Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Hello, I'm a clarinetist, I used lilypond, realy great tool. I'm using linux since 10 years, vim is my editor. I'm not a mouse-adict user. But as Donal Knuth seems to say : I can't act like mathematician, it's not what I am. Il like lilypond, and Contex. I like the may they manage to produce beautiful pdf. But I must be honest : I'll never be able to learn all the languages they use : It's not my job (i'm physiotherapist !), I'm not using these tools all days. I'm ok to learn but it's an evidence that I'll never be able to use more than 20-30% of what these tools are… it's sad ! So, for me, something like an unified markup language would be the best. XML or whatever… but just one :o). Sorry for my bad english. Olivier. -- [Message tapé sur un clavier Bépo : http://www.clavier-dvorak.org ] Olivier [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://nemolivier.blogspot.com ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today? (slightly off-topic, flame and nostalgic)
Aditya Mahajan a écrit : On Thu, 12 Jun 2008, Hans Hagen wrote: Maurício wrote: used ‘ϕ’ in a math formula for one of his papers and Context it showing up depends on what you use (mkii or mkiv), if the character is defined, if the font has it (in text mode) etc etc For mkii you simply need to add \enableregime[utf8] in the beginning. It should work out of the box in mkiv (assuming you are using the default latin modern fonts). Aditya I always use \enableregime[utf]. I use mkii (actually, I use what Ubuntu provides). Is there any font setting I can make so that I can use Unicode everywhere? Maurício ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Am 2008-06-12 um 20:26 schrieb Maurí cio: The reason for a standard tag language is that the main engine should be able to do some operations on data, like breaking it in pieces like words, paragraphs or staffs on music scores, sometimes without fully understanding what exactly those are. Possible outcomes: with a proper script language (Lua?), things like tables, multi-column text, and even a lot of crazy ideas could be really easy to write. Plug-ins results would be predictable, since they know nothing about the world except what the main engine has informed them. As far as I can judge, music typesetting has completely different rules than text typesetting. Ok, you would just use another plugin. But then the plugins need a way to interact: captions in graphics (like in MetaPost today), lyrics in music etc. I myself wouldn't probably able to handle a MetaPost based system (or something similar) - even if I speak a bit of PostScript, I just don't think of graphics as formulae: To create e.g. an eye-shape, I can place two circles in Illustrator (or any other GUI program) and make an intersection. But I couldn't do the same programmatically, even if I approximately know what to do in this case. (You could answer to my mail on command lines, I should please try to become mathematically literate.) However, you need different parsers for different types of content - and at least the LilyPond folks would strongly suggest that some Lisp dialect is the right language for anything that needs parsing. I guess you know the quote that everyone who writes a parser will end re- creating a buggy subset of Lisp. (I don't speak Lisp. I don't speak TeX-the-language or Lua as well. But the latter seems easy.) I guess that's a inconvenience with TeX/MetaPost/LilyPond: they use similar, but different tagging, and those don't mix very well, esp. LilyPond with its Scheme snippets (I don't appreciate the use of single ' for strings and # for constants...). (Similar to HTML/PHP/ Smarty/JavaScript.) Of course you could use the same kind of tagging for all the different types of content - I guess you will end with something like OpenDocument (OOo.XML), that uses SVG for the graphics. Oh, and don't forget MathML (and the other XML dialects like PhysML and ChemML). Hm, perhaps we should embed MusicXML instead of LilyPond... You see: There is your unified system. XML rulez - for better or for worse. It's really no fun to write XML by hand. Perhaps you should try to help enhancing OpenOffice's typesetting? # Or Scribus? I heard Scribus has TeX boxes of late: A GUI DTP application where some boxes get rendered by LaTeX (meant for formulae, of course). AFAIK Scribus' file format is also XML-based. And maybe they even support plugins for more different boxes... Greetlings from Lake Constance! Hraban --- http://www.fiee.net/texnique/ http://wiki.contextgarden.net https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer) ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
The reason for a standard tag language is that the main engine should be able to do some operations on data, like breaking it in pieces like words, paragraphs or staffs on music scores, sometimes without fully understanding what exactly those are. Possible outcomes: with a proper script language (Lua?), things like tables, multi-column text, and even a lot of crazy ideas could be really easy to write. Plug-ins results would be predictable, since they know nothing about the world except what the main engine has informed them. As far as I can judge, music typesetting has completely different rules than text typesetting. Sure. Ok, you would just use another plugin. But then the plugins need a way to interact: captions in graphics (like in MetaPost today), lyrics in music etc. That's the idea. I do believe it's possible. I myself wouldn't probably able to handle a MetaPost based system (or something similar) - even if I speak a bit of PostScript, I just don't think of graphics as formulae: Myself, I never touch my computer mouse :) I did read an answer from Donald Knuth on why he thinks Metafont never became a popular tool for font creation. His answer: you can't ask an artist to become enough of a mathematician in order to be able to design his font based on 60 variables. However, you need different parsers for different types of content A system like what I want should have a common language for all. I'm not smart enough to say which one. (I don't speak Lisp. I don't speak TeX-the-language or Lua as well. But the latter seems easy.) Yes, it is easy and powerfull. And it was created here in Brazil! (Proud smile) There is your unified system. XML rulez - for better or for worse. It's really no fun to write XML by hand. But, as you said, TeX and Lilypond have a similar syntax. I belive they could share some kind of common language. Perhaps you should try to help enhancing OpenOffice's typesetting? # Or Scribus? I really would like something we could program, and then change design variables at will. Thanks for your comments. I have no knowledge to go beyond what I went in my first message. Best, Maurício ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
There is your unified system. XML rulez - for better or for worse. It's really no fun to write XML by hand. But, as you said, TeX and Lilypond have a similar syntax. I belive they could share some kind of common language. What you are thinking about is probably a master document scheme that would locally contextualize and process content. You would likely need some kind of magic number system for this to work. That would probably rule out older hardware because loading and unloading entire backends (or trying to run them all) is expensive on processing and memory. Also you have the potential for fork hell or dependency hell. IIRC there are MusicTeX, MusixTeX, Lillypond, etc. and some takes this and others that. There's an Omega package for typesetting pages from the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, Makor, and then there are fonts that do most of that themselves. You have EDMAC and Ledmac, but ConTeXt could probably handle the lemmatization even more intuitively. (I ought to try that.) So, which way is right, since coexistence may be a problem. One wants plain, the other LaTeX. And you can't necessarily intermix the two. I'm no XML guru, but that's the likely solution. Since everything has a history, then you have to build a community where picking and choosing this over that can be a problem; see, for example, http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/entry/building_opensolaris_communities Then we get to GUI or not. It's probably the case that XML would be the likely candidate. In that case, Scribus or OOo would be a good place to look. But then you have all the complex dev issues with OOo. It can take a day to compile on anything that is more than two or three years old. In the end, a typesetting metalanguage would require a community to use it, deep wallets to fund it, or both. And you would have to ask people, some of whom still miss their old Lisp machines, Multics, and so on, to make a switch when they know that publishers already have their niche development tools in place. And DEK himself wanted to encourage not simply the finding of or agreement on the right answer to the question (why some hate the TeXbook) but the heuristics for finding right questions and their answers (why some love the TeXbook). But whose right wins in the design of the metalanguage? Because that would collide with good old Appendix D, Dirty Tricks, and everyone's dirty trick complicates interactions of plugins. It's like the old days when you saved memory on a machine by putting what looks to be some data in an odd-size piece of memory, when it's really a set of instructions at an (unusual) odd address instead of an even. So how do you disambiguate that? You can't just use an assembler; you have to disassemble the hand-coded 'data' with a debugger to see the real instructions. OK, resources are cheaper now, but this means either making dirty tricks illegal for any historic instruction set like brand X assembler or TeX, or coming up with a huge parser that can sail the seas of corner cases. The former threatens backward compatibility, thus meeting resistance in the TeX/LaTeX community and probably others. OpenDoc does have government support, so that's an edge. But then there's Microsoft that herds its users into the pastures of non-standards-compliance. Additionally, huge parsers are expensive to implement in several ways. And wasn't SGML supposed to be a generalized markup language? I do like the idea, but I think that balancing details over against abstractions (the Suenden that LaTeXers commit at times come to mind) is always going to be a sort of np-complete issue. Charles ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today? (slightly off-topic, flame and nostalgic)
Maurício wrote: used ‘ϕ’ in a math formula for one of his papers and Context it showing up depends on what you use (mkii or mkiv), if the character is defined, if the font has it (in text mode) etc etc could not open it, since it was a PDF revision 1.8 instead of 1.3 indeed a future version -) Hans - Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl - ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today? (slightly off-topic, flame and nostalgic)
Do you mean like Scrivener on the Mac? I don’t know. I tried Context, then TeX, than went back to Context. Now also Metapost. Sorry for beeing biased, but I really like the programer approach to computers. What, in any case, constitutes a universal layout approach? Does one exist? (...) I don’t think we need something universal. But there is a lot of common guidelines for most things. For instance, text, music, chess boards and pictures all have to fit or fill their place in a page, and all can have a common main font to be used. Yet he (...) sees the value of maintaining a knowledge base that is predictable when it runs on a program that can pass the trip test. Actually, I’m trying to show my dad he can trust a computer to typeset his class notes, if we use the right tools (i.e., Context plus Metapost instead of what was used for his books in the 90’s, when just a small change would ruin everything). But I’ve just used ‘ϕ’ in a math formula for one of his papers and Context silently ignores it. I’m sure there's a good reason for that. But TeX is predictable when you write a default TeX style document. If you leave it, you have to understand a lot of hidden issues, and a dummy user like me will never know if all of them have been taken care of. Lose that for the sake of innovation, and you can lose real knowledge. And what shall we say for troff, which still possesses an arcane sort of longevity? Troff? I really miss the days of my old TK3000 text editor back in the 80’s. It's great to use 80% of your time thinking about what you want to write and 20% about typesetting. Today it's 4% writing, 2% typesetting and 94% looking over thousands of pages of wiki documentation. I still think Context is really great, but I’ll never try to do something that’s not done in a default installation again. Or try to understand why sometimes [n=x] works but [n = x] doesn’t. (...) you can be creating documents for all the world to see even if you are out in the bush with a generator and mosquito netting. I wrote my résume a few months ago, and sent it to a few companies, just to know a lot of time later that most of them could not open it, since it was a PDF revision 1.8 instead of 1.3 (or something like that). So TeX's stability has the interesting potential side effect of giving a voice to the voiceless. Our cast-off hardware becomes a window for freedom of speech and expression, (...) Sure. I would like to have something simpler than TeX, not more complex or hardware eater. There are places where people still go outside to relieve themselves, (...) Like myself :) Some folks think abstractly and can whack out macros like Paul Bunyan chops wood. Some think visually (...) I can only think abstractly. But TeX macros are a lot less abstract than they could be. I believe DEK says they were never supposed to be used the way they are. DEK (...) brought all his respect and research regarding longstanding, tried and true typographical traditions to his writing of TeX. Sure. You can’t miss that even if you understand nothing about typesetting (like myself). After using TeX for a while, it’s almost painfull to look at text printed by usual office tools. Maurício a écrit : Hi, Just because I'm curious: how could a typesetting system like TeX be if it was created today? I've tried google and wikipedia, and all I found different from TeX is a system called 'Lout', but it seems dead. (...) ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Thanks, Idris, for your interest. I don’t understand enough about typesetting and computer math to make an informed sugestion, but I’ll try my best. What about a Metapost-like main engine to define the general layout of pages? That engine would know about borders, floating spaces for pictures or text, and handle “global” information like main fonts or page numbers etc.; and even draw on the page. Plug-ins would render specific information. The main engine could also do Metapost-like operations on what comes from that rendering. That engine would call plug-ins to render anything, using a standard human-writable tag language. The engine will provide plug-ins a shape they should fill, as well as tips on how to fill it (“amount of ink”, how to deal with unconnected shapes, available fonts etc.); and share information with plug-ins so they can know, for instance, which symbols can be used for footnotes, and inform back which ones they have used. Plug-ins would respond rendered results, as well as indicators about how good is the result and what could be done to get it better (less or more to render, adjusts in their area shape etc.). Main engine and plug-ins would negociate good parameters, shapes and information set until they are both happy (enough). The reason for a standard tag language is that the main engine should be able to do some operations on data, like breaking it in pieces like words, paragraphs or staffs on music scores, sometimes without fully understanding what exactly those are. Possible outcomes: with a proper script language (Lua?), things like tables, multi-column text, and even a lot of crazy ideas could be really easy to write. Plug-ins results would be predictable, since they know nothing about the world except what the main engine has informed them. Best, Maurício Hi Maurício, Sorry to insist, but I would be really interested in approaches that are not just great things we could add to TeX. For instance: would it be possible to have some kind of “layout engine” to which text processing would be just one among other plug-ins? I wonder what kind of information that engine should share with plug-ins. Do you think such system is possible? Or something else? I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this. Don't hold back! Best wishes Idris ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Sorry to insist, but I would be really interested in approaches that are not just great things we could add to TeX. For instance: would it be possible to have some kind of “layout engine” to which text processing would be just one among other plug-ins? I wonder what kind of information that engine should share with plug-ins. Do you think such system is possible? Or something else? Maurício Maurício a écrit : Hi, Just because I'm curious: how could a typesetting system like TeX be if it was created today? I've tried google and wikipedia, and all I found different from TeX is a system called 'Lout', but it seems dead. (...) ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Hi Maurício, On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:12:21 -0600, Maurício [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry to insist, but I would be really interested in approaches that are not just great things we could add to TeX. For instance: would it be possible to have some kind of “layout engine” to which text processing would be just one among other plug-ins? I wonder what kind of information that engine should share with plug-ins. Do you think such system is possible? Or something else? I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this. Don't hold back! Best wishes Idris -- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief International Journal of Shi`i Studies Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Do you mean like Scrivener on the Mac? What, in any case, constitutes a universal layout approach? Does one exist? For example, I can do things with plain TeX that mighty InDesign must balk at. Yet some see TeX as yesteryear's solution because of subsequent tech advances. I hardly believe that DEK would be dogmatic about TeX being the only thing out there. Yet he, and thousands of others in the scientific communities where TeX flourishes, sees the value of maintaining a knowledge base that is predictable when it runs on a program that can pass the trip test. Lose that for the sake of innovation, and you can lose real knowledge. And what shall we say for troff, which still possesses an arcane sort of longevity? Imagine this: if you can use TeX running on some older PC and you have some remotely managed BSD setup with packet radio and EME bouncing or whatever, you can be creating documents for all the world to see even if you are out in the bush with a generator and mosquito netting. So TeX's stability has the interesting potential side effect of giving a voice to the voiceless. Our cast-off hardware becomes a window for freedom of speech and expression, as well as the free-beer philanthropy element of getting it into people's hands. If there is to be a universality to layout, part of that should also extend not just across current technologies but also have plugins that can support older technologies. That way we do not generate technological segregation. There are places where people still go outside to relieve themselves, and there are the Japanese washlets at the other extreme. But the human component remains, nonetheless. At minimum, what one needs is a cross-disciplinary approach. My work usually involves issues of finance and development, scheduling, good old editing, elements of design, and knowledge of the subject matter. All these factors directly or indirectly affect layout. Here's where I see the Mac as helpful. On the one hand, you have Aqua, while there's also X and good old terminal. Some folks think abstractly and can whack out macros like Paul Bunyan chops wood. Some think visually and need visual or modular dev tools. Some people are good at modeling situations that are dynamic and interactive, while others have the knack for getting to tried and true base issues that remain when all the noise and lights are gone. If you read Ian Barbour or Jacques Ellul, you see that identity and techne are linked and that the sciences do things differently than the humanities at a deeper level than just style manuals and the inverse relation of obfuscated jargon to psycho-sociological rhetoric. I just don't see a unified typesetting engine in the works until something can easily embrace different national traditions for typesetting, type styles, design preferences, etc. In Germany, man nehmet Dr. Oetker, while in America it's doctor schmocktor, I just wanna feel good amidst an orgiastic consumer society. Think that doesn't get reflected in design choices? 'Cause it does. DEK may be a formidable computer scientist. Yet, as one of his cousins that is a friend of mine and another friend that was two years behind him in high school said, Knuth always loved things like words and music. His literary acumen reflects his tutelage in a school strongly influenced by the classical Gymnasium. He is a man of culture and taste, and he brought all his respect and research regarding longstanding, tried and true typographical traditions to his writing of TeX. Could there be new stuff? Sure. But an exploration of type, typography, layout, and design also points us to some of our basic thoughts on preferences, identity, habituation, etc. Charles On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 21:12 -0300, Maurício wrote: Sorry to insist, but I would be really interested in approaches that are not just great things we could add to TeX. For instance: would it be possible to have some kind of “layout engine” to which text processing would be just one among other plug-ins? I wonder what kind of information that engine should share with plug-ins. Do you think such system is possible? Or something else? Maurício Maurício a écrit : Hi, Just because I'm curious: how could a typesetting system like TeX be if it was created today? I've tried google and wikipedia, and all I found different from TeX is a system called 'Lout', but it seems dead. (...) ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
- a GUI ;-) and thus layout by let's try how it looks Almost true. Here it seems that there is a way to embed latex in scribus http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Working_with_latex_frames Also http://lists.scribus.info/pipermail/scribus/2007-January/024109.html -- luigi ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Am 30.05.2008 um 09:12 schrieb Yue Wang: advanced software, like InDesign Well, ... Steffen ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Am 2008-05-31 um 04:20 schrieb luigi scarso: There are still some areas where you need a programmable system, even trivia like chapter dependant running titles (in ConTeXt: headertexts). Isn't indesign programmable too ? I know people who use it in an automatic workflow for db publishing You can use JavaScript or COM (on Windows) or AppleScript (also Python/ Ruby appscript) on OSX. Been there, done that. And I use XML for partly automatic typesetting (mostly for event calendars of magazines) - but InDesign's XML processing is very slow and very picky about the encoding (at least CS2 on OSX). Even more picky with InDesign tagged text files. But what I meant was: let the running title depend on the chapter title or the like - that's easy with TeX, but I know no automatable way in InDesign. Last night I remembered two more things that TeX can't do, but every layout app can: - text flow around other elements (images) - really working multiple-column layout Greetlings from Lake Constance! Hraban --- http://www.fiee.net/texnique/ http://wiki.contextgarden.net https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer) ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Last night I remembered two more things that TeX can't do, but every layout app can: - text flow around other elements (images) \parshape ? - really working multiple-column layout in context columnset with two pass strategy -- luigi ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
On 5/31/08, luigi scarso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Last night I remembered two more things that TeX can't do, but every layout app can: - text flow around other elements (images) \parshape ? I forword an email to the professor. it discuss some of the points together with some examples. \parshape is not enough for arbitary page layout. - really working multiple-column layout in context columnset with two pass strategy columnset cannot solve most of the problems:) if you want advanced page layout justification, TeX is not sufficient. -- luigi ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___ ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Yue Wang [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 5/31/08, luigi scarso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Last night I remembered two more things that TeX can't do, but every layout app can: - text flow around other elements (images) \parshape ? I forword an email to the professor. it discuss some of the points together with some examples. \parshape is not enough for arbitary page layout. \parshape can help for text flow around other elements, hence for layout of a page. What do you mean with \parshape is not enough for arbitary page layout ? There are other macros/ tools for page layout as otr for example. - really working multiple-column layout in context columnset with two pass strategy columnset cannot solve most of the problems:) Do you have some examples ? if you want advanced page layout justification, TeX is not sufficient. What do you mean with advanced ? Do you have som examples ? -- luigi ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
- much faster (i.e. I don't need to wait for several TeX runs e.g. if I need to check if some tweak fixed my page breaking) On average true for manual composition, maybe false for automatic workflow - optical (vs. metrical) kerning hz ? - a GUI ;-) and thus layout by let's try how it looks true - layout definition (I struggle with ConTeXt's \setuplayout every time) maybe - better page breaking constraints (you can define in your style sheets keep n lines together and keep this together with the next paragraph) maybe (hans/taco help needed here ) - PDF/X output - color profile conversions maybe. They can be after, in prepress , so can be sensate to keep separate this from tex. - image processing features like crop paths, feathered edges, drop shadow (in ConTeXt I need to prepare such in Photoshop in the right size - but I guess it would be possible to write a module that uses ImageMagick to achieve something similar) maybe -- luigi ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
luigi scarso wrote: - optical (vs. metrical) kerning hz ? all those kerning options can lead to rather bad text ... i get the impression that wrongly applied hz (extreme values) and intercharacter spacing and such in general lead to bad text ... i read quite some books and am sometimes puzzled by the completely different and inconstent 'look and feel' of typeset paragraphs (that could be done better by tex) ... too many degrees of freedom may not be a good idea - a GUI ;-) and thus layout by let's try how it looks true just develop styles using small samples, not whole books -) - better page breaking constraints (you can define in your style sheets keep n lines together and keep this together with the next paragraph) maybe (hans/taco help needed here ) i have an experimental mechanism for weighted skips and penalties for mkiv; keep in mind that traditional tex only looks forward (unless you do trickery which in itself has side effects) - PDF/X output pdftex is mostl pdf/x (depends on what trickery the macro package does) - color profile conversions tex treats graphics as abstractions which is why it could survive so long keep in mind that normally one only needs to 'convert' a graphic once, so that can be done externally; in dtp one often works with copies (we see projects with the same 25 meg graphic copied all over the placs) and i assume that in say indesign graphics are also converted once (too much a slow downer otherwise) in context one can do some trickery with turning gray scale images to multitone but that a well kept secret -) Hans - Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl - ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 7:08 AM, Aditya Mahajan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 30 May 2008, Maurício wrote: Hi, Just because I'm curious: how could a typesetting system like TeX be if it was created today? luatex http://www.luatex.org There is ant http://ant.berlios.de/ River detection, which is done by ant, but not by TeX. http://osdir.com/ml/tex.context/2001-01/msg00057.html -- luigi ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
There is ant http://ant.berlios.de/, but it is supposed to be saner form of TeX (in terms of source code, and easy of configuration) which was developed from scratch. The user interface is quite similar to TeX. I do not know much about the internal differences between Ant and TeX. ANT have many major improvements. But as to the output pdf file of ANT, I cannot see much difference:( River detection, which is done by ant, but not by TeX. Also since the computers now are more powerful, I think that doing page breaking on a global manner (or atleast by looking two three pages down, rather than just the current page), will make certain things (like long mathematical forumlas, and complex footnotes) appear nicely without a lot of manual tweaking. Agreed. River detection and global page break are very important for an advanced Typesetting system. I think control arbitrary streams on pages (available many advanced software, like InDesign) are also useful. I hope they will be in LuaTeX soon. ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Maurício wrote: Hi, Just because I'm curious: how could a typesetting system like TeX be if it was created today? I've tried google and wikipedia, and all I found different from TeX is a system called 'Lout', but it seems dead. Does anyone knows about novel or interesting ideas that could be used if we would write a new typesetting system from scratch? Practically speaking, I expect it would be a lot like lyx with tex built in. Who would design a document language without front-end these days? ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Aditya Mahajan wrote: Does anyone knows about novel or interesting ideas that could be used if we would write a new typesetting system from scratch? River detection, which is done by ant, but not by TeX. If there was a clear algorithm I could implement that in luatex. But I have not seen any whitepaper on the subject and I cannot read OCaml source well enough to understand what is going on ... ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Hi. Practically speaking, I expect it would be a lot like lyx with tex built in. Who would design a document language without front-end these days? Maybe using LuaTeX + wxLua + Poppler is a better approach? Yue Wang ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Am 30.05.2008 um 09:12 schrieb Yue Wang: advanced software, like InDesign well ... cough ... Steffen ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
2008/5/30 Taco Hoekwater [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Aditya Mahajan wrote: River detection, which is done by ant, but not by TeX. If there was a clear algorithm I could implement that in luatex. But I have not seen any whitepaper on the subject and I cannot read OCaml source well enough to understand what is going on ... AFAIK it doesn't work. Best Martin ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
On 5/30/08, Steffen Wolfrum [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 30.05.2008 um 09:12 schrieb Yue Wang: advanced software, like InDesign well ... cough ... There is no denying that many advanced features in InDesign are missing in TeX(like) related software. What's more, the internationalization of InDesign is better. Steffen ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___ ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 6:18 AM, Maurício [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Just because I'm curious: how could a typesetting system like TeX be if it was created today? I've tried google and wikipedia, and all I found different from TeX is a system called 'Lout', but it seems dead. I think that the input language would be xml in order to be easily adapt to html, epub, odt… The today difference is that we need to be able to put the text on many different devices : paper, screen, epaper… Olivier. -- [Message tapé sur un clavier Bépo : http://www.clavier-dvorak.org ] Olivier [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://nemolivier.blogspot.com ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Hi Yue, On Fri, 30 May 2008 06:24:56 -0600, Yue Wang [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: advanced software, like InDesign well ... cough ... There is no denying that many advanced features in InDesign are missing in TeX(like) related software. What's more, the internationalization of InDesign is better. Can you give a precise list of the features contained in InDesign that are missing in (lua)TeX or which TeX does not support well? Best wishes Idris -- Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief International Journal of Shi`i Studies Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Am 30.05.2008 um 14:24 schrieb Yue Wang: On 5/30/08, Steffen Wolfrum [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 30.05.2008 um 09:12 schrieb Yue Wang: advanced software, like InDesign well ... cough ... There is no denying that many advanced features in InDesign are missing in TeX(like) related software. What's more, the internationalization of InDesign is better. ;o) ... you can buy a czech version or a polish version, for working with hebrew you may buy a hebrew or a middle eastern version ... and wasn't there also an arabic version to buy? With TeX you only have one piece for all ... and you can't even buy it. Steffen ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
On Friday 30 May 2008 16:15:08 Steffen Wolfrum wrote: Am 30.05.2008 um 14:24 schrieb Yue Wang: On 5/30/08, Steffen Wolfrum [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 30.05.2008 um 09:12 schrieb Yue Wang: advanced software, like InDesign well ... cough ... There is no denying that many advanced features in InDesign are missing in TeX(like) related software. What's more, the internationalization of InDesign is better. ;o) ... you can buy a czech version or a polish version, for working with hebrew you may buy a hebrew or a middle eastern version ... and wasn't there also an arabic version to buy? With TeX you only have one piece for all ... and you can't even buy it. Steffen ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___ You are also free to purchase future new versions of InDesign, Illustrator, and the like, not to mention that of the operating system that it runs under! -- Alan Braslau CEA DSM-IRAMIS-SPEC CNRS URA 2464 Orme des Merisiers 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex FRANCE tel: +33 1 69 08 73 15 fax: +33 1 69 08 87 86 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www-dna2006.cea.fr/ .''`. : :' : `. `'` `- ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
Am 2008-05-30 um 14:31 schrieb Idris Samawi Hamid: There is no denying that many advanced features in InDesign are missing in TeX(like) related software. What's more, the internationalization of InDesign is better. Can you give a precise list of the features contained in InDesign that are missing in (lua)TeX or which TeX does not support well? - much faster (i.e. I don't need to wait for several TeX runs e.g. if I need to check if some tweak fixed my page breaking) - optical (vs. metrical) kerning - a GUI ;-) and thus layout by let's try how it looks - layout definition (I struggle with ConTeXt's \setuplayout every time) - better page breaking constraints (you can define in your style sheets keep n lines together and keep this together with the next paragraph) - PDF/X output - color profile conversions - image processing features like crop paths, feathered edges, drop shadow (in ConTeXt I need to prepare such in Photoshop in the right size - but I guess it would be possible to write a module that uses ImageMagick to achieve something similar) Problems in TeX *and* InDesign: - Unicode handling (composed and decomposed UTF-8 with or without BOM, UTF-16, different line endings) Working with InDesign as a developer I know that TeX's documentation is far better. Adobe's developer docs (e.g. on API, XML format, InDesign tagged text) are incomplete and errorneous. I don't think you can call the one or other better or more advanced, it's just a different approach, and I choose the right tool for every project. (I.e. I only use TeX if I need the same content in different versions, if I can automate something or for books.) But the layout applications like InDesign (there's still also ugly old QuarkXPress, coming-of-age Scribus and some others) have learned a lot of the former domains of TeX, like registers and toc generation. There are still some areas where you need a programmable system, even trivia like chapter dependant running titles (in ConTeXt: headertexts). Greetlings from Lake Constance! Hraban --- http://www.fiee.net/texnique/ http://wiki.contextgarden.net https://www.cacert.org (I'm an assurer) ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
There are still some areas where you need a programmable system, even trivia like chapter dependant running titles (in ConTeXt: headertexts). Isn't indesign programmable too ? I know people who use it in an automatic workflow for db publishing -- luigi ___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
Re: [NTG-context] How could a typesetting system be today?
On Fri, 30 May 2008, Maurício wrote: Hi, Just because I'm curious: how could a typesetting system like TeX be if it was created today? I've tried google and wikipedia, and all I found different from TeX is a system called 'Lout', but it seems dead. There is ant http://ant.berlios.de/, but it is supposed to be saner form of TeX (in terms of source code, and easy of configuration) which was developed from scratch. The user interface is quite similar to TeX. I do not know much about the internal differences between Ant and TeX. Does anyone knows about novel or interesting ideas that could be used if we would write a new typesetting system from scratch? River detection, which is done by ant, but not by TeX. Also since the computers now are more powerful, I think that doing page breaking on a global manner (or atleast by looking two three pages down, rather than just the current page), will make certain things (like long mathematical forumlas, and complex footnotes) appear nicely without a lot of manual tweaking. Aditya___ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___
