« first day (4242 days earlier)      last day (989 days later) » 

06:52
Seen in a commit message this morning as part of an error:
Just use XXX as documented.
Morning @UlrikeFischer
World hasn't collapsed yet with the LaTeX2e release and more expl3 :)
07:10
@JosephWright morning!
@JosephWright I'm holding my breath. Perhaps people update only on sundays :-)
07:48
@UlrikeFischer :)
@DavidCarlisle Should I be building PL1? I guess dev-0 will be equivalent to PL1 ...
 
1 hour later…
09:08
Hello. I am completely confused about how to use alignat environment. For example, how can I reproduce the following?
@Later it is better to ask questions on the question and answer site, but the alignment there is just a subterm not the whole display so you want a ...ed form, I'd use aligned although you could use alignedat so \[x: \begin{aligned}1&\mapsto x....
@JosephWright yes and yes, unless Frank has more fixes pending, but I don't think so. I have done with ly1 in cyrillic develop and main
@DavidCarlisle can we change lmodern fd-files? While looking at the small caps + slanted stuff I saw that they miss the line for the bold slanted small caps.
09:26
er .... % This file belongs to the Latin Modern package. The work is released
% under the GUST Font License.
@DavidCarlisle actually I think I was wrong, I thought there is a bold version of the small caps but now I can't find it anymore.
I recall stumbling across an undocumented LuaTeX feature, where passing an appropriate flag (a number, I think) to tex.sprint etc sends it to standard output or error. If I have got this correct, can someone provide a reference? AFAIK, this isn't mentioned in the manual.
Though I may be confusing it with texio.write_nl, perhaps.
@FaheemMitha most likely
yo'
yo'
09:57
\RequirePackage[dvips]{graphicx}
\RequirePackage[ps2pdf,bookmarks=true,bookmarksnumbered=true]{hyperref}
\RequirePackage[ps2pdf]{thumbpdf}
WHY?! It's in a class file -- is there any way how to unload the options without editing the .cls?
@yo' well hyperref will error if you are not in dvi mode, and if you are in dvi mode the options should be ok.
@yo' \def\RequirePackage[#1]#2{}\documentclass{whatever}
2
yo'
yo'
@DavidCarlisle oh well, that's more drastic than I thought of :)
@DavidCarlisle ;-)
yo'
yo'
@UlrikeFischer yes, it does error :-)
10:03
@yo' buy a large stamp "this class works only with latex+dvips" ?
yo'
yo'
@UlrikeFischer yeah, but it's a completely unnecessary limitation :'-(
@yo' I would not recommend it but you could probably put copies of pdfex.def and hpdftex.def in the project renamed to dvips.def and hdvips.def so the dvips opions load the pdftex back end
@DavidCarlisle eek
@yo' see how impressed @UlrikeFischer is with my structured approach to tex programming
2
@yo' well I don't know what the class contains beside this. Is it really necessary to correct it? Can't they switch to another class, or make a copy and remove this options?
10:09
@DavidCarlisle Thanks. I used "alignedat", but the problem is the variables before the arrows are not left-aligned. (I used alignedat{1}).
yo'
yo'
@UlrikeFischer seems a proprietary class. I recommended editing the class and renaming it to *-corr.cls
@Later normally you would right align them towards the arrow, if you want left just add extra & odd numbered columns right align, even columns left align
@DavidCarlisle Thanks. resolved.
 
1 hour later…
11:26
@yo' A better recommendation would have been: "sent a box of angry ducks to the original author of the class"
12:10
@samcarter Why are the ducks angry?
12:23
@DavidCarlisle Frank's issue reminded me that mathcolor is still not defined with xcolor. I think we should really make an update. Should I do it?
12:39
@UlrikeFischer sure if you have time, thanks
@samcarter I'm glad you like my class file, kind of you to supply lunch.
13:17
@DavidCarlisle grr ! LaTeX Error: Option clash for package hyperref. ;-(
@UlrikeFischer blame @UlrikeFischer?
@UlrikeFischer ltxdoc including hyperref?
@DavidCarlisle yes, I simply moved the additional hyperref options to a \PassOptionsToPackage.
@UlrikeFischer yes or pdfsubject={Color extensions for LaTeX and pdfLaTeX} etc could be in \hypersetup rather than package options, make Joseph happier
13:33
@DavidCarlisle yes, but hyperindex=false I think must be given a package option so I need it anyway for now.
@UlrikeFischer OK
@DavidCarlisle I pushed the changes and build now for good. I hope I didn't forget a hidden version string somewhere ...
@UlrikeFischer looks OK here now
@DavidCarlisle ok I will upload now.
 
1 hour later…
yo'
yo'
15:08
@samcarter yeah, well, I try to be careful with this sort of things...
Hello,
i am new :)
After i ended my Tikz picture, suddenly, the space between text lines got bigger, what to do?.Fixed it with \linebreak! :)
I have a table created with begin{tabular}. There are 4 rows and 4 columns
I would like to place 2 letters outside the table: One above the table (in the middle) and the other to the left of the table (in the middle). How would you do that?
I was thinking about creating the table with 5 rows and 5 columns and then someone place those letters in the middle, but I am also using \hline and {c|c|c|c}
15:46
@DavidCarlisle ooh
@samcarter ooh
@MadSpaces it is much easier to answer questions if you post as a question on the main site wih a complete example document
@DavidCarlisle I solved it! so i did not post :)
@MadSpaces OK:-)
16:05
What's wrong with this?
```
$$
\mathbf{R}_{A, B}
=
\begin{tabular}{c|c|c}
a_{11}, b_{11} & a_{12}, b_{12} & a_{13}, b_{13} \\ \hline
a_{21}, b_{21} & a_{22}, b_{22} & a_{23}, b_{23} \\ \hline
a_{31}, b_{31} & a_{32}, b_{32} & a_{33}, b_{33}
\end{tabular}
$$
```
I'm getting the error: ! Missing $ inserted.
16:45
well it's wrong to have $$ in latex, but most likely you have a blank line in your real example, not shown here
oh no, you have used tabular when you meant array tabular is text mode not math
changing tabular to array indeed solved the problem
thanks
but I have another similar example where I am using tabular and I am not getting an error
i.e.
$$
\mathbf{R}_A
=
\begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c}
& R & P & S \\ \hline
R & 0 & -1 & 1 \\ \hline
P & 1 & 0 & -1 \\ \hline
S & -1 & 1 & 0
\end{tabular}
$$
the only difference is that here I am using concrete numbers rather than variables/letters
@nbro yes but there is no math there
@nbro look at the result you get a hyphen not minus and text roman letters, not math italic
well, there's \mathbf{R}_A... do you mean inside tabular? so I guess that, inside tabular, I would need to use $a_{11}$? hm
hm
@nbro tabular is like \mbox{....} the content is text
@DavidCarlisle you're right, if I change the tabular above to array, - is displayed differently
16:51
@nbro and $$ is still wrong...
$$ is wrong? I've always used it. Do you mean I should use align?
@nbro \[...\] is the latex syntax, $$ is not supported in latex (and is not even mentioned in the latex book)
@nbro not just -, so are R, P and S and in some classes the digits would be different as well
so I guess I am not compiling with a latex compiler
@nbro I expect you are, it does not give error message, it is not supported and doesn't always work
424
A: Why is \[ ... \] preferable to $$ ... $$?

David Carlisle$$ is TeX primitive syntax, which, as others have commented is hard to redefine (in classic TeX there is no command name which triggers entering or leaving display math). LaTeX doesn't officially support $$. The most noticeable failure if you use the syntax is that the fleqn option will no longe...

@DavidCarlisle Here we go again. :)
17:10
@mickep ooh
I have the following lines in the log file of a tex installation on a windows computer.
This is XeTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-0.99999 (MiKTeX 2.9.6840 64-bit) (preloaded format=xelatex 2022.4.13) 8 JUN 2022 00:14
entering extended mode
**./myFile.tex
(myFile.tex
LaTeX2e <2018-04-01> patch level 5

("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\base\article.cls"
Document Class: article 2014/09/29 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class
("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\tex\latex\base\size10.clo"
File: size10.clo 2014/09/29 v1.4h Standard LaTeX file (size option)
@tush well your latex if from 2018 so not new either. If you want to update run the miktex console in admin mode and update.
Yeah that's right.
Is it necessary to do it in admin mode? How do I do it in admin mode?
17:41
@DavidCarlisle -- Why don't you put on the team list a suggestion to think about adding a warning if $$ is used? (Just the first time, of course.)
4
18:00
@user202729 Yes, that's the one, I think. Thank you. Though I don't understand why it's not documented.
@DavidCarlisle what is the state with textcase ? tex.stackexchange.com/q/647525/2388
 
1 hour later…
19:31
@barbarabeeton not really feasible, the reason it's not fully supported is it's hard to customise. If you could reliably make it give a warning, you could instead make it work reliably
@UlrikeFischer they should be happy I fixed ly1 for cyrillic, now want textcase as well?
@DavidCarlisle -- I'll have to think about that. Is this discussed anywhere that I could read about it?
@DavidCarlisle people are never content
@barbarabeeton well in the answer I linked to above I tried to give some of the issues. Of course, most of the time it's fine and does the same as\[ so making it always work would bebtter than making it warn.
@UlrikeFischer @JosephWright's kernel version finally went further, so I think I need to adjust the version in github to do less. I'll check....
@UlrikeFischer that document worked for me, but seems I have a local textcase.sty :-)
19:47
@DavidCarlisle -- Okay. That does point out places where $$ doesn't work "as expected". It would be nice to have a comprehensive treatise on this, maybe as a LaTeX Project document/blog post. (Or an article in TUGboat?) I still think a warning could be useful; too bad there's not a way to distinguish between warnings that are just helpful, and those (like "no such character in xxx font") that could be real show stoppers.
@UlrikeFischer I left a comment
@DavidCarlisle -- or as a talk at a TeX conference: "Why is using $$ in LaTeX a bad idea?" (You could even throw in some counter-arguments from translations to MathML.)
@barbarabeeton but that's actually the wrong subject, the real question is "how do you even know $$ is a thing since it is never mentioned in the latex documentation
yo'
yo'
@FaheemMitha I believe it's a modified version of "angry birds" for this community and/or Overleaf :-)
@barbarabeeton it's no worse than using \hboxor \def or whatever. Most of the time it's fine, just if things fail in combination, tough: it's unsuported input
yo'
yo'
19:57
@DavidCarlisle Idea: Push Overleaf into parsing $$ as forbidden input in their Code Check. Oh wait.
2
@DavidCarlisle -- You're assuming that people who are just starting to use LaTeX never talk to a devoted old-timer who still sticks with what's described in the TeXbook, and doesn't bother to explain the difference. I think we've seen here in tex.sx that that isn't the case; also, Google searches can be "off", and, Lord knows, the LaTeX WikiBook doesn't help.
@DavidCarlisle it worked for me too ;-)
@DavidCarlisle -- I know I still use a number of things not sanctioned for LaTeX, but if I suggest such a usage to someone else, I try real hard to remember to give a strong warning.
@barbarabeeton, @DavidCarlisle: From "math-ini.mkxl": "We're done with the double dollars...". (A recent change.)
@barbarabeeton well I'm not really assuming that, but giving a talk about $$is a bit incompatible with the company line that $$ simply isn't latex and isn't a documented input. More important issues like having broken MakeTextUppercase to worry about
20:06
@DavidCarlisle -- All I'm really saying is that it needs to be more widely advertised, in places where newbies are likely to look. And giving a few good examples to make the lesson stick would be salutary.
@mickep -- Looking forward to seeing the new math syntax. (And am hoping it's not too "foreign" to experienced users of amsmath.)
@DavidCarlisle Haha, just because of that it would be a bit fun. You could talk about \hbox, \def, $$, and other non-latex stuff.
@mickep get wipet to give that talk
@DavidCarlisle Wouldn't it then be about optex?
@DavidCarlisle -- No, wipet is a devoted plain TeX adherent, and I can think of a few others. And I can't fault their reasoning. The presentation I'm thinking of needs a real LaTeX expert, one who can marshall valid, directed arguments.
20:18
@barbarabeeton Regarding the unexpected output in testmath.pdf: I did not know that one could combine split and align* inside a gather. I have not tested, but I thought that was a task for for example aligned from mathtools.
@UlrikeFischer I plan on making it do
\documentclass{article}
%\usepackage{textcase}
\let\MakeTextUppercase\MakeUppercase

\begin{document}
\MakeTextUppercase{blub $abc$ \cite[see]{doody}}
\end{document}
@barbarabeeton Thanks, and I hope so too. :)
@mickep -- Looking at this from its origins, Mike Downes wrote the original testmath (although I think it may not be signed to identify the proper attribution). mathtools was created by Morten Høgholm (CTAN date shows 2002) to augment amsmath and amend some inconsistencies. (Morten also took over breqn when Mike Downes determined that there were too many "unknowns" in what authors could come up with.) mathtools was taken over by daleif and later adopted by the LaTeX3 project.
20:51
@UlrikeFischer :(
! Argument of \Hy@setref@link has an extra }.
<inserted text>
                \par
l.96 ...on~\ref{intro}, about \cite[pp 2--4]{bbb}}

?
Runaway argument?
{\@firstoffive }\fi , ABOUT \protect \cite  [PP 2--4]{bbb}
! Paragraph ended before \Hy@setref@link was complete.
<to be read again>
                   \par
l.96 ...on~\ref{intro}, about \cite[pp 2--4]{bbb}}
@UlrikeFischer ah forget that, old aux file...
@DavidCarlisle I should try to catch that somehow. Or better we store always five parts.
@DavidCarlisle :)
@UlrikeFischer @JosephWright vvv
diff --git a/textcase/textcase.dtx b/textcase/textcase.dtx
index 35d8c1f..8affc9a 100644
--- a/textcase/textcase.dtx
+++ b/textcase/textcase.dtx
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 % \iffalse
 %% Source File: textcase.dtx
-%% Copyright 1997 1998 2019 David Carlisle
+%% Copyright 1997 1998 2019 2022 David Carlisle
 %%
 %% This file may be distributed under the terms of the LPPL.
 %% See 00readme.txt for details.
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 %<driver> \ProvidesFile{textcase.drv}
 % \fi
 %         \ProvidesFile{textcase.dtx}
-       [2019/09/14 v1.00 Text only upper/lower case changing (DPC)]
21:08
@DavidCarlisle looks good. You could get another short package ;-)
@DavidCarlisle "2022"
@JosephWright oops
@JosephWright fixed I'll push to ctan
21:32
@DavidCarlisle Cool
I am trying to build my own document class (cls flie) for the purpose of learning.
At the moment the class file `myclass.cls`is the following:

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}[1995/12/01]
\ProvidesClass{myclass} [2022/06/12 v0.1 My Class]
\input{/usr/local/texlive/2021/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo}

And the tex file is
\documentclass{myclass}
\usepackage[\textwidth=9cm]{geometry}
\begin{document}
asdf
\end{document}
I get the error

! Missing \endcsname inserted.
<to be read again>
\textwidth
l.1005 \ProcessOptionsKV[p]{Gm}
%
?

Anyone have idea why?
Nevermind, I now see that I passed a wrong width option..
21:49
@tush also th class needs to define \normalsize
But either way,
the following file turns out to be a 3 pages pdf file:
\documentclass{mycv}
\begin{document}
asdf
\end{document}
@DavidCarlisle I am taking care of it through loading the file size10.clo, isn't it?
@tush Overfull \hbox (176.5556pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 4--5 using a very small page(0pt x 0pt)
@tush yes missed that, sorry
@tush @DavidCarlisle Do you know why?
@tush because you have not set any size
@DavidCarlisle Well how do I set sizes?
21:54
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}[1995/12/01]
\ProvidesClass{myclass} [2022/06/12 v0.1 My Class]
\input{/usr/local/texlive/2021/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo}

\textheight=5cm
\textwidth=5cm
They are all in the aricle.cls and book.cls files?
@tush ^^
@tush yes because they depend on options such as a4paper
I don't want to get into `if` `fi` and options now..
If I put
`\setlength\paperheight {100mm} \setlength\paperwidth {200mm}` into the cls file I don't see any change in the paper size.
see section 3.4 of texdoc clsguide it does tell you you need to set these lengths
@tush nothing uses \paperheightby default so setting it does nothing
@DavidCarlisle The command \paperheight is mentioned in this file. But why doesn't it make any effect in my cls file?
22:08
@tush \paperheight doesn't set the pdf page height, this is done with \pdfpageheight.
@tush setting a length only has an effect if you use it, the standard classes never set the media size such as pdf pagesize, only if you load graphics or geometry or hyperref
@UlrikeFischer Yeah I just came over it in this (answer)[tex.stackexchange.com/a/31976/180429]
Now I tried loading hyperref to see if it compiles. I get the message ! Undefined control sequence. <argument> \thepage . Where is thepage is being defined?
@tush it is defined when you call \pagenumbering
@tush \pagenumbering{arabic}
@DavidCarlisle so slow
22:17
@UlrikeFischer well no,I beat you by 30 years as I wrote in clsguide that you needed \pagenumbering
@DavidCarlisle documentation doesn't count, I checked the code ;-)
@UlrikeFischer check minimal.cls best class ever
Now I don't get line breaks for some reason.. Any idea?
I inserted three paragraphs of lorem ipsum and each line is the new paragraph
@tush this is really not a useful way to proceed. Start by assuming every line ofarticle class is needed, only remove things you know you do not need.
@DavidCarlisle This is rather a long file..
22:23
@tush it has the advantage of working, and every line is documented in classes.dtx
Just to clarify: When I see a command of this pattern:
`\setlength\lineskip{1\p@}`
It means that `lineskip` is going to be `10` because of `\input{size1\@ptsize.clo}`?
@tush that sets\lineskip to 1pt (not related to anything in the clo file)
@DavidCarlisle How do you know it is 0 there?
@tush it is only around 650 lines.
@UlrikeFischer Ok I will go through all of it :)
22:27
@tush sorry typo 1pt not 10
@tush classes.dtx is longer but has the documentation
@DavidCarlisle Then how do I view a dtx file?
@tush I always have latex.ltxin my editor and that is 17161 lines, why does it matter?
@DavidCarlisle Sorry?
@tush it's just a texfile, texdoc classes
@tush you seemed to imply article.cls was too long to lean from,I was just pointing out size isn't an issue, and you should have latex.ltx available as well
@DavidCarlisle Thanks. I mean, I understand that coming up with a question for every little thing is not the way. I will delve into it.
@DavidCarlisle And actually I now see that you can compile a dtx file with pdflatex.. Good! Actually I didn't know what is the reference for those cryptic command in the cls files.. Good that you told me about it. Thanks a lot
22:48
@DavidCarlisle Can I render the latex.ltx file as I just have done for the dtx file?
@tush the ltx is stripped of comments just asarticle.clsis, at the top it lists all the dtx source files, but just use texdoc source2e as a hyperlinked/indexed pdf is already available
@tush see:
%%
%% This is file `latex.ltx',
%% generated with the docstrip utility.
%%
%% The original source files were:
%%
%% ltdirchk.dtx  (with options: `initex,2ekernel,dircheck')
%% ltplain.dtx  (with options: `2ekernel')
%% ltvers.dtx  (with options: `2ekernel')
%% ltluatex.dtx  (with options: `2ekernel')
%% ltexpl.dtx  (with options: `2ekernel')
%% ltdefns.dtx  (with options: `2ekernel')
%% ltcmd.dtx  (with options: `2ekernel')
%% lthooks.dtx  (with options: `2ekernel')
%% ltcmdhooks.dtx  (with options: `2ekernel')
23:07
@DavidCarlisle -- you're losing the spaces around code strings. Makes your suggestions harder to read.
@barbarabeeton yes keyboard is failing on this laptop :(
@DavidCarlisle -- welcome to the club. (I have to go back and review everything for much the same reason.)
@barbarabeeton on the plus side, my typing was always rubbish, so it's not such a reduction in quality
@DavidCarlisle -- that's why there are (human) editors.

« first day (4242 days earlier)      last day (989 days later) »