I think you're right that LaTeX itself is hard to pick up, but tools like Overleaf make learning Latex trivially painful. I made my Overleaf account and started using LaTeX in August 2015 and I've already written an intro-to intermediate tutorial...run it twice, and have two more runs scheduled. I'll concede that I might be better at picking up languages nowadays, but I've been using R for 5 years and still would rather TA R lessons than lead them.
The Overleaf rich text it is still in beta. I'm hopeful that the finished version will be old faculty compatible. However, right now the rich text mode is about 80% WYSIWYG mode. There's buttons for bold, italics, and lists. And if you, for example, hit return from inside a list, it makes another bullet point. Most of the behavior, and a lot of the display, is what you'd get in word. It just still displays some of the markup language. I agree that can be confusing, but I'm holding out for the stable release. disclaimer: I think me and my tutorial are the best, and am a helpless Overleaf fangirl -amanda On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 6:21 AM C. Titus Brown <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 02:14:20PM +0000, Sarah Mount wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 2:11 PM, C. Titus Brown <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > We did an overleaf tutorial on Monday, which went quite well I think - > at > > > least, several people in the (intermediate) class have been poking at > > > it since then :). > > > > > > https://github.com/ACharbonneau/LaTeX2016 > > > > > > For overleaf, the integration of WYSIWG, help text, versioning, and > help > > > text seemed to impress people. Inability to really work offline was > the > > > only thing I could really see being a (nearly) insurmountable > obstacle*. > > > > > > --titus > > > > > > * yes, I know you can work offline with Latex files. But you can't do > it > > > with overleaf, so people would have to learn something new. > > > > Strictly speaking you can (whether it is useful for beginners is another > > question) -- you can 'git clone' your Overleaf projects and work on them > > offline that way: > > > > > https://www.overleaf.com/blog/195-new-collaborate-online-and-offline-with-overleaf-and-git-beta > > > > [disclaimer: I'm an Overleaf Advisor]. > > Yes, but you cannot use overleaf in WYSWIG mode, so people have to learn to > work at the text file level, and without the rendering or help. That's a > problem for trying to convince faculty (who may spend a lot of time on > planes > w/o good internet connections) to use it. > > This is hardly overleaf's fault :). It's a nice service! > > We did emphasize the ability to submit directly to biorxiv, and from there > directly to an increasing number of bio journals! > > best, > --titus > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org >
_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
