Yet another easybook, this time allthediff™ is: In the documentation add 4 Hanzi symbols, change a period to a comma, change another Hanzi symbol.

@Skillmon wow, a comma instead of a period! That makes it a totally new package!

I think I've been able to implement this feature successfully

If any of the experts here can confirm that I’ve developed the feature correctly, I’ll proceed by opening an issue on GitHub to ask Geoffrey Poore (the maintainer of minted) if it’s possible to implement a similar feature directly as an option in the minted environment.

Anyone with this link can edit this project: overleaf.com/1698717938zrrcfcrfjqnm#13bf7e

Morning all

@JosephWright ciao!

@JosephWright 'ello

@PauloCereda Quack

@JosephWright ooh a duck

@PauloCereda dinner

@DavidCarlisle oh no

There is always place for another duck @PauloCereda

@UlrikeFischer ooh

@AlanMunn @cfr ^^ linguistic humour... I don't get it :)

@PauloCereda I'm not totally sure I get it either. But if you start with the [j] in the centre, each of the surrounding sounds is one or two phonetic features different from it. Why the [x] has the asterisk, I have no idea.

@AlanMunn sorry :)

@AlanMunn ^^ this one was better

@PauloCereda Marginally...

@AlanMunn oh no :)

This question made me realize that I actually couldn't find any extensive coverage of comparisons between cleveref and zref-clever. I know 24 hours hasn't passed yet, but could anyone perhaps answer this question and provide some needed insight?

@Atex the author of zref-clever is active on this site, but have you considered the possibility that he is having a Christmas break? It doesn't seem entirely reasonable to ping here.

... after all you need to keep this channel clear for more important topics such as duck recipes.

@DavidCarlisle Good point. It probably isn't healthy to spend too much time on the site, either;) It was just more a heads up so if anyone had the time and capacity and were interested to cover some "new grounds" instead of answering the classical tikz questions, there was an offer

@DavidCarlisle ah yes, can't work on a stomach which hasn't been fuelled with some good food with the right recipe!

@Atex Just assume that people will see the questions they want to see on the front page.

@samcarter Got it. I suppose I'll just have to follow the questions and unfollow when they get an answer which suffices. I may still occasionally post questions in here, however, but I'll make sure to increase my waiting time to 3 days. The statistics from the other day did show that that's when it's really likely to get overlooked for a while, after all;)

@Atex 3 months would be more reasonable than 3 days, especially at Christmas.

@Atex If you are concerned about a question being overlooked: stackexchange has a mechanism to deal with that: offer bounty

@Atex or make a new chatroom, which people can frequent if they would like to see such reminders.

@DavidCarlisle I should probably really get off this site. I spend unhealthy amounts of time on here, I think.

@samcarter yep, there are multiple ways to deal with it, but I have a procedure where I try to ask first (only once, I remember our chat from last time), and then I'll put a bounty if it's something I think is very important to be covered and benefitted from.

@samcarter this seems to imply that everyone gets a notification when something is typed in here. Am I correct in my assumption?

@Atex With "reminder" I meant a chat message about an unanswered post.

@Atex Could you either modify this procedure of yours or reduce its frequency?

@samcarter ooooh, that's a good idea!

@samcarter I'll switch it over to the new room I've created. Should I also make another one for discussing ideas and packages?

@Atex Feel free to create as many rooms as you like

@Atex it is essentially pointless and just vaguely annoying to post reminders to chat as basically you are reaching less people than the original post on the main site. Currently just me SamCarter and Barbara (and perhaps mickep but he possibly joined later) a few people who join later may scroll up to see old messages but only a few and its unlikely to reach nore than half a dozen people in total and almost certain not going to reach gusbrs who is the most qualified to answer.

Conversly if you (say) put a bounty on a question it will be flagged in the bounties question list and put in front of thousands of people for a week.

@DavidCarlisle I'm well aware that I reach fewer people in here, but I'm quite confident that the people who're in this chat are significantly more qualified to answer questions than random people like me who just scroll the questions. That's why I ask here first. The quantity isn't that important to me, but the quality is. I do realize that the likelihood of getting an answer in here is less since there are fewer people, but I'd rather try here first and potentially secure a good answer...

@Atex if you think that this question should get an answer I suggest that you do some research and try to write the answer. There are lots of resources available. Both packages have long documentations, there are various older questions on the site, zref-clever has a github with issues.

... than directly cast it onto a large quantity of people who have a higher probability of answering, but are less likely to reach the same depth of an answer.

@PauloCereda Ok I saw the explanation of the person who posted it on Reddit. Each of the boxes represent a possible phonetic realization of the 'll' sequence in Spanish in various dialects. The only one that doesn't exist (but is a likely possibility) is [x]. How they decided on the relevant categories still isn't very clear to me though.

@Atex no just don't do it. The "ask once but don't re-ask" comment that you referenced is about asking a technical question that might get a simple answer here, but asking people to answer a question on the main site is just annoying and not helping anyone,

@UlrikeFischer No doubt about it. I do have less than a year's experience with LaTeX, however, so I probably won't understand the intricacies of how some of the commands are made up, and I most definitely wouldn't be able to provide an insightful answer since I'm inexperienced with advanced usage of the reference packages

@DavidCarlisle Yeah, I think that's why SamCarter suggested I should make a group chat specifically for that purpose (which I did). I was just explaining the thought process of why I reach out locally before I do it globally.

@Atex answering questions is one of the best ways to learn. I started by answering or trying to answer most questions on comp.text.tex (a predecessor of this site) and ended up maintaining latex, but everyone has to start somewhere. The site mechanics of this site are in fact better than c.t.t for such answers as by design you get answers of variable quality and readers can vote up or down the answers to flag that quality (or usefulness or bias or whatever).

@Atex I'm quite good at LaTeX. And one reason is that I did a lot of research trying to answer questions where I had no idea what the answer would be. It won't do you any harm to try to answer something that goes over your head. It also won't do you harm if you start to do something yourself instead of especting other to do the work.

@Atex So your description that the main site may generate more answers from less qualified people is not a problem, that is how the site is supposed to work, and it takes the pressure of the core maintainers to just answer the questions they feel they need or want to answer

@DavidCarlisle Indeed, but when it comes to this site (where I'm influencing someone else) I prefer to abstain from answering so that the question doesn't get overlooked because people think it has been answered. I'd feel bad for being the reason someone was obscured of a good answer (most questions on the site seem to get only 1 answer). Thus, I prefer to learn by dissecting a good answer by playing around with the variables/commands for myself and learn what they do.

@Atex one learns through learning... Read the package documentations and try to formulate an answer. You don't learn nearly as much by reading ready made solutions as you do while creating solutions yourself.

@Atex well it's your choice to answer or not, that is fine, But then don't try to impose a choice on others to answer if they have chosen not to. the few people you are contacting here will have seen the question and if we have chosen not to answer it we don't really need to be told about it again.

@DavidCarlisle regarding the caption question and the doubled = sign: Don't worry, it uses keyval and an undocumented feature of it is to ignore second = signs (and everything that follows them)

@Skillmon a brilliant feature, sadly lacking in some lesser packages.

@DavidCarlisle :D

Though I must say I find caption's handling of options quite convoluted.

(most likely because of the time it was first written in)

@UlrikeFischer it wasn't about harming myself, but more about harming others (by providing insufficient answers because I'm not qualified). You wouldn't want a nurse to perform an operation on your teeth, for example. You'd undoubtedly go to the dentist for this case. Thus, it's about reaching the 1 who has a specialty within that particular field. I've already made the mistake of hurting others previously. Only today did I make a correct answer for the first time, and that, too, because I've...

As an aside: Just today I switched one of my personal classes from using \DeclareOption to expkv-opt.

... spent quite a lot of time on the tikz package to consider myself mildly qualified to answer simple questions related to tikz. Thus, I'll answer when I feel confident and secure enough to provide a sufficient answer, don't worry

@DavidCarlisle I'm on a night train, about to ski. So, not really here. But I will of course take breaks from the skiing to tease you when possible.

@mickep Oh, I envy you, I'd love to go skiing.

@mickep Have fun!

@mickep excellent plan, also don't forget to blame @UlrikeFischer for anything that goes wrong (train delays, melting snow, ...)

@Skillmon thanks! It will surely be fun!

@Skillmon I absolutely agree with this, but my issue pertains to responsibilities towards others. I could perhaps try make up answers for myself, however, without posting my solutions. Make a draft archive of questions I've tried to solve and compare them to the actual solutions provided by the experts and experienced users.

@DavidCarlisle and praise you when it is snowing and so on, of course...

@mickep I am happy to take credit were it is due

@Skillmon In the beginning there was caption, then caption2. Then caption3, but the author thought best to restore using caption. Yes, really a mess.

@DavidCarlisle good good

@mickep Don't hurt yourself :)

@Atex or: you post your answers and let the site mechanics do their job. There are other people who will read your answers, @DavidCarlisle will most likely nag you because of some errors you made. Maybe there'll be more than one question. I'm rather sure that gusbrs will show up on that question eventually.

@samcarter ha,thanks! Dodos are usually safe skiers.

@mickep in that case don't hurt others? :)

@mickep wait, didn't they went extinct because of their horrendous skiing and were only reintroduced in the last century?

@Skillmon will watch out for the ducks...

@Skillmon Oh no

@DavidCarlisle Pardon me, but it seems like there are quite a lot of unwritten rules here. I didn't know I was supposed to assume that the people in here have already seen all of the new questions posted on the main site. I'll have to get used to having high expectations, so bear with me while I get to know you guys better

@Atex should've said "answer" instead of "question" in the second last sentence of my last message directed to you.

@Atex I think people do not see all questions, but they usually keep track of ones that look interesting to them. Just a guess...

@Atex I wouldn't be too concerned about others postings answers or not. Either they agree with your answer and thus don't have to answer themselves or they disagree, in which case their "somebody's wrong on the internet"-mode gets activated and they will surely post an answer if they can.

@Atex there are no rules, just a general advice that applies to anything not just this site that if people suggest one course of action is annoying then if asking those people for help it's best to avoid annoying those people. If you chose to ping a chat site that only has a couple of active people at that time specifically to contact those people rather than the wider community, don't be surprised if those people suggest some guidelines.

@samcarter Yes, the best way to get information on the internet is to use Murphy's law: Whenever one gives a wrong answer on the internet, somebody will correct you.

@Skillmon Do they have the resources for that? If I can find recent questions that haven't been answered, I'd think it'd be even more difficult to find a surplus of time to review answers provided to existing questions. It seems to me that the resources are very strained, unfortunately, but it makes sense. Most (if not all) are volunteers here, right?

@Skillmon aaah, that makes more sense. I was worried you meant that they'd just post a follow-up question if my answer wasn't sufficient, hypothetically speaking.

@Atex even that might happen :)

(happened to me a lot of times, questioners always find additional features they want from a piece of code...)

@Atex everyone, yes. Though there is one tag that I know of that attracts a few paid people (at least that used to be the case)

(I'm rather disappointed that no one has yet corrected me on that "Murphy's law" slip stating the correct name of that internet law)

@mickep This seems like more of a realistic thing to assume, and this was why I occasionally brought a question of particular interest of mine to attention. After all, our interests may differ, and I'll probably be able to spot questions you can't and vice versa. Thus, we could at least enlighten each other of its existence, even though we may not provide an answer. Perhaps it'd come under the radar of the right guy, and if not, at least we tried

@Atex hence there are bounties... Please understand that we don't think the idea is terrible, it's just that if everyone did that this chat wouldn't be a chat anymore (same with some other habits we discourage here)

@samcarter this also relies on the fact that there are resources to review answers, but I remain skeptical of that being possible (at least up-to-date reviews), because it seems we can barely cover the new questions which are being asked every day. Hence, reviewing seems more like a luxury than the standard

@Atex posts with new answers get pushed to the top of the active question list and users will surely check the ones they are interested in.

@Atex answers from new contributors end up on a dedicated review queue.

@DavidCarlisle Yes, but it sounds quite commanding: Don't do this, don't do that. It seems more like they're rules. There isn't anything wrong with that, either. Rules, guidelines, etc. are good measures to maintain order. Your last comment I replied to just made it seem like that I should assume that everyone in here already has seen the question I'm referring to before I shared it, and thus I shouldn't even bother, which I think is too much to demand. I've moved it to an entirely different chat...

on Samcarter's recommendation, however, and thus I'll have a little archive of questions stacked up there which anyone could check up on anytime they want, should they wish, without cluttering this chat. This way, we can obtain both of our wishes. I'll never assume that everyone in here has already seen the recent questions, however, because I think that's unrealistic.

@Atex The usual speed of the site isn't so height that one can't at least read the titles to see if anything sounds interesting.

@Skillmon I see. Sparking new interest, perhaps because people realize that there's more undiscovered potential through those answers

@Atex not commanding at all, but just gentle ramping up of the hints that posting "please answer this" pointer here aren't helpful. I don't demand anything, but at the time that you posted your last such question there were only two other people active on the site and I had certainly seen the question and I woul dbe fairly ceryain SamCarter had too, so my statement that everyone in the chat had seen it was probably correct.

@Atex If you want to reach more than one or two people use the main site not chat. That is not a rule or a dictat, it's just friendly advice on how the sites work.

A MUST HAVE FOR 2025! The Great Tikzlings Calendar 2025 (by courtesy of the Tikzlings Franchise) has all important dates from the TeX-World and the Tikzling universe. Stay up to date! raw.githubusercontent.com/TikZlings/Extravaganza2024/main/…

@UlrikeFischer I would like a duck free version please.

@DavidCarlisle You don't want to see ideas for dinner?

@UlrikeFischer "all important dates" apparently includes Knuth's birthday but not mine,

@DavidCarlisle I already saw it as well, though I wouldn't have seen the chat-nudge without the entailing discussion.

@Skillmon glad to be of service

@UlrikeFischer misses my birthday, but has DEK's :(

@DavidCarlisle what do they say about great minds...

@DavidCarlisle also, at least it has St. David's day.

Funny trivia: The German equivalent of "Great minds think alike" is "Zwei Dumme ein Gedanke" which translates to: "Two idiots one thought"

@Skillmon the full english version is closer to that: "Great minds think alike, though fools seldom differ"

@DavidCarlisle we haven't forgotten you:

@UlrikeFischer as @Skillmon said so long ago

@DavidCarlisle then you misunderstood my intention. Whenever I posted pointers in here, it was never with the intention of having the current people active answer it. Perhaps someone else comes later on and checks upon what they've missed. It'd be very unreasonable to expect people to answer "right here, right now". It was as I originally said: To notify the most capable people. Never said anything about when or who in this chat.

@Atex chances for later visitors to scroll the main site are much higher than for later visitors to scroll through the chat...

@UlrikeFischer Nice announcement text - I'm going to borrow it for a couple of places :)

@samcarter guess who wrote it ...

@Atex but chat is just not designed for that use, the history is archived for ever but the basic design is for instant chat that scrolls out of sight, so if you post in chat you are posting to the people who are there primarily.

@UlrikeFischer :)

@samcarter exactly, and there's no guarantee they're interested in a particular question (which may not only have gotten a bad answer, but a wrong one, too). We can't blame people, however, since most are volunteers to help on this, but that does mean that we need to help and notify each other to some extent.

@UlrikeFischer for the next iteration: It would be a nice touch if events spanning multiple days wouldn't be separate dots but connected (as some bubble-like things wrapping all the encapsulated days)

@Skillmon I totally agree with this reasoning, and that's also why I followed SamCarter's advice and created a separate group chat for this purpose. That way, I both avoid cluttering this chat and have an archive of questions which I find interesting and can get back to! Anyone else can also check it without being bothered in here. I guess I can ensure to only get the attention of those interested as well.

@UlrikeFischer Oh, and in case anyone is interested in creating a calendar themselves which has all the birthdays of monochrome Englishmen and killer rabbits, it was modified from LianTze Lim's fantastic calendar template tex.my/category/calendar

@Skillmon I'm kinda scared to try this with events spanning across month borders :)

@samcarter not that difficult, just leave the page and enter the next page at the same spot... :)

Also it was just an idea, feel free to ignore :P

@Atex no. I do not feel the duty to ensure that every question is answered. If some question stay unanswered then they stay unanswered. If you want to reduce the number of unanswered questions you can't do it by pressing me to answer them. You will have to answer them yourself.

@Atex Given the rate that questions get closed in the last few days (and will probably soon be automatically deleted), we will soon be able to comfortable read all the remaining questions in just a couple of minutes :)

@Skillmon Maybe I should ask a question and hope to get an answer with bubble-splitting-code before next December :)

@samcarter you could use a reduced effect, just something like

@samcarter wait, are we picking up closure speed?

@Skillmon unfortunately yes. The close queue is flooded since days with "solved in comments" closures. (A close reason which makes no sense in my opinion. Either the information is useful and we should prevent it from getting deleted or it isn't, then there are better suited close reasons)

@Atex I didn't say I was confident that someone would find the unanswered question I did say that posting in chat to prod people to answer is not likely to have the effect that you intended, rather the opposite.

@mickep -- Oh, no! Please don't even hint that @DavidCarlisle may be a weather god! And will your skiing be downhill or cross-country? (Whichever, do have fun and be safe.)

@barbarabeeton It seems unlikely that a weather god lives in the UK :P

@barbarabeeton Thanks! I think it will snow. Mostly downhills with the kids. Maybe some cross-country in the evening.

@UlrikeFischer as you're entitled to. Just like you don't want to answer certain questions, I can't answer certain questions. That doesn't mean that one should stop trying to reach out, however. Asking once doesn't hurt. Perhaps someone will be inclined to help. Perhaps they won't. Regardless, I've created a new chat for unanswered questions to respect those in here who'd like to be free of being asked, and so you probably won't hear from me in this regard in here:)

@UlrikeFischer -- Delightful, but I find it rather peculiar that the alleged deadline for TUGboat 46:2 is earlier than the dates for TUG '25. 46:2 is the proceedings issue ... (I'll check; maybe we back at home base have gotten something fouled up.)

@samcarter ^^

@samcarter I admire your hope, optimism and faith in this work - It's really good! I do get mixed reactions from people, however, so I'll remain skeptical and observant. I do hope that I can place this much confidence in answers of questions one day, however. The site is doing good, but I think we can do even better!

@barbarabeeton Oh, sorry! That's on me. I must have lost the 2 when copying from the website.

(compiling a new version...)

@Skillmon (and @UlrikeFischer) -- Missing my birthday too, but if it weren't for DEK, we wouldn't have TeX at all, and no reason for such a calendar, so I'm not bummed out by the omission. (On the other hand, I did actually once have a joint birthday celebration with himself; they're not the same day, but close.)

@samcarter -- Thanks!

@barbarabeeton Thanks for spotting! (hopefully before too many people downloaded it)

@DavidCarlisle The message you replied to was a response of mine to SamCarter's optimistic expressions. I do remember what you said, however, and I agree to not refer questions in here, because it clutters chat and some people dislike the chat being used for help getting questions answered.

@samcarter -- I've checked through the rest, and didn't spot anything else to question. I have to work on the calendar for TUGboat 46:1, and I shall use this as a cribsheet. I'll try to do that tomorrow. Would you like me to send you what I've got then? (Of course it will get another update before 46:1 goes to the printer, but some organizations don't announce early.) And I'll be sure to mention this calendar in my 46:1 column.

@barbarabeeton Thanks for checking! It would be nice to see what events you have for the calendar. I can still add more events as space permits for everybody who hasn't yet downloaded it.

... and thanks for mentioning it even if it misses your B day :)