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7:07 AM
@marmot this looks right, and I think my main problem was that I had the wrong concept for the directions. The tree doesn't grow first right from the title and then down, but first down and then right. Thanks.
 
 
1 hour later…
8:37 AM
@JosephWright any plans on providing a combination of the v and the b type arguments of xparse to create verbatim environments (just curious)?
 
8:57 AM
@Skillmon I don't recall it being discussed, but it's not an unreasonable suggestion, you could open an issue....
 
@DavidCarlisle oh
Why New York's Subway Still Uses OS/2

Every day 5.7 million people ride the subway in New York City -- and are subjected to both "the whims of the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the unheard-of reliability of a marginally successful operating system from the early 1990s." martiniturbide shared this report from Tedium: OS/2 and MTA consultant Neil Waldhauer said in an email, "For a few years, you could bet your career on OS/2." To understand why, you need to understand the timing. Waldhauer continues, "The design is from a time before either Linux or Windows was around. OS/2 would have s
 
 
3 hours later…
12:15 PM
If you only know the "nick name" of some user, how do you know what to write to ping them, i.e. what to write after the @?
 
@mickep Huh?
 
@JosephWright Let me try to explain better. While writing an answer to a question, I wanted to mention a user in the correct way (with @ in front, I assume). But since that user was not mentioned before in the question, I got no suggestions (as I do here in chat). Looking at the shown name of the user from answers, I see "Name Surname", and I suppose I cannot write @Name Surname. But how do I find out what to write. For Joseph Wright it would be @JosephWright, apparently.
 
@mickep Link?
 
@JosephWright My answer here. I ended up using the last part of the url when going to the users page, but I would assume that is incorrect.
 
12:32 PM
@mickep No, that is right, or at least workable, but as they don't get a ping anyway, it's not really that useful ...
 
@JosephWright OK, so is there a better way to "cite" users?
 
@mickep I'd just write their name and make it a link to their profile
 
@JosephWright OK, that makes sense. Thanks!
 
@mickep normally the shown name simply works (in comments etc). But to be sure you can search some question or answer of the user, start a comment and start to type @..., then you will get a suggestion that you can copy and paste.
 
@UlrikeFischer Oh, that is the sneaky way. Thanks! :)
 
12:44 PM
@mickep but as Joseph said, the @ ping won't actually work so just omitting the @ is as good.
 
1:03 PM
@UlrikeFischer @mickep @<some user> only pings that user if used in a comment AND if that user has already participated in the current thread. Copying and pasting from another thread doesn't make much sense.
 
@AlexG really? I thought I had already got pings from other threads, but perhaps my memory is wrong.
 
1:24 PM
@UlrikeFischer I have just tried to ping you from a thread you haven't participated yet. Let's see if it works or not.
 
@AlexG Doesn't look as if it works, so probably my recollection was wrong.
 
@UlrikeFischer It was this one: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/490706/…
 
 
2 hours later…
3:10 PM
@PauloCereda "hilariously robust" lol
 
@AlanMunn :D
 
3:40 PM
@PauloCereda meanwhile there are German ICE trains running on Windows 3.
 
@AlanMunn I think this is good news.
 
 
2 hours later…
5:35 PM
@DavidCarlisle, @egreg, @UlrikeFischer I have the 'load debug later' set up more or less working: expect a checkin soon :)
 
5:52 PM
@Skillmon ooh
 
6:40 PM
@Skillmon Oh, really?
 
7:13 PM
@mickep not sure if they are still in operation, but there used to a few years back (2013 maybe?) on at least one route. Maybe it was Windows 3.1. I had a train enthusiastic Academic Councillor at the institute I wrote my Bachelor's thesis at who was part of the energy commission of Bayern, who told me.
 
7:47 PM
> There's a radio station in New Orleans for the visually impaired. Every day, volunteers read the local newspaper, as well as best-selling books, mysteries, young adult novels, and stories for kids over the air.
 
@PauloCereda Do they report the latest uploads on ctan?
 
@mickep ooh
 
8:50 PM
Hello, everyone.

Does plain TeX have facilities to work with decimal numbers (i.e. dividing 5.32 by 7.821)? Looks like dim expressions can only divide/multiply dimension by an integer.
 
@JosephWright just install the debug branch. Is \input{l3debug.def}\debug_on:n{check-declarations} the right way to use it (at least it works)?
 
@bp2017 No (assuming that you're not asking about LuaTeX), except if using factors, but it requires you to calculate 1/<the number you want to divide by> by hand. For example:
\newdimen\mydim
\mydim=5.32pt
% 1/7.821 = 0.12786
\mydim=0.12786\mydim
\the\mydim
\bye
@bp2017 Of course you can always load expl3 in plain with \input expl3-generic and then simply use \fp_eval:n { 5.32 / 7.821 }.
 
9:07 PM
@PhelypeOleinik, thank you.
There is a macro \strip@pt to get rid of "pt" in dimension. Can we somehow remove decimal of a number in a similar way?
Would be useful, i.e. to remove 0.32 from 5.32).
Well, expl3 would have to be used then. Never mind...
 
9:22 PM
@UlrikeFischer Should work with \RequirePackage[check-declarations]{expl3} or in generic mode \sys_configuration_gset:n { check-declarations }
 
@JosephWright I was more wondering about the "how to load debug if expl3 is already loaded", \input{l3debug.def} works, but only once.
 
@UlrikeFischer At the moment I've not set up to allow that 'officially', mainly because of the need to deal with backend code but also because with a patch-based approach \input{l3debug.def}\input{l3debug.def} will apply everything twice ...
 
@JosephWright it should be easy to hide this in some sty later. "loading after the fact" seems to work fine.
 
@UlrikeFischer I was thinking that for developers it's not that hard to have \RequirePackage[enable-debug]{expl3} as the first source line
 
@JosephWright yes, but if expl3 is in the format then you can't load it anymore.
 
9:30 PM
@UlrikeFischer No, of course not, but then it's just \ExplSyntaxOn\sys_configuration_gset:n { enable-debug }\ExplSyntaxOff (at present: name to be agreed)
@UlrikeFischer I did wonder if we want a separate .sty, but that means the current options all don't really work any more
 
@JosephWright I'm not sure if I really understand the system. Why does this give an undefined tl-error:
\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage{expl3}

\ExplSyntaxOn
\tl_set:Nn\g_xyz_test_tl{xyz}
\sys_configuration_gset:n { enable-debug , check-declarations}
\tl_set:Nn\g_abc_test_tl{xyz}
\ExplSyntaxOff
\begin{document}
bblblb
\end{document}
 
@UlrikeFischer Probably I have some things wrong :)
 
@JosephWright sorry ;-( I simply tried what came into my mind ;-)
 
9:45 PM
\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage[enable-debug]{expl3}
\ExplSyntaxOn
\tl_set:Nn\g_xyz_test_tl{xyz}
\debug_on:n { check-declarations}
\show\tl_set:Nn
\tl_set:Nn\g_abc_test_tl{xyz}
\ExplSyntaxOff
\begin{document}
bblblb
\end{document}
@UlrikeFischer ^^^ at present. There is doubtless work to do: I was mainly focussed on the 'heavy' part of the job, getting the code separated out.
 
@JosephWright imho it is great. That was the main obstacle to get expl3 in the format.
 
@UlrikeFischer I do wonder, like I said, about something like
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{expl3}
\usepackage{l3debug}
\ExplSyntaxOn
\tl_set:Nn\g_xyz_test_tl{xyz}
\debug_on:n { check-declarations }
\show\tl_set:Nn
\tl_set:Nn\g_abc_test_tl{xyz}
\ExplSyntaxOff
\begin{document}
bblblb
\end{document}
@UlrikeFischer Now we can delay option setting, it's not that hard .. but isn't this all a secret ;)
 
@JosephWright looks rather sensible. Somehow people will have to load the debug code ...
 
@UlrikeFischer One for the team list I guess
 
10:44 PM
Hello!
I want to know your opinion
I am trying to introduce LaTeX at work. To do that, I want to make a document with exercises of a programming language using Overleaf to share with my coworker. This PL has a file extension where I can use to paste the solution (code), using listings
However, this file is not enough to compile the program (it needs more stuff, such as the design window etc.). But in LaTeX is enough to use that file. So, what do you recommend?
Paste all code in one .tex file in Overleaf (will have a bunch of lines), or use the file extensions and attaching it into Overleaf (less lines of codes, with the problem that if the code is wrong/incomplete we will need to replace that file by a new one)?
I want to make a lot of exercises, so there would be a lot of attached files
 
@manooooh Are you using a paid version of Overleaf? Doesn't it have Git integration?
 
Also, I am thinking of dividing the main .tex into sub .tex files. For example, if my document has 20 exercises then I will have 21 tex files, 1 for the title and the rest of exercises. The opposite of this is that I do not know how to do it, I have always worked with only one file
 
@manooooh Overleaf is really a pain for large projects.
 
@AlanMunn thanks for answering! I use a free version of Overleaf. I don't know if it has integration with Git (that would be awesome though)
Oh, I also forget to say that the exercises will include images. I don't know if Overleaf is the best option for all these
 
@manooooh For example, its file model is that you can have only one file per "project" that is a \documentclass{...} file; all others must be \include or \input. To me this makes it quite awkward to use.
 
10:53 PM
@manooooh I don't use overleaf but why are multiple files an issue can't you just \input them as you would with a local installation?
 
@manooooh I would not use the free Overleaf for this, honestly. I'm not even sure I would use the paid Overleaf.
 
@AlanMunn what do you mean? Overleaf has a max size of proyects so if I need more I cannot continue? (I don't care if Overleaf don't have the last updates of packages, I want to have a collaborative environment)
@AlanMunn if you had to work in a proyect in LaTeX with other people, what would you use, GitHub?
 
@manooooh Overleaf can deal with included files with no problem, but keeping them updated in the free version is a pain. I would do it with the paid version, but that's $15/month for up to 10 collaborators per project. This gives you integration with Dropbox and GitHub.
@manooooh No, by large projects I mean something that consists of a set of related but independent documents (as opposed to a single document with lots of includes).
@manooooh It depends on the people. :)
 
@AlanMunn isn't the model for the free one that the master files live on overleaf so you don't need to update them you just edit in place?
 
@DavidCarlisle thanks! Well, attaching or not files is not a real problem. My problem is that I have this in mind, didn't test anything, didn't think about organization of work
 
10:58 PM
@DavidCarlisle Yes, but if the included files change, (listings, images etc.) then you have to reupload them.
 
@AlanMunn sorry I don't understand what do you mean by "updated files"
 
@AlanMunn yes I suppose so. I'd rather use emacs
 
I attach a file in Overleaf, then I can rename it, delete it, delete it and update a new version of it....
@AlanMunn my coworker has absolute no idea of LaTeX :)
 
@manooooh Sure, but you said you had lots of files. If they change quite a bit, that might be a lot of manual updating.
 
@AlanMunn yes. I hope I do not have to modify them once I upload it, for that I should be more careful when uploading files
 
11:01 PM
@DavidCarlisle Yes, it's a great tool for real time collaborative editing. (With yourself.) :)
 
@DavidCarlisle emacs... you always talk about it. What is it? Is it for Mac (not Windows)? :(
 
@manooooh mac windows linux sunos aix anything really. It's an editor. It is the editor:-)
 
@manooooh Of course, I'm trying to give you my opinion on possible drawbacks. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. Does your colleague know how to use Git?
@DavidCarlisle @manooooh David undersells emacs. It's really the indistinguishable from the OS.
 
@DavidCarlisle oh! put "the" emphasized, that would be great :) Is it like TeXnicCenter?
@AlanMunn no. My coworker stills teaching VB.NET to undergrad students. That's sad :(
 
@manooooh only thing I know about texniccenter is that it isn't emacs, I have never used it or seen it installed.
 
11:05 PM
@AlanMunn didn't understand
@AlanMunn ok, thanks. So under this conditions would you separate every exercise into a new .tex file and then attaching into a main .tex file (every tex file would have the listings code directly, not attached to it)?
@DavidCarlisle oh. Does emacs need to be installed on a computer?
 
@manooooh It's a bit of a joke. People who use emacs tend to use it for everything. So they never leave it, even to do things that others would do in e.g. the shell.
 
@manooooh emacs is also the first gnu software it predates linux, gcc, etc
 
@AlanMunn ohh hahaha
 
@manooooh er it is not (usually) baked in to the hardware so someone has to install it.
@AlanMunn and it comes with a built in doctor
 
@DavidCarlisle that is a problem for me, unfortunately. At work I don't have people that use (La)TeX, so the best option for me (at least for now) is to have LaTeX in a simple way. Overleaf can do it, since we can use LaTeX (obsolete or not) without installing it, so that is good for me
 
11:10 PM
@manooooh I'm not sure I understand. But if you had 20 exercises, but they would all be part of one document, then yes, it would make sense to have a single main.tex and then use \input to include them into the document. For the code I would also probably use listings version of \input.
 
@manooooh yes sure sounds reasonable
 
@DavidCarlisle How does that make you feel?
 
@AlanMunn Why do you say that?
 
@DavidCarlisle Do you usually answer a question with a question?
 
@AlanMunn LOL
 
11:13 PM
@manooooh he/we are mimicking one of emacs standard functions, it has a built in doctor mode where a fairly useless psychotherapist answers your questions
 
@AlanMunn I don't understand your last line, but since I'm using listings I use \lstinputlisting{file.extension}
 
@manooooh typical actual session:
I am the psychotherapist.  Please, describe your problems.  Each time
you are finished talking, type RET twice.


should manooooh  use emacs

Emacs?  Hah!  I would appreciate it if you would continue.

Is it any good with tex files?

What do you think?

 I think yes

What makes you believe you think yes?
 
@DavidCarlisle Useless? It got me through a very tough time in my life when I was addicted to vim.
 
should manooooh  use vi

Maybe your life has something to do with this.
@AlanMunn ^^ (@PauloCereda)
 
@DavidCarlisle ohh lovely, at least for a lonely person (?
 
11:16 PM
@DavidCarlisle Yes, it was a dark, dark time that I prefer not to relive. I thought I would never get out of it.
 
I thought that doctor was part of the development made by @PauloCereda
 
@manooooh @PauloCereda 's contribution is a parrot that compiles your files for you.
 
@AlanMunn no, I mean the bot that Paulo designed for the site
 
@manooooh Ah, PSmith. We haven't seen him around for a while. I think he retired. @PauloCereda
 
@AlanMunn yes, that bot. I miss him!
@DavidCarlisle what is vi?
 
11:19 PM
There seems to be a problem when multiplying inside \fp_to_dim while one of the operands is \dimen and another is integer, result is incorrect:

\newdimen\stepIndent
\stepIndent=5.393939pt
\the\stepIndent\newline % 5.39394 (ROUNDED, NOTHING UNUSUAL)
\newdimen\initialIndent
\ExplSyntaxOn
\initialIndent\fp_to_dim:n{64*\stepIndent}
\fp_to_dim:n{64*\stepIndent}\newline % 345.2119140625
\fp_to_dim:n{64*5.39394}\newline % 345.21216 (CORRECT)
\ExplSyntaxOff
\the\initialIndent\newline % 345.21191, WHY NOT 345.21216 (64*5.39394)?
 
@manooooh the default full screen vi(sual) editor in unix it is fairly horrible and people of discerning taste use emacs instead but some people keep using it or more usually vim which is vi iMproved.
 
@manooooh To return to Overleaf. I'm not suggesting that you don't use it. It definitely has its advantages for collaboration, and its rich text mode might be useful for non-LaTeX users too. But the free version's abilities for larger complex projects are more limited.
 
@bp2017 dimen arithmetic is integer arithmetic in sp units, l3fp arithmetic is ieee decimal floating point and more acurate
 
@AlanMunn ok and yes, you are right, Overleaf's free version has the very disadvantage that is very very limitated with compiling capacity :/
 
@DavidCarlisle, oh, OK. So I think I should rather use expl3 then.
 
11:23 PM
@bp2017 you see that even in a simple expression like 3cm you will get different values
 
@manooooh I'm not sure what you mean about capacity. The problem for me is more conceptual. I don't like a model where there can be only one file with \documentclass per 'project', that's all.
 
@AlanMunn oh really? I thought in one Proyect we could use more than \documentclass (i.e. >1 .tex files)
 
@manooooh No, that's what I was explaining. A 'project' in Overleaf's terms means one file with \documentclass only. Any other .tex file can only be used with \input or \include.
 
@AlanMunn I am reading overleaf.com/learn/latex/Multi-file_LaTeX_projects and I think Overleaf accepts more than 1 .tex file
 
@manooooh So, for example, if you are writing a thesis, it's fine to have each chapter be a different .tex file that is inserted using \include{chapter1} etc.
 
11:28 PM
@DavidCarlisle, does ieee apply to \dim_new values or are they still old integer arithmetic (and ieee applies only to \fp_new values)?
@DavidCarlisle, because I tried replacing TeX dims with expl3 dims and they still behave the same.
 
@bp2017 they are the same
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{xfp}

\begin{document}

\typeout{\the\dimexpr 3cm\relax}
\typeout{\fpeval{3cm}pt}

\end{document}
 
@manooooh That page is a kind of kludgy workaround using LaTeX packages. It's not that it doesn't work, but it's still designed around the idea that you have a single document per project.
 
@DavidCarlisle, thanks.
 
@AlanMunn That is not entirely correct. If the currently viewed file includes a \documentclass it will be compiled instead of the project's main file.
 
@bp2017 but the second one is several orders of magnitude slower than the first:-)
 
11:34 PM
@Skillmon Is this new? I remember trying to do this a couple of years ago and it didn't work. Or maybe I never figured it out. Is this with the free version?
 
@AlanMunn it should. I think it was introduced with v2.
 
@Skillmon Which was when?
 
@AlanMunn the merge with sharelatex (which I also never used:-)
 
@AlanMunn around autumn/winter last year. The migration to v2 started earlier, but I think that was the time most of the systems were migrated. v1 was shut down 8th January this year, if I recall correctly.
 
@Skillmon Ok. So my information is outdated. So for example, suppose I had set of course lectures. Could I set up a single project in Overleaf where each week's lecture would be an independent beamer file?
 
11:38 PM
@AlanMunn I want to use beamer, too! So your question is useful for me, too
 
@manooooh Well beamer isn't relevant for the question, but just a scenario.
 
For you to understand better, this is an example of the final output I want
And that's how I want to manage each page:
 
@manooooh Yes, that would be doable.
 
@manooooh that's the simple one document case, @AlanMunn was asking about having multiple tex files making separate pdf output.
 
@AlanMunn yes, this would be possible, though the handling of the different files might be unhandy. The \jobname will always be output because of the way the building system works, so you'd have to either provide a dedicated latexmkrc or download the generated PDFs for each \documentclass containing file individually. But I'm not too familiar with that feature as it is seldom used (and wasn't ever actively by myself).
 
11:43 PM
@DavidCarlisle ok. Sorry for misreading you, @AlanMunn
@AlanMunn if you want different outputs (because of different lecture courses), why not just making a new Proyect every new course?
 
@Skillmon Ok, so my info is not so wrong, in fact. To me this is a conceptual problem with Overleaf that makes it difficult to use for more complex projects rather than single documents. Of course everything is a tradeoff, and the collaborative tools of Overleaf are very helpful.
 
@manooooh if doing this locally you would share images and style files and perhaps some texts, but (I assume?) you can not share such things between projects
 
@DavidCarlisle that's true. Dividing it into proyects would lead in copying & pasting files all the time; a waste of time
 
@manooooh Because I'm not talking about separate courses, but separate lectures of a single course. Conceptually they should be a single 'project'.
 
@manooooh do you only use overleaf or do you have a local installation too?
 
11:49 PM
@DavidCarlisle I have a local installation. Sometimes I'm too lazy in creating a new local Proyect because I want to test something, so I create a Proyect on Overleaf to test. Then my final document is compiled on my local installation
Sometimes if the test is easily reproducible I use the integrated MathJax section of math.SE site, which is fast to achieve :P
Also, each Proyect that I start in Overleaf or locally I save it in both places. It's a matter of security, because if my machine dies I will have the latest version available online
 

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