TeX, LaTeX and Friends

David Carlisle

07:34

@PauloCereda important news

Paulo Cereda

07:54

@PabloGonzálezL oh my

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle, @UlrikeFischer I'm enjoying GitHub Project support ;)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle yay

Later

@JosephWright Hello. Can I talk to you about something irrelevant to TEX?

Joseph Wright

Of course

Later

@JosephWright Thanks. According to the SE rules, can a user change completely one of their questions having no answer?

Joseph Wright

08:03

@Later It would be better to simply delete, although if there are no comments or answrs it's somewhat academic

Later

@JosephWright Ok. It has some comments but no answer. I want to know whether the user do an illegal thing by changing completely a question or not; is there any SE policy or rule preventing the user from that?

Joseph Wright

10:09

@UlrikeFischer Expect loads of PRs ;)

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright oh no

Ulrike Fischer

@JosephWright just came in (I had to go to the vampires and leave my blood ...) and see the rush of emails. This color stuff is extending at a tremendious speed ;-). But I see a bit the danger that the discussion starts to mix "package level stuff" with "kernel interfaces".

Joseph Wright

@UlrikeFischer I'm going to do everything as PR, so there is proper review: I only want real kernel functions

Ulrike Fischer

@JosephWright I'm not worried about the code, only about the discussion -- it is so easy to drift away in all sort of directions ;-)

Paulo Cereda

10:25

@UlrikeFischer ooh das Vampir

Joseph Wright

@UlrikeFischer That's one reason for splitting up into a small project with multiple focussed issues :)

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright cli.github.com

Joseph Wright

11:50

@PauloCereda I'm usually OK with GitKraken and the website, but I can see some people want lots of power (all the keyboard shortcuts, etc.)

@PauloCereda You usingit?

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright will give it a go :)

@JosephWright ooh power

Diaa

13:09

Hello everyone,

Until I get a response to my comment on this answer of Joseph https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/548560/2288, how can I pass and escape the following special characters to the command \getunicode{}?
# , \ , {

David Carlisle

@Diaa looking at the code \# \\ and \{ should work don't they?

cis

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz

I have an idea or a (generalizing) suggestion:

I would also consider letting the parser access on an auxiliary file.
The auxiliary file, say `kana.dat`, could look like this:

a, U+3041, LaTeXFontIdentifier, Idon'tKnow,  Idon'tKnow, ... | あ (explanation)
i, U+3043, LaTeXFontIdentifier, Idon'tKnow,  Idon'tKnow, ... | ぃ (explanation)
u, U+3043, LaTeXFontIdentifier, Idon'tKnow,  Idon'tKnow, ... | ぅ (explanation)
.........

(A similar auxiliary auxiliary file `kanji.dat` could also exist.)

Why the whole thing?

Well, with this level of generalization, users could create more help files over time.
For example `thai.dat`:

k,  U+...,  LaTeXFontIdentifier, Idon'tKnow,  Idon'tKnow, ...| ก (explanation)
kh, U+..., LaTeXFontIdentifier, Idon'tKnow,  Idon'tKnow, ... | ข (explanation)
ng, U+..., LaTeXFontIdentifier, Idon'tKnow,  Idon'tKnow, ... | ง (explanation)
.........

I think you can see where it's going:
The package could provide a general parser for various Asian languages (Japanese, Thai, Chinese, ...).

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz

Diaa

@DavidCarlisle Unfortunately, they don't.

David Carlisle

@cis at least for mapping from the code points to the unicode names the Unicode data files have the information to easily make such mappings eg: w3c.github.io/xml-entities/…

@Diaa hmm it would for the core part: \cs_new:Npn \__diaa_getunicode_auxii:n #1 { \int_to_Hex:n { `#1 } }

Diaa

@DavidCarlisle I am sorry for not understanding what you mean. Should the code be edited to escape all the special characters? Or I have to input them different way!

David Carlisle

13:25

@Diaa I mean this works, so it would just need a bit of adjustments on the initial tests so a command of that form is passed through:

\diaa_getunicode:n{a} ~

\__diaa_getunicode_auxii:n{\#} ~

\__diaa_getunicode_auxii:n{\{} ~

\__diaa_getunicode_auxii:n{\\}

@Diaa because for any character you can use \int_to_Hex:n {`\?} where you replace ? by that character

cis

@DavidCarlisle Unfortunately, I don't know enough about it. So this is how I would build a package (if I could ... which I cannot):

As general as possible!

The principle of @Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz parser should not be significantly different with regard to various other Asian languages.

David Carlisle

@cis but what input or output do you want the above page (that I wrote in javascript) takes any input text and gives the unicode number (hex) the unicode name and any tex or html names for the characters, see the output from w3c.github.io/xml-entities/…

Diaa

@DavidCarlisle As a beginner user of latex, if my life depends on understanding what is going on, I would have been completely dead X|). I would be greatly thankful if you don't mind providing an enhanced version of the command \getunicode syntax that escapes all the special characters. Thanks for your consideration.

David Carlisle

@Diaa it's not clear what your use case is or what you want the input to be you could use the form with \ for all characters there is no need to special case anything. \__diaa_getunicode_auxii:n{\A} works fine.

Diaa

13:47

Thanks for your patience, generally speaking, I just need to use, for example, \getunicode{\} to have the output of 5C or use \getunicode{#} to have the output 23.
So, what should be modified in the code to have what I need?

I sincerely apologize for not understanding what you are trying to explain to me.

David Carlisle

define \let\getunicode\__diaa_getunicode_auxii:n then you can use \getunicode{\\}

cis

@DavidCarlisle Ui, https://w3c.github.io/xml-entities/unicode-names.html?%E3%81%82%E3%81%83%E3%81%85

So as I said, I would try to include something general in the package.

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz parser works in the form

In: `\command{<romanization (a, i, u, ..., ka, ki, ...)>}`
Out: Symbol-Output.

that should be transferable to other Asian languages (if necessary).
For example, other users could create appropriate help files.

That's an idea of mine that came to me last night. Of course, I don't know how difficult it is.

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle The more complex definition is there just to allow for the various expansion cases ...

David Carlisle

@JosephWright yes but I only read the last line and told @Diaa that \# would work but it doesn't survive the tests (it could be fixed but if the only requirement is looking up a single character you only need that one line so I was asking...

Ulrike Fischer

@Diaa but for which end do you want to get the unicode? And what is the range of the input? Getting the unicode from something like "A" is easy but if you add commands like \beta to the lot then it gets quite complicated - in pdftex \beta maps to a glyph position that has no connection to the unicode value.

David Carlisle

13:57

@Diaa you are not being clear enough on your use case for example \getunicode{\} it would be possible to make getunicode read its argument verbatim so that worked rather than use \getunicode{\\} as I suggested but then (a) like any verbatim command you would not be able to use \getunicode in the argument of another macro and (b) \getunicode{\beta} would not work as \beta would be read verbatim not expanded to a beta.

Diaa

@UlrikeFischer I didn't think about the range of the input. I thought about a lookup table where an input of any sort would return its respective or linked unicode number.

Ulrike Fischer

@Diaa but how should a lookup table work if a tex input can contain \blub and \zzz?

David Carlisle

@Diaa that isn't a usable specification:-) what does "any sort" mean? do you want \getunicode{abc} to do anything? or \getunicode{\textbf{x}} or ...

Diaa

I mean a table like this utf8-chartable.de/unicode-utf8-table.pl?names=2&utf8=0x

David Carlisle

@Diaa but you don't need a table tex is already treating characters as numbers.

Ulrike Fischer

14:02

@Diaa but this table doesn't contain $\leq$ and \beta as in your question.

David Carlisle

@Diaa it sounds like the table that I just referenced for cis, w3c.github.io/xml-entities/…

Diaa

@UlrikeFischer this one does johndcook.com/blog/math_symbols

Ulrike Fischer

@Diaa but this contains only around twenty entries. So what is your input range?

David Carlisle

@Diaa yes but that just has a few simple cases that map to a single unicode character but what about tex comands that expand to ooalign constructs or multiple character or fractions or ...

Diaa

@UlrikeFischer Alphanumeric, opening/closing brackets, slashes, math symbols, greek letters as far as I remember

@DavidCarlisle didn't think about this

yo'

14:07

@PauloCereda Hi, you helped us with some ABNT templates couple months ago. Please do you remember whether you put them in the Overleaf Gallery?

David Carlisle

@Diaa that isn't a usable spec in classic tex \rightarrow is a single character, \longrightarrow is a - and some negative spacing and then a rightarrow, what do you want to do if given \longraightarrow?? . If you restrict to luatex and xetex unicode-math then more characters use unicode slots but not all

Diaa

@DavidCarlisle You pointed out the potholes of usage I completely overlooked. I got what you are trying to warn about

David Carlisle

@Diaa what is your actual use case why are you trying to get these hex values?

Diaa

I use the Redacted Script font https://github.com/christiannaths/Redacted-Font to dummify my document. So, this font lack some text/math characters. Therefore, I need to find the unicode of those characters to put them in the range of this font like this

\setmainfont{redacted-script-regular.ttf}

\setmathfont{redacted-script-regular.ttf}%
[range = {up , it , bb , bbit , scr , cal , bfcal , frak , tt , sfup , sfit , bfup , bfit , bfscr , bffrak , bfsfup , bfsfit, "002B, "002D, "2796, "207B , "03B7 , "03BC , "03D5 , "03C1, "2264, "3D, "2212}]

Paulo Cereda

@yo' Was there an Overleaf Gallery? :)

yo'

14:19

@PauloCereda Yeah, the Gallery's existed for years (one of the issues that the Gallery has :-) )

David Carlisle

@Diaa huh? why not just look up in fontforge to get the list of characters in the font? why do you need mappings from tex names?

Paulo Cereda

@yo' ooh :)

Diaa

@DavidCarlisle I don't know how to do what you say. I just tried what first came to my mind

David Carlisle

@Diaa but if I understand you correctly all you need is a list of ranges that the font supports to put in to the range= list, but how would your \getunicode question help with that, it appears to be going in the wrong direction.

Diaa

@DavidCarlisle For example, \leq is not supported or recognized by the Redacted font, so I need first to know its unicode to put it in the range list

cis

14:25

Hey.... @github project (which I was invited)....

How to 'post' there a suggestion?

'Create new file'? No...

Rmano

@cis open an issue?

David Carlisle

@Diaa no that's backwards, just get the range of characters in the font from the font. You don't want to go through three thousand tex math commands one by one looking up their unicode number. Also are these for anonymising documents printed on paper (as it doesn't do much to hide the text in pdf)

Ulrike Fischer

@Diaa ? The list should contain chars the font support, not chars it doesn't have.

cis

@Rmano O.ke.ye! I found 'issues' --- thx.

Diaa

Yes, I need to completely anonymize the document.
In order to understand you properly, how to anonymize \leq by replacing it with the Redacted font?
Did I do it wrong knowing that without putting the unicode of \leq in the range, it will be printed?

cis

14:35

@Skillmonlikestopanswers.xyz I found
`Skillmon has invited you to collaborate on the Skillmon/ltx_quack repository`
and posted an 'issue'. (I hope I did everything right.)

Ulrike Fischer

@Diaa well the pdf will not be anonym. Try to copy & paste.

Diaa

14:51

@UlrikeFischer I already did before, and without "2264 in the range of \setmathfont{redacted-script-regular.ttf}, ≤ would be printed in the output PDF

Ulrike Fischer

@Diaa the problem is not the print. Did you try to copy & paste some of the text?

Joseph Wright

@UlrikeFischer I'd appreciate your thoughts on github.com/latex3/latex3/issues/742, in particular do we want to go fully-expandable?

Diaa

@UlrikeFischer I got your point :) For me, I use it for printing the exam using a public printer (I actually haven't yet :), and I hope this fake document doesn't come out with the real text

Paulo Cereda

15:07

@UlrikeFischer blub updated. :) Nothing major, I just commented the code. :)

@barbarabeeton ooh wombats and roos twitter.com/dodo/status/1270068074549596164

Paulo Cereda

15:31

GUYS

TOMORROW

2020-06-10: TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange

/quacks in despair

We are doomed

DOOMED, I SAY

Joseph Wright

@PauloCereda Huh?

Paulo Cereda

348

Q: We're switching to CommonMark

I’m Ham and I’m a developer on the Teams team here at Stack Overflow. Over the past few months, I’ve been heads down working on the way we turn Markdown into HTML when writing and editing posts across the network. I’d love to share what I’ve come up with. In a nutshell: We’re planning to use Comm...

We are scheduled for tomorrow!

Rmano

Ups, not fast enough

Paulo Cereda

@Rmano <3

Rmano

May we live in interesting times

Paulo Cereda

15:36

@Rmano \emph{interesting}

:)

Joseph Wright

@PauloCereda Oh, yes

David Carlisle

16:11

@PauloCereda what \\ could go \\ wrong ?

5

cis

17:10

@PauloCereda You should be careful, I am a collaborator in the quack.sty package!

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh

barbara beeton

@Rmano -- We already do.

@DavidCarlisle -- If you read the list of bugs already found, plenty more. The things I think should be looked for include indentation of code, our old friend the double backslash, quotes within quotes, ..., more I can't remember at the moment.

yo'

17:29

@barbarabeeton definitely backticks (which appear around \catcode)

barbara beeton

Question ... How can one create a link to a comment? I know it's possible, because I've seen them. I also know such a link is likely to go dead, but my need for one is to notify someone by email to look at something specific right now; the comment isn't likely to be immortalized into an answer, so there's no other reference. Or I can post a question on meta. What to do?

@yo' -- Ah, you mean "visible" backticks. Good suggestion. Maybe we should make a list of questions/answers that are susceptible to these ills. Or create a few "dummy" questions that are susceptible to such possible mangling?

Phelype Oleinik

@barbarabeeton The date by the end of the comment has a link to it. You can either right-click and “Copy link address” (the exact name may depend on your browser) or click that and copy the link from the browser's address bar

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

17:51

@barbarabeeton Code that has code fences inside might also be fun .... things like

---
output:
  beamer_presentation:
    keep_tex: true
header-includes:
  - \usepackage{pdfpages}
  - \setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=}
  - \makeatletter\beamer@ignorenonframefalse\makeatother
---

test

``` {=latex}
\end{frame}
\includepdf[pages=1-10]{example-image-duck}
\begin{frame}
```

test

barbara beeton

@PhelypeOleinik -- Oh. I guess that's a failure of my browser. Although when I click on the date, the link address appears at the bottom of the browser window, there's nothing to click, and the address doesn't persist when the cursor is moved. (I'm on an old Mac laptop, crippled in many ways.) Guess I'll have to resort to pencil and paper. Thanks.

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz -- Let's create a "target" question on meta. I'll post a question, and the potential problems can be added as separate answers.

Phelype Oleinik

@barbarabeeton If you tell me which post/comment, I can send you the link if that helps

Paulo Cereda

0

Q: The CommonMark diary

Friends, The StackExchange network decided to switch to CommonMark. The last time SE decided to make some changes, we experienced a lot of problems. Worse, any official position from the Powers That Be took more than three months to arrive; in the meantime, we were desperately waiting for a fee...

discussion

3

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

18:09

@PauloCereda Was the title "SO's 9 circles of markdown hell" already taken?

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz LOL I tried to be funny once, but I failed. :)

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz tex.stackexchange.com/posts/153389/revisions see revision #3 :)

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

@PauloCereda Oh, vampires :)

barbara beeton

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz -- Question posted. Please add this example. (I'll go looking for some double-backslash horrors.)

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz it's a journal called Blood, after all. :)

@barbarabeeton I will delete mine, then. :)

barbara beeton

@PauloCereda -- No, don't delete anything. We need good documentation.

Paulo Cereda

18:15

@barbarabeeton ah okay then. <3

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

18:29

@barbarabeeton Here is the shortest code fence example I could find on the main site: tex.stackexchange.com/a/400900 Please feel free to include it in your meta post

barbara beeton

@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz -- I suggested that each example should be posted as a separate answer. If you don't want to post it, let me know and I'll do it, but after I tend to something else first,

@PhelypeOleinik -- Oh, that would be great! The question (answer) is tex.stackexchange.com/q/371072 and the comment is the next-to-last one, from Andrew, suggesting that AMS add a definition of \@dotsep to amsart. I want to forward that to AMS.

Phelype Oleinik

@barbarabeeton Got it! Here or e-mail?

barbara beeton

@PhelypeOleinik -- Either might work, but email might be more reliable -- if it's posted here, it might just act as a link, and I might not be able to trap it. (But might as well try it, to see what happens. I'll report quickly.)

Phelype Oleinik

@barbarabeeton Sent. Here's the link: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/371072/… (yeah, it seems the chat compresses the visible part of the link)

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

18:45

@barbarabeeton I no longer do posts, so go ahead

barbara beeton

@PhelypeOleinik -- Well, I've been able to link to it; it put up a new window, and I could trap the address and copy it. It seems to be intact. But I wonder why the "compressed" version isn't used? Would be much shorter, like the links presented at the end of a question or answer for "share". Probably a candidate for a feature request on the general meta. I'll pursue that, Thanks!

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda I did get a stackoverflow tee shirt for my troubles:-)

Ulrike Fischer

18:58

How do one correctly redefine \normalsize now that it is robust if a package use also \@normalsize? @PhelypeOleinik?

David Carlisle

@barbarabeeton @PhelypeOleinik @samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz arguably it's a bug in latex (it uses @dotsep without defining it, hard to fix there are article.cls (and any package that copies it) defined it with \newcommand so it can't be defined in the format.

Phelype Oleinik

@UlrikeFischer It's tricky. The \NewCommandCopy thingy just works for a limited set of known “types” of commands. Anything else is just \let. That said, if it's a common enough definition, it could be integrated. What package is it?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda they offered me a tex.sx one but I said who'd want to be seen in one of those

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle LOL

Ulrike Fischer

19:07

@PhelypeOleinik I was looking at the devanagari question tex.stackexchange.com/questions/548635/…. The problem is that the baselineskip is too small for the font. I tried to redefine \normalsize but that failed because cgloss4e uses \@normalsize and then tried to track that (it is in latex.ltx) and then found the situation rather confusing.

barbara beeton

19:22

@DavidCarlisle -- That's nasty! (I've sent a suggestion to AMS that it might be copied from article, but at least put it in the list of suggestions. Sent a link to the original question.) If you post an answer there, that would be a good thing.

David Carlisle

@barbarabeeton \@dottedtocline uses all sorts of names that are not defined \@pnumwidth,\@tocrmarg, \@dotsep so if a package uses \@dottedtocline assuming the class has set them up, things don't go well:-)

@UlrikeFischer it's only for latex2.09 compat, what is the package doing?

Phelype Oleinik

@UlrikeFischer If I grep for \@normalsize there is only one use in latex.ltx, but quite a lot in latex209.dtx, so it seems deprecated...

Ah, David just said that :-)

David Carlisle

@PhelypeOleinik I guess you didn't use latex2.09 much? :-)

Phelype Oleinik

\@ifundefined{new@fontshape}%
   {\def\@selfnt{\ifx\@currsize\normalsize\@normalsize\else\@currsize\fi}}
   {\def\@selfnt{\selectfont}}

barbara beeton

@UlrikeFischer -- There was a question about how to keep the equation number a constant size when a display is reduced in size. I'm pretty sure that was fixed in amsart by using \@normalsize, but that's only in the in-house version, not released to the public, so I couldn't check. (I've asked, but gotten no answer.) If there is "confused" usage of \@normalsize, then the suggestion I was thinking of making, to add it to amsmath, might have unpleasant side effects.

Phelype Oleinik

19:31

@DavidCarlisle ^^^

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik we could even chat here only by recycling old posts from David :)

David Carlisle

@PhelypeOleinik yes I found that but that's nonsense isn't it?

Phelype Oleinik

@DavidCarlisle Once or twice, out of curiosity :-)

@DavidCarlisle Seems like so. If A exists, then use B...

@PauloCereda Oh, Déjà vu

David Carlisle

Jan 27 at 15:06, by Phelype Oleinik

Jan 15 at 13:41, by David Carlisle

Nov 15 '19 at 9:45, by David Carlisle

Oct 28 at 22:50, by Phelype Oleinik

Aug 1 at 16:26, by Phelype Oleinik

Jul 3 at 9:43, by CarLaTeX

yesterday, by David Carlisle

Dec 12 '17 at 20:26, by Alan Munn

20 mins ago, by CarLaTeX

Dec 26 '14 at 0:17, by Faheem Mitha

I've got a feeling we had this discussion in this channel before. I'm getting a sense of deja vu.

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik ^^ ooh

Phelype Oleinik

19:34

@DavidCarlisle I'm just waiting for the day that message doesn't fit in the window anymore :-)

Paulo Cereda

2 mins ago, by David Carlisle

Jan 27 at 15:06, by Phelype Oleinik

Jan 15 at 13:41, by David Carlisle

Nov 15 '19 at 9:45, by David Carlisle

Oct 28 at 22:50, by Phelype Oleinik

Aug 1 at 16:26, by Phelype Oleinik

Jul 3 at 9:43, by CarLaTeX

yesterday, by David Carlisle

Dec 12 '17 at 20:26, by Alan Munn

20 mins ago, by CarLaTeX

Dec 26 '14 at 0:17, by Faheem Mitha

I've got a feeling we had this discussion in this channel before. I'm getting a sense of deja vu.

12 secs ago, by Paulo Cereda

2 mins ago, by David Carlisle

Jan 27 at 15:06, by Phelype Oleinik

Jan 15 at 13:41, by David Carlisle

Nov 15 '19 at 9:45, by David Carlisle

Oct 28 at 22:50, by Phelype Oleinik

Aug 1 at 16:26, by Phelype Oleinik

Jul 3 at 9:43, by CarLaTeX

yesterday, by David Carlisle

Dec 12 '17 at 20:26, by Alan Munn

20 mins ago, by CarLaTeX

Dec 26 '14 at 0:17, by Faheem Mitha

I've got a feeling we had this discussion in this channel before. I'm getting a sense of deja vu.

9 secs ago, by Paulo Cereda

12 secs ago, by Paulo Cereda

2 mins ago, by David Carlisle

Jan 27 at 15:06, by Phelype Oleinik

Jan 15 at 13:41, by David Carlisle

Nov 15 '19 at 9:45, by David Carlisle

Oct 28 at 22:50, by Phelype Oleinik

Aug 1 at 16:26, by Phelype Oleinik

Jul 3 at 9:43, by CarLaTeX

yesterday, by David Carlisle

Dec 12 '17 at 20:26, by Alan Munn

20 mins ago, by CarLaTeX

Dec 26 '14 at 0:17, by Faheem Mitha

I've got a feeling we had this discussion in this channel before. I'm getting a sense of deja vu.

@PhelypeOleinik your turn :)

barbara beeton

@DavidCarlisle -- All the more reason you should post an answer. Please do.

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda That's cheating ;-)

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik it always is. :)

barbara beeton

@PauloCereda -- I'm glad I'm not on a mobile device. My poor old laptop is pitiful enough.

Phelype Oleinik

19:43

@PauloCereda I never cheat...

@PauloCereda ...except sometimes

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik this sounds suspiciously Carlislean :)

@barbarabeeton oopsie

@PhelypeOleinik "for half the time I am not wrong, I am 100% right." :)

barbara beeton

@PhelypeOleinik -- "What, never?" "No, never!" "What, never?" "Well, hardly ever ..."

Paulo Cereda

@barbarabeeton ooh

Phelype Oleinik

@barbarabeeton :-)

barbara beeton

@PauloCereda -- ("And he's hardly ever sick at sea.") You don't seem to be as familiar with Gilbert & Sullivan as you are with Flanders & Swann. Your education seems to be lacking.

Paulo Cereda

19:48

@barbarabeeton apologies, I will try to catch up. :)

David Carlisle

@barbarabeeton "I have a little list" (that we could put @PauloCereda on)

barbara beeton

@PauloCereda -- That's from "H.M.S. Pinafore", sung by Sir Joseph and his sisters and his cousins (whom he reckons by the dozens) and his aunts.

@DavidCarlisle -- "He surely won't be missed." ("They'll none of them be missed.") (I guess this might be a generational thing.)

Faheem Mitha

I'm surprised anyone remembers G&S. I grew up listening to The Mikado and the Pirates of Penzance. My father liked it, for some reason.

The Mikado is actually pretty good.

> Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

Ulrike Fischer

20:08

@DavidCarlisle where is \new@fontshape from? Is that too latex2.09? Or some old latex2e

barbara beeton

@FaheemMitha -- Oh they're silly and dated, and in places not at all politically or socially correct. But the music is engaging, and the stories give one a chance to laugh, something that is sorely lacking these days. How could one not laugh at the misfortune of having an actual birthday only once every four years?

Faheem Mitha

@barbarabeeton I remember them as being fun. But my memory is a bit fuzzy.

But they are a bit different from modern entertainment. Not enough explosions, car chases, swearing, or special effects.

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer I think from Frank and Rainer's first NFSS for latex2.09 (but I'd have to check)

Faheem Mitha

For some reason there's an entire production of the Mikado by the English National Opera on Youtube. youtube.com/watch?v=-fbSqOY8z_4

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle history again ;-). How many package will we break if we remove the \@normalsize definition?

Phelype Oleinik

20:19

%    \begin{macrocode}
\IncludeInRelease{0000/00/00}{\new@fontshape}%
                             {NFSS version1 commands}%
%    \end{macrocode}
%
% \begin{macro}{\new@fontshape}
%    The interface is now |\DeclareFontShape|.
%    \begin{macrocode}
\gdef\new@fontshape#1#2#3#4{%
     \warn@rel@i\new@fontshape\DeclareFontShape
     \expandafter\scan@fontshape\@gobble#4<\@nil><<%
     \DeclareFontShape U{#1}{#2}{#3}\reserved@f}%
\@onlypreamble\new@fontshape
%    \end{macrocode}
% \end{macro}

@UlrikeFischer ^^^

Faheem Mitha

@barbarabeeton I would have expected to be G&S to be rather to @DavidCarlisle's taste.

Plenty of British humor.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha not really: I have been to a couple but it is still very popular in the UK both professional productions (always some on somewhere) and hundreds and hundreds of local G&S societies putting on performances in towns all over (if theatres were not all shut)

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Well, one can always rely on the British to be in touch with their past.

barbara beeton

@FaheemMitha -- Thank you. I shall watch later.

Faheem Mitha

I don't think I've ever been to an actual G&S performance though. Once upon a time we had gramophone records. Remember those?

Of course nowadays one can just click a button.

barbara beeton

20:34

@FaheemMitha -- I still have some, lacquer even. (But no gramophone, only a variable-speed turntable. With much better speakers than any other audio device readily available to us. A joy to listen to the Flanders & Swann rendition of "High fidelity".)

Faheem Mitha

@barbarabeeton You still listen to records?

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha all the trendy people do: sales of vinyl are increasing steadily (and may surpass CDs if that has not already happened)

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle That's surprising.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38487837 for example

Phelype Oleinik

@DavidCarlisle Guardians of the Galaxy Mix should be in Cassette instead...

barbara beeton

20:40

@FaheemMitha -- On occasion. The analog sound is better than has been achieved digitally so far.

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Yes, I see. As one would expect, streaming is now dominating everything else.

David Carlisle

@barbarabeeton getting that regular ticking noise as the needle bounces over a scratch is so hard to achieve digitally

Faheem Mitha

@PhelypeOleinik I assume that's an in-universe reference to Peter's cassette player.

barbara beeton

@DavidCarlisle -- Gad! I certainly wouldn't call me "trendy". Usually, "on the way to obsolete" is more appropriate.

Phelype Oleinik

@FaheemMitha It is :-)

Faheem Mitha

20:42

@barbarabeeton I've heard that before. I don't see it myself. Or hear it, more precisely.

@PhelypeOleinik It's rather unlikely a cassette player would have survived all the space opera. But I suppose it's not meant to be realistic.

@DavidCarlisle Just hook up one's favorite random noise generator.

barbara beeton

@FaheemMitha -- Try it with some organ works, especially with performances meant to show off the 64ft pipes. (Actually, there are very few speakers that can cope with those either. You have to be in the performance space; then you don't really hear them, but you can certainly feel them.)

Faheem Mitha

@barbarabeeton The performance space? You mean at an actual performance?

BTW, I hear DEK has his own private organ. Did he ever play it for you?

barbara beeton

@FaheemMitha -- Yes. Could be in a church (preferably a large stone one) or a well-appointed concert hall.

Faheem Mitha

I can't remember if I've ever heard an actual organ. It's possible. If I did, it was probably in Cambridge (UK).

Since Cambridge has some organs.

barbara beeton

@FaheemMitha -- Yes. Two years ago, at the Palo Alto meeting, Don invited some participants to his house, and among the things he showed off was the organ, and he played some phrases to demonstrate the stops. There's a nice picture on his website: www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html. No 64ft pipes though.

Faheem Mitha

20:57

@barbarabeeton I would have expected a Bach recital.

I wonder how much that organ cost.

barbara beeton

@FaheemMitha -- As I remember one of the pieces he excerpted was Bach. I think he also played a few bars from something more modern, but I don't remember what it was. There have been several organists in the TeX community over the years, and still are.

Faheem Mitha

@barbarabeeton Bach is the organists standard, I hear.

Alan Munn

22:12

Getting RTL right is not always easy.

Alan Munn

22:23

How not to implement \alph

\newcount\mycnt
\def\printlabel{\char\the\mycnt\advance\mycnt 1}
\mycnt=97
\printlabel
\printlabel
\bye

Ulrike Fischer

@AlanMunn ;-) looking at the devanagari issue?

Alan Munn

@UlrikeFischer Yep :)

@UlrikeFischer It's a really good package in terms of its function, but the code and its idiosyncrasies are wildly annoying.

Ulrike Fischer

22:42

@AlanMunn I did wonder about a labeltype but didn't know what the two format keys are about and it they would need a change too.

Alan Munn

@UlrikeFischer I finally abandoned the @DavidCarlisle method and stopped reading the code and instead resorted to the documentation. :)

matt

22:54

I wish \begin{chat} was an actual environment lol

... \end{chat}?

David Carlisle

23:15

@AlanMunn it'll end in tears

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