we could manipulate our homeworks. ;)

@egreg Turnout not that high, certainly (bbc.co.uk/news/topics/crjeqkdevwvt/…)

@Sebastiano as I say I did not check it at all so you should put your faith in the person answering it (or test it yourself) it just seems a very strange thing to put a bounty on a question just answered,

@egreg you sang?

@Kurt I want to go on vacation as soon as possible because I'm so tired. Stop with the school. Here the holidays for me start in mid-July and end after mid-August.

@DavidCarlisle Something from the Second Viennese School ;)

@JosephWright Where there composers in Vienna after 1827, excluding members of the Strauss family?

@DavidCarlisle The bounty was inserted by me before. The user first entered a comment and then gave the answer contained in his comment. I have not seen if it has now been deleted.

@egreg :)

great egreg :-)

@Kurt I still have to make reports, plans to sign, and lots of paper. :-( I'm really tired.

I'll say goodbye to everyone. I'll go to bed. A good rest for all. Hello

@Sebastiano Do you have different school holidays in italy? For example in Germany bavaria has late holidays in school, the north of Germany (Schleswig-Holstein etc.)earlier (to get not such traffic problems one got if all "Bundesländer" starts holiday on same time ...

@Sebastiano oh sorry I must have misread the timings.

The mosti important part in my polling station. ^^^^^^

so showidx doesn't work with hyperref. Who will get the blame ;-(.

@UlrikeFischer Ulrike Fischer, naturally.

@DavidCarlisle ;-(

Perhaps I'm too stupid, but ```python to highlight a code block with Python syntax doesn't work for me :(

@Skillmon no python here: github.com/google/code-prettify/tree/master/src

@egreg I was listening to the string quartets and quintets recently.

@FaheemMitha Great pieces of music. But Haydn wrote better string quartets.

@egreg Oh? For example?

@FaheemMitha Opus 76 is great

@egreg Ok, I'll check it out.