@UlrikeFischer Of?

Morning all

Hi @JosephWright. How goes it?

@JosephWright in the pdf repo in the reviews folder.

@UlrikeFischer I'll take a look

@UlrikeFischer Looking now

@DavidCarlisle depends on the situation.

@DavidCarlisle sounds good.

@JosephWright quack

Good morning from Paris

Bonjour! :)

(")>/

Bonjour !

@UlrikeFischer Just finished reading, will come back on a couple of things later (I have to go to work: a safety thing)

@JosephWright take your time ... I have to do some shopping now.

@barbarabeeton polygon.com/entertainment/2020/3/23/21191326/…

@AlainMatthes Hola :)

\rotatebox{180}{!} Hola!

@PauloCereda Buenos días Don quack

@PabloGonzálezL Buenos dias senõr Pablo :)

@PauloCereda Almost...perfect your Spanish :)

@PabloGonzálezL ooh las llamas son más grandes que las ranas

@JosephWright ^^

(Monty Python reference, by the way)

@PauloCereda Y las Alpacas también

@PabloGonzálezL ooh

@norbert おはようございます!

@barbarabeeton @DavidCarlisle found it! It is boolean that is the wrong way and a missing kern

@daleif which file?

@PauloCereda proper linguists avoid packages with my name on and know how to type ¡

@DavidCarlisle oh

@DavidCarlisle I could cheat and use an i to mimic this upside-down exclamation mark thingy: iHola!

Which makes me think: perhaps soy milk is a milk trying to introduce itself in Spanish

ooh

@PabloGonzálezL ^^

@DavidCarlisle empheq, there is a huge mess in the code. I kept missing this: \MH_if_boolean:nF {multline}{ \kern-\multlinetaggap } it is set to false, but \multlinetaggap is only relevant if the oldmultline option is active in which case multline was implemented via flalign) Switch it to T and then it is just \@mathmargin that needs to be removed.

@PauloCereda mathml-refresh.github.io/xml-entities/…!

@daleif ah thanks, good digging:-)

@DavidCarlisle oh no

I have eight of these. The bug with fleqn + leqno + single column flalign is something I'm going to leave alone

@PauloCereda ^^

@PabloGonzálezL ooh :)

@JosephWright @UlrikeFischer I'm going to declare these as passed (the tests are a bit rubbish anyway)

  Check failed with difference files
  - ./build/test/luatex001.pdftex.diff
  - ./build/test/luatex001.xetex.diff
  - ./build/test/pdftex001.luatex.diff
  - ./build/test/pdftex001.xetex.diff

@AlexG ^^ holding up your dvisvgm.def

@DavidCarlisle Cool

@DavidCarlisle what are they testing? And where?

@DavidCarlisle, @UlrikeFischer I'll look at l3build later and add the 'is this TL'20' business to the core

Thoughts on github.com/learnlatex/learnlatex.github.io/issues/19 welcome generally

@DavidCarlisle What are these files meant to contain?

@UlrikeFischer graphics-def they are testing passing the wrong option to the right engine, or the right option to the wrong engine, depending how you view it. the test has a \START just before \includegraphics so in the matching cases you get the normal includegraphics log, but in the wrong cases you get random errors that were checked in as expected. But now you get more than 100 errors before you even reach \START so there is no START marker in the log and the tlg are empty.

@AlexG ^^

@DavidCarlisle why are they suddenly so much more errors?

@JosephWright I got texlive.js to work in chrome (test3) but edge is failing me..

@PauloCereda こんばんは！

@JosephWright I'd better get the mathtools bundle to CTAN. As far as I can tell the easiest way would be to use l3build ctan and the upload by hand as there is a lot of new information for the catalogue and the CTAN staff (maintainer update, repro etc).

@DavidCarlisle that's strange. Do you have the old or the new Edge? Modern Edge uses the same engine as Chrome.

@DavidCarlisle oh ;-)

@daleif old (because that's still the default on the main distribution channel and this is a work machine)

@DavidCarlisle and why did the id in luatex/luatex case change?

@DavidCarlisle Sounds complicated. What if you use the old dvisvgm.def? Is there something I can/have to do to my dvisvgm.def, or is it just that you need to first check-in those errors for later reference? If so, postpone dvisvgm.def as needed.

@UlrikeFischer no idea but its an internally allocated number and its using luahbtex not luatex so I decided I didn't careif it changed

@AlexG dvisvgm.def has nothing to do with the errors, David meant that the test failures (from the expl3 code in the kernel) hold up the update.

@AlexG no I'll just check in thenew results as the reference logs and it'll all pass and I should be able to do a release today. I didn't do it yesterday as I didn't see then why I was getting these diffs, so I think I understand them all now and none of them are actually related to the graphics package so I'll update the regression test and we can move on...

@DavidCarlisle Thank you for the explanation and the work you have with all this!

@AlexG l3build ctan refuses to make a zip file if any test fails I could over-rule that but it's a bad precedent to set:-)

@norbert ooh it's too advanced for me. :)

I want that key to be ignored (not to return error)

@DavidCarlisle Ah, I see.

@daleif that's what I usually do (I have used the l3build ctan upload, and I wrote the original version of that) but its often easier to use the form which feels more natural if leaving notes to the ctan maintainers and writing one-off announcements

@UlrikeFischer @AlexG as if by magic:

l3build check
TL2020 or later
Running checks on
  dvipdfmx001 (1/5)
  dvips001 (2/5)
  luatex001 (3/5)
  pdftex001 (4/5)
  xetex001 (5/5)

  All checks passed

$ git log $(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)..HEAD --oneline
95fad33 (HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD) update tests as >100 errors in 'wrong driv
er' cases due to presence of l3 backend code
7b44082 extra special for compression control
faedd8d extra special for compression control
cec2fea specialformats switch for luahbtex
824c7e4 Merge pull request #23 from agrahn/dvisvgmbboxclip
34bd005 dvisvgm.def: improved clipping and page bbox
a36ce58 clipping PDF and PS now fully supported by dvisvgm

@DavidCarlisle I seem not to have added a test for my change to natwidth/natheight. Should I create one at some time?

@daleif Yes, likely best

@UlrikeFischer possibly but the tests here are so light anyway I'm not sure it matters, hoe to move to l3 based backends anyway at some point and we'll probably want a lot more tests then

@DavidCarlisle thanks. Just need to remember to bump the version numbers and we should be done.

People playing Doom Eternal can be rather entertaining during lunch

miktex has done the switch: It uses now luahbtex for lualatex.

quack

hmm, interesting now ltxdoc does not like empheq. Never ending story. If I compile empheq.dtx in a fresh folder (latexmk -pdf empheq.drx) I get the users manual of 26 pages. If I do tex empheq.dtx first to get empheq.sty then the entire implementation is included and the line numbers start in the middle of the user maual. WTF

Ahh, my fixes to empheq broke the overload feature

sigh

@daleif /duck hug

@UlrikeFischer Oooh

@JosephWright ooh

pyh, just a bad line break

@PauloCereda thanks

@barbarabeeton @DavidCarlisle new edition of mathtools and friends shipped to CTAN

In a German supermarket. Found on zeit.de ^^^

@AlexG I was shopping this morning and it didn't looked like this. The pasta is a bit thin but the rest was all there.

@UlrikeFischer ooh

@UlrikeFischer Look what has remained. (May need to zoom in)

@AlexG oh :-) @CarLaTeX will be pleased.

@UlrikeFischer @CarLaTeX Germans have good taste :-)!

@UlrikeFischer Can you get toilet paper? :) Friends in Dresden reported some supply shortage...

@yo' I am from Dresden and I can confirm.

@AlexG oh. I could go to Decin and throw you some across the border :)

@yo' no there wasn't any, but I'm quite confident that it will be there when we actually need some.

@UlrikeFischer I'm quite sure. I don't mean that this is a long-term issue.

@yo' Thanks for the offer :-)

@yo' I heard rumours that the one firm for toilet paper is working overtime currently -- and that they expect a heavy drop in the demand in the second half of the year ;-)

@UlrikeFischer yeah, that's very likely

@PauloCereda -- Super fun! Thanks.

@barbarabeeton :)

@daleif -- Yay!!! I'll read the updated doc when it hits CTAN.

@AlexG it's on ctan

@DavidCarlisle the toilet paper?

@yo' ctan.org/pkg/paper

@DavidCarlisle oh it's even German!

I've handed in my master's thesis today! Now all that's left is the presentation next Monday and I'm done :)

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Google Hangouts is your friend :-)

@yo' We'll make a very small round, only the professor, my advisor, and I will attend in a normal sized room, that should do.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz ah ok. For me it was a larger event, the committee has 8 members.

@yo' that'll be the case for my PhD, but masters is smaller here, only two other people are required, the advisor as first examiner and the prof as second.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz cool. For PhD, it was yet different, as I studied at two universities with only a single defense.

@barbarabeeton The doc did not change much and does not mention amsart at all (the empheq manual does not include the source documentation).

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz congratulations. You are able to give a presentation in current circumstances? or will that be delayed.

@DavidCarlisle the professor wants that I start my PhD at his institute, so ... :)

@DavidCarlisle Yay!!!!

@AlexG -- Every community has its idiosyncrasies:

@UlrikeFischer I posted a reply on the github issue but forgot to ping you. Maybe you got pinged anyhow?

@barbarabeeton I will have to look what this is. Chowder sounds like German word "Schauder" means "shiver". Does it make normal people shiver? Then it is no surprise that only few will eat it.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz -- Oh, congratulations! Good luck with the presentation. Can that be carried out in person, or will it have to be held remotely?

@AlexG "Chowder" is a kind of soup. In particular, it contains chopped clams and is very popular on the U.S. east coast. Manhattan chowder has a tomato broth, and is also called "red chowder". New England chowder is milk-based and is called "white chowder". (Rhode Island chowder has neither tomatoes nor milk, and is distinctly grey, but it's very clammy and very good.) The name "chowder" is likely a descendant of (old?) French "chaudiere", loosely "hot pot". Oh, there's also fish chowder.

@daleif do you (or anyone) have a new blink based edge?

@DavidCarlisle Isn't available on Linux. But Blink, as in Chromium, is extremely fast renderer.

@barbarabeeton Ah, interesting: chaudière-->chowder

@AlexG yes but I'm trying to test cross browser support (and currently it fails in edge but I have the old one, I have it almost working in chrome (and working in firefox) so it may work in the new edge but...

@AlexG getting rid of those pointless accents:-)

@AlexG -- And in Rhode Island, where I live, it's pronounced "chowda". Pronounce the "r" and you're immediately pegged as non-local.

@DavidCarlisle Ok, approved. Except in German ;)

@DavidCarlisle -- I really tried to find one to cut and paste, but failed. (My laptop is deficient i so many ways!)

@AlexG sure in German just get rid of the stray Greek b that keep appearing:-)

@DavidCarlisle I don't have it on my Linux box. Not sure if the laptop I brought from work has been updated, I think they have rolled it out, this is just not a worklaptop (it is for lending out if someone needs one). Let me check

@HaraldHanche-Olsen you compiled with xelatex while I was trying with pdflatex (the op said it fails with pdflatex too). Could you try again with pdflatex?

@UlrikeFischer Same result. Do you want that pdf as well?

@DavidCarlisle I think I have the new Chromuim based Edge on this laptop. Anything you need tested?

@HaraldHanche-Olsen yes please.

@UlrikeFischer Same place, same filename. So rename the first if you want to keep it.

davidcarlisle.github.io/texlive.js/test2 works as I want in firefox, you hit edit-for-texlive then use-texlive then after it finishes scrolling the terminal output hit open-pdf, and you see the latex output. in chrome a security restriction prevents opening the pdf so davidcarlisle.github.io/texlive.js/test3 is same but pdf opens in a (badly placed) div within the page. But (old) edge doesn't run tex at all.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen your numbers are one up, so it should be /pgfsmask29 and /pgfsmask36.

@UlrikeFischer Okay, updated the numbers and tried again. Still no arrow. New file uploaded, still with the same filename.

@DavidCarlisle interesting, I'm sitting right next to my wireless access point and this laptop cannot find any wireless. Let me come back to you

@daleif no rush it's just a background experiment for something we might or might not want at learnlatex

@barbarabeeton it'll be in person, but only two people except myself will attend, the professor and my advisor.

@DavidCarlisle impressive Win10 troubleshooting actually worked

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz -- Well, best of luck, do well.

@barbarabeeton thanks, I'll try :)

@DavidCarlisle in opera it compiles. The "open pdf" opened a blank new tag, but when I then select the link in the address bar and hit enter the pdf actually appears. Where is the tex system that compiles this?

@UlrikeFischer in your browser, it's javascript.

@DavidCarlisle but it says "This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.20 (TeX Live 2019)" so where is this pdftex? And where is cmr10.pdf from?

@DavidCarlisle This does not seem to like it as well. Resource will be blocked. Seems to be a script eval. Plus some cross origin font resource.

@UlrikeFischer it's texlive 2019 compiled to javascript and running in your browser

@UlrikeFischer presumably a texlive compiled into javascript (byte code???)

@daleif does this simpler demo (from where I forked the code) work petercxy.github.io/texlive.js

@DavidCarlisle ! LaTeX Error: File chessboard.sty' not found.` ;-(

It seems to work in Chrome. Though the view PDF part not so much

@UlrikeFischer there is an api for uploading more packages and images etc...

@DavidCarlisle how large is this texlive?

@daleif yes chrome and firefox I can control to a certain extent, but I think I need to get something working in edge if we are to use it, otherwise too many confused readers (although I suppose we could detect edge and simply hide the interface buttons if they don't work)

@UlrikeFischer this is the git clone so everything including all sources not just the runtime javascript load: vvvv

$ du -sh texlive.js/
801M    texlive.js/

@UlrikeFischer This tugboat tug.org/TUGboat/tb40-1/tb124complete.pdf has an article by Jim Fowler documenting a more modern (and potentially faster) technique compiling to web assembly but unlike the texlive.js code I couldn't understand enough to get anything working in my mockup github-pages site.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen hm, the numbers looks okay now. But it seems not to resolve the problem to add the resources to the page object.

@DavidCarlisle but this doesn't sound like "real tex" if it outputs to a web page with svg graphics and not to a pdf.

@UlrikeFischer no it outputs pdf then uses your browsers pdf renderer (which is usually based on pdf.js these days)

@HaraldHanche-Olsen but why are two engines involved in your pdf? The main compilation is from pdflatex, but the graphic is from luahbtex.

@UlrikeFischer it generates an in memory pdf blob which test2 tries to re-open using a data:url to an encoding of the whole thing (but that hits security issues in chrome, works in firefox) and test 3 uses an <object type="application/pdf src="the data blob url,... in a div in the same page. It really is an untouched texlive 2019 web source code for pdftex compiled to javascript

@UlrikeFischer ?? Let me have a look …

@DavidCarlisle Sorry I think I just got lost in the variants ;-) I hadn't seen that there is a test3. That looks quite good (if one ignores the size), but every "open pdf" creates a new frame ...

@UlrikeFischer yes the size and the fact that you get multiple outputs are just "details" :-) that bit is easy, but I was struggling to get anything to work in edge but if it works in the new chrome based edge I might not bother fixing things for the old one. as by next year I guess microsoft will have updated most people

@DavidCarlisle I guess I should have removed the old -figure0.* files before recompiling, sorry. I am not familiar with the externalize feature of tikz after all. I ran pdftex again. Still no arrow! I also made it available at the same place as before: folk.ntnu.no/hanche/tmp/20200324.pdf … interestingly, the pdf renderer in my web browser (Vivaldi) shows the arrow.

@UlrikeFischer for you, I guess ^^

@DavidCarlisle can't you execute the PDF in an iframe? As far as I remember you can manipulate the iframe from the main page.

@daleif yes I think the iframe would be similar to test3 (using object) but that only addresses chrome's objection to changing the page URL from that context, but with edge I never get that far it just hangs waiting for tex to start I think it doesn't understand the promise setup.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen This pdf seems not to use an external image at all ;-). But imho your previous pdf actually showed that the idea to add the resources to the page doesn't work, it shouldn't matter how the image is created.

@DavidCarlisle I tried in edge and nothing happend, tex didn't start. But I have no idea what edge I have (but my windows is rather new).

@DavidCarlisle docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/extensions-chromium/…

Though it seems that page is for extensions, it might explain why the error I get in Edge is related to executing eval which I'm assuming texlive.js is doing

I'm off, giving my head a rest after 4 days of empheq debugging.

@daleif :)

@UlrikeFischer if you are on a standard update channel you'll have the old one (if you look at the ... menu top right then scroll to bottom of settings/general if it says Microsoft EdgeHTML 18.18363 it's the old one

@daleif thanks

@DavidCarlisle I guess my finger slipped or something. I was in a hurry to get to the dinner table. Pork chops, which seems pretty safe in this chat. There are no self-declared pigs here that I know of.

Hi folks. India just announced a 21 day lockdown, till the beginning of April.

What's the status in other places?

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Pork chops are kinda fatty.

@FaheemMitha and yummy!

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Personally I prefer my meat a bit low-fat.

@FaheemMitha In Norway, the lockdown is extended to 13 April. It's not a total lockdown, though: Many businesses still operate. But schools and higher education institutions are closed. I work from home.

But perhaps you get better quality pork in Norway?

@HaraldHanche-Olsen The one here looks pretty serious.

@FaheemMitha That's possible. I have no way to tell.

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Yes, I doubt any comparison exists.

@DavidCarlisle it says even less: Microsoft EdgeHTML 18.18362

@UlrikeFischer number doesn't matter, EdgeHTML is their rendering engine which is being replaced by Blink, the rendering engine from Chrome.

@DavidCarlisle you know a lot about windows. Are you using it??

@UlrikeFischer somewhere in between my cygwin and wsl posix virtual filesystems I believe there may be a windows 10 device somewhere

@DavidCarlisle ooh

should I answer this?

@DavidCarlisle Yes, yes, yes.

@AlexG I was tempted but it's a new user, probably not fair.

@DavidCarlisle Oh you are right. You should wait for marmots answer and then add yours. We'll see which one wins.

@DavidCarlisle Oh my, good job we have your aeronautical engineering skills

@DavidCarlisle You know I'm going to assign you for the learnlatex.org question about graphics ;)

@PhelypeOleinik I answered your mail :)

@PabloGonzálezL If only I got a dollar every time I forgot to attach the file ;-)

@PhelypeOleinik Heh heh...sometimes it happens :/

@PabloGonzálezL Far too often with me :P

@PhelypeOleinik It's like my featuritis... more and more often

@UlrikeFischer I do not want to worry you (about the fact that the shortage of toilet paper will be temporary) but I thought the same 15 days ago, and still no way... @AlexG

@Rmano Oh fortunately my wife could snatch a package today. Though only one of the recycling kind of paper.

Hello all!

I am asking to me if it possible to convert an .exe application of 1 window into a vector graphics image (svg, pdf, etc.) using LaTeX. Is it even possible to do it with an external tool?

The .exe application has only 1 window, so I am searching for a program that converts that window into a SVG instead of taking a picture of it, which is PNG (so when zooming it is pixelated). But I don't know if is possible, thanks!!

@manooooh not possible, sorry.

@PauloCereda thanks!! :( Do you have any reference?

@manooooh no. :)

:(

@UlrikeFischer See my replies to the review

@AlexG As long as the water supply and shower are working, you can get by or improvise in the living area without toilet paper. Bidets are quite practical. ;-) Doctors who take care of hemorrhoids can also give you good tips on how to get by without toilet paper. For example, you can bring liquid soap and a pump spray bottle of water to the toilet and wash yourself with it.

@UlrichDiez very true!

On the one hand this morning the village where I live suffered the second casualty due to Covid-19-disease. On the other hand when my father and me took a short secluded walk through the countryside in the evening, we saw the first blossoms on the cherry trees. ;-)

@PauloCereda Or we use old newspapers... But only newspapers with bad typesetting. Any advice? ;-)

@UlrichDiez Any newspaper daring to use sans serif. :)

@PauloCereda I fully agree with that. ;-)

@UlrichDiez :)

@UlrichDiez newspapers (and other papers) are not good for the sewage pipes, even with good typesetting ;-)

@JosephWright I read it.

@manooooh you mean modify the compiled program without having access to the source???

@PauloCereda proof by assertion, a well tested technique.

@DavidCarlisle :)

@DavidCarlisle thankfully you don't want me to extend on window compositing. :)

@UlrikeFischer That's true. In military operations abroad, we often bury used toilet paper or burn it soon. There are many countries where toilet paper must not be disposed of in the sewage system

@UlrichDiez oh in Brazil you cannot!

@UlrichDiez ooh :)

@UlrichDiez would you go to Dante too?

@PauloCereda Are you talking about the conference of the Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung TeX e.V? I've never been there. Are you talking about Dante's inferno? (I'm there all the time. ;-)

@UlrichDiez The former. The later, well... better not. :)

@manooooh Although @PauloCereda is right, you can (painfully) use the bitmap file generated, import it into inkscape, and then (after getting to grip with the powerful but quite difficult interface) do a thing that's called "tracing" it, which will try to transform the bitmap in a vector graphic. Depending on the image, you can have an acceptable result or you can have lost hours...

As I said, I've never been there. And my employer has already planned me well this year, too.

@UlrichDiez oh I see.

@DavidCarlisle no. I have the source code (Visual Basic.NET). This language allows to produce executable files based on most common Windows forms (buttons, labels, forms, etc.).

@manooooh well you should have asked that rather than asking if you can edit a .exe :-) then basically you are asking if it is possible to change a program so it does something else, at that level of generality the answer has to be yes, but....

@Rmano thanks Rmano for the useful information!! I have the source code of what I produce. Does this change in something of your answer? However I don't know how to access to the "bitmap file generated". The VS produces the following files: WindowsApplication1.exe / pdb / vshost.exe / vshost.exe.manifest / xml. Where is the bitmap file?

@PauloCereda Do you go to Dante? What was/is it like?

@UlrichDiez Dunno, this year would be my first time. :)

@PauloCereda Especially those typeset in comic sans.

@manooooh From a screenshot...

@AlexG EXACTLY :)

@DavidCarlisle I have not asked if I can edit a .exe but convert it to another file type ("convert" is meant to produce a new file, not editing the actual).

@Rmano but the screenshot is a JPG or PNG, not a vector graphic image

@manooooh but the exe is irrelevant that's the output of a compiler.

@DavidCarlisle he wants a vector-based screenshot of a program, IIRC.

@DavidCarlisle yes. But I don't think that there is a tool to put the code of VB.NET to produce the same exactly exe file but as a vector graphic image

@PauloCereda he does?? wow your crystal ball is clearer than mine,

@manooooh Yes --- this is why you have to use the "tracker" --- it tries to transform a bitmap image to a vector one. I did that a couple of times.

@manooooh I really have no idea what you mean by that.

@DavidCarlisle oh :(

@DavidCarlisle we have LaTeX which converts code into PDF. That's amazing. Now change the word "LaTeX" by "Visual Basic.NET". Now?

@manooooh that doesn't make sense sorry. It's like saying we have an oven for making cakes, now change "oven" into "elephant"

@manooooh ...but the LaTeX code is oriented to generate a document, while VB code is oriented to produce an executable program.

codeproject.com/Answers/160018/… @PauloCereda this link has the Crystal ball!

@manooooh Sorry, but that's not what I understood from your original question. You want a .NET component that generates PDF on the fly, is that it?

@DavidCarlisle it was an orientation for you. Of course LaTeX is to produce documents but not VB code, which produces .exe

BTW, eons ago there was a desktop interface based on unix (it was by Steve Jobs?) that used PostScript to generate the windows and widget and whatever. NeXT? Or something like that...

@manooooh but that doesn't help you at all. All that says is that you can write a program in vb to generate pdf which is obviously true. It doesn't tell you how to modify a vb program that targets windows forms to make it generate pdf that is related.

@PauloCereda I wrote PDF because is what we mostly produce while using LaTeX. But preferrably I would like to convert the window (application) produced by VB.NET into SVG or EPS

@Rmano doesn't seem that long ago to me, also display postscript from Sun (which I had on my desk for a while)

@DavidCarlisle oh ok

I will post an image (in PNG ;) ) so you can understand what I want

@manooooh if you are willing to draw, I can give you a suggestion.

@manooooh This software is useful for GUI prototyping and it has some Windows-based components: pencil.evolus.vn Then you can export in PDF or SVG IIRC.

@UlrikeFischer Pineapple pizzas are the new penne lisce :)

@AlexG Indeed! :)

@UlrichDiez -- I've attended several Dante meetings, and they are indeed "nice events", as well as being very well organized. The talks are interesting, the attendees are friendly, and I've never had a problem getting questions answered. I live in the U.S., not in Germany, and my German language skills are shaky, but I've never come away disappointed. I was hoping to attend this year, but a nasty virus had other ideas.

@barbarabeeton ooh I was going to speak in German!

We ducks are very good with languages. :)

@PauloCereda many thanks! So pencil is to reproduce a normal Windows application (I can add labels, buttons, ComboBoxes and other controls)?

@manooooh Uf. So what you'd like to have is a screenshot in vector graphics? I do not think it's possible. Anyway --- that image will compress very well in a PNG, methinks. Just shot it at 1200dpi and be happy.

@manooooh Or draw it with tikz --- they're just boxes...

@Rmano I have more complicated windows forms to show, so that would be a mess :/ But that's a good idea for simple applications, though

@manooooh it's a GUI prototyping, no programming. But perhaps you can mimic stuff there.

@Rmano that "very well" is subjective. I don't like non-vector graphic images but SVG files :P

@barbarabeeton Thank you for the insights. Now I regret even more that I have not yet managed to attend one of these meetings.

@Rmano so the idea is to have the PNG image of the application. Then try to manually? draw the image using Inkscape. That's all?

@manooooh yes, I concur, but... if it's for a manual of the program, at the end the program will run on a pixelated screen, so it's part of the reality. I normally use PNG (shot at the maximum possible size, maybe tricking the screen into thinking it's a 600dpi one) and use them.

@Rmano that's true. Ash, I love the SVG :'(

@manooooh No, Inkscape will try to trace the image for you. It will be an approximation, that you should adjust manually after the fact. But from my experience with very geometric shapes like that ones it will be uber painful. Don't do that.

@Rmano oh, I don't have circles or any complicated control on my windows forms. I could have Radio Button's but they are too tiny in comparison with the whole image. Look this image:

@Rmano why the easy figures would be complicated to manually draw? I thought the non-geometric shapes were hard to draw

@manooooh Windows 95...those were the days :)

@PabloGonzálezL in the school where I teach we still use this language programming... Don't make jokes! :P

@barbarabeeton I hope you are in good health and your comment on the nasty virus that had other plans is more related to things like travel restrictions.

@manooooh :-)

@manooooh Phishing for ducks?

@AlanMunn ducks are shot, not fished.

@AlanMunn hmmmm

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Fish fish fish and ducks duck ducks.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz oh no

@UlrichDiez -- Yes. My husband and I had plane and hotel reservations, and I had registered for the meeting, but everything was cancelled out from under us. Actually, we had received medical advice to avoid international travel (neither of us is particularly young), but kept hoping until it was no longer possible. I'd spent some time in Hamburg in earlier days, and really would have liked to see how it has changed. Maybe next year ...

@barbarabeeton quack <3

@PauloCereda -- quack back.

@barbarabeeton ooh :)

@manooooh I am explaining myself badly, sorry --- I said that the "tracker" algorithm of Inkscape is not good with geometric figures. A tracker algorithm is an algorithm that transforms bitmap images into vector images automatically. It uses edge detection, regression or things like that. After that step you have to retouch the vector vector image.

And for my experience the retouch step is so painful that the automatic conversion is no useful at all, given that geometric shapes are easy to draw by hand.

@manooooh it's just some rectangles and words. It's probably going to be easier to create that in tikz (or anything) rather than modify the program that's generating a windows from to generate something else.

One of the joys of teaching using my iPad is the ability to grab a part of a tree I've drawn and move it over so that I have more room. If only blackboards were like that :)

@Rmano now it is clear. Read the message of Rmano, @DavidCarlisle If I use tikz I have to manually draw and think the position of all controls, including the correct color, and so on. Instead if we have a vector image we can proceed, for example, following this nice question: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/122871/… which has a lot of less lines of code than using tikz

@manooooh but you are talking about modifying some arbitrary program to produce something different, you could just as easily ask how to modify the source of Tex so that it generates windows forms rather than pdf. It depends how the program is written it might be a case of writing a new back end, or it may mean completely re-writing the program. There is no generic method it depends on the details of the coding of the program you want to change.

@DavidCarlisle I am not saying that I want to modify the program! I just want to add another output file besides the .exe. With VB.NET we can produce a PNG,BMP,EXIF,GIF,etc. of the whole Form but I am still unhappy -- I want the Form in SVG

@manooooh that's modifying the program, the others are (presumably) just making bitmaps by pushing the windows form through the windows print drivers

@DavidCarlisle the code for producing a PNG is this:

Is that what you had assumed?

@manooooh Yep I understood I think. The problem is that to obtain this thing, you do not have to modify your program you wrote in VB.NET, you have to modify VB.NET itself so that it has a new backend.

@manooooh yes as I say, that's just taking the screenshot and making a bitmap file

@DavidCarlisle okay, so the code does not modify the program. I am asking if it is possible to change Imaging.ImageFormat.Png by something like Imaging.ImageFormat.Svg on the VS community

My tip: Throw needles on a sheet of paper!

@manooooh it will be far easier to write the thing in tikz, you are asking to re-engineer the entire windows framework

@Rmano that is good to know. I am asking on the VS community

i'm back yay

@DavidCarlisle that sounded so apocalyptic...

@manooooh just explaining what you are asking for

@DavidCarlisle Why I would re draw the Form using tikz if I have the code on my VS program? Instead I could ask for a program/tool that transforms the VB.NET code to LaTeX code, and then to tikz code, but you can see it is another waste of time. If the shortest path is not available, then I will use PNG for the images

@manooooh because redrawing in tikz is almost certainly far easier that converting the program you have to write tikz (unless you get really lucky and find an existing tool)

@AlanMunn like!

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz Mr Skillmon, you have to do the Buffon experiment right now! But with real needles etc.

@DavidCarlisle I don't think there is an existing tool. The point is, it's not true that using tikz is quick to use. You have to calculate the positions of the controls, starting by defining all the colors that VS uses for its controls, then creating them, then positioning them within the form. And this to do for each form that I have in my document, which exceed 10 forms. It is not an efficient method

@manooooh sure but compared writing a new back end for windows forms framework it is trivially easy.

@DavidCarlisle of course. It is like comparing the width of the Sun (new backend) with the width of the Moon (using tikz). The contrast is huge

@barbarabeeton It is unfortunate that the trip does not come about. But that's better than being at risk. Because of our country's current policy of limiting direct contact between people as much as possible, the trip would probably have been a disappointment. As an optimist, I assume that currently visits to Hamburg only slightly/temporarily distort the picture of what has changed. I hope that you can make a trip to Germany without being at risk, soon.

@DavidCarlisle David, you have to do the Buffon experiment right now! But with real needles etc.

% #arara: pdflatex
% arara: ghostscript: {  resolution: 150  , device: png16m}

% arara: cleanx: { extensions: [ aux , toc , log , bbl , bcf , blg , out , run.xml , synctex.gz ] }

\documentclass[fontsize=10pt,
parskip=full-,
paper=landscape
]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[showframe=false,
%left=2cm, right=2cm
margin=2cm,
bottom=1.333cm
]{geometry}
\addtokomafont{section}{\Huge}
\setkomafont{disposition}{\normalcolor\bfseries}
\pagestyle{empty}

\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}

Does anyone know how to deal with Windows paths in LaTeX? I'm trying to find the current home directory for overleaf detection (tex.stackexchange.com/questions/384066/…), but the \ in windows paths are causing some trouble.

@kgoodrick use /

Unfortunately, the \ is coming from kpsewhich and I can't figure out how to get rid of it. I tried piping to tr to just remove them but I couldn't figure out how to send it \s either.

@kgoodrick I get slashes back from kpsewhich on windows.

@kgoodrick that;s very weird. However to detect overleaf I would do

\edef\zza{\jobname}
\edef\zzb{\detokenize{output}}
\ifx\zzza\zzzb
\typeout{overleaf}
\else
\typeout{not overleaf}
\fi

@DavidCarlisle that's quite the way to go :-)

@yo' maybe I should post that as an answer to the linked question?

@DavidCarlisle lemme think of something more robust, if you don't mind...

@kgoodrick what did you actually do.

@yo' but I need the points to catch up with @egreg, I don't care if it is robust and helps the users :(

@DavidCarlisle then go for it :-)

@yo' no:-)

@kgoodrick Hi, please can I ask you why you need that?

@kgoodrick with texlive the answer works fine, miktex returns a path with backslash for HOME.

@DavidCarlisle Unfortunately I'm getting overleaf in both overleaf and MikTex with this.

@kgoodrick you are forcing the output name to be output.pdf even locally?

@yo' The overleaf version of circuitikz is too old to use some of the options I want to use locally.

@kgoodrick oh you have to do what I intended not what I wrote above (regulars here are used to my typing...)

@kgoodrick why not test the version of circuitikz ?

@kgoodrick can you check whether your project is on TeX Live 2019? (Done from the logs, the first line of the log tells you this)

@kgoodrick you need the same command names in tthe definitions as in the test, I seem to have used a variable number of z, try

Or is the 2019 version not enough for you?

\edef\zzza{\jobname}
\edef\zzzb{\detokenize{output}}

@kgoodrick or you can just use one of circuitikzgit.sty files from circuitikz.github.io/circuitikz

@DavidCarlisle could fail. I more consider testing for pwd

@yo' it could fail but the chance that it fails on this document is.. slim, and anyway it has a chance of not failing with that fix:-)

@DavidCarlisle yeah, right :-)

@DavidCarlisle yep, the macro \pgfcircversion will give you the version loaded

@DavidCarlisle This seems to work, thanks!

@Rmano or the standard \@ifpackagelater test

@kgoodrick it's the wrong test for the use case though, far better to test the version of circuitikz or simply put a version of that package in your project. Otherwise you'll have projects with that code that still get used long after overleaf is using texlive 2025 and the issue should have gone

I also wanted to have the check for a package that is on ctan but not overleaf. Is there a way to use the local version of a package only if it's not available at the system, level?

@kgoodrick that's tricky; why would you do that? You can simply place the version of the package that's compatible with your code into your OL project and be happy. Or not?

@kgoodrick simplest would be to rename the local copy then you can say \ifFileExists{newctanpackage} {\usepackage{newctanpackage}} {\usepackage{myrenamedlocalcopy}}

I want to have things setup the "right" way locally, i.e. using the package manager and have overleaf be the hacky version.

@DavidCarlisle I think that would be ok, thanks again!

@kgoodrick In that case I wouldn't put test macros in your document, just put the package into your overleaf project as @yo' suggests

@DavidCarlisle @kgoodrick And simply when OL goes to TeX Live 2020 (expected during the summer), you can then delete the file from your project.

We unfortunately cannot do updates between releases other than for bugfixes.

Ok, that seems like a good solution, thank you all for your help!