- From: M Singh <address@hidden>
- To: address@hidden
- Subject: Re: [TeXmacs] Re: LaTeX sxport for submission to journal
- Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:45:17 -0400
- Organization: Some
On Wednesday 20 October 2004 12:10, Joris van der Hoeven wrote:
>
> Is a texmacs class file pure text ? If so, as I suspect it is, what is
>
> the exact problem in writing a program that parses a latex class file and
>
> o/p's a texmacs class file ? Like \topmargin etc. could be mapped into
>
> some texmacs equivalent, or emph, bold face, \vspace, etc. could be
>
> similarly mapped.
>
>
Have you *ever* looked at a complete class file, like svjour or elsart,
I use them regularly in my work. I have even modified a few for my own
purposes, but there is neither here nor there.
>
as used by publishing companies? You will recognize that writing
>
an automized converter for such files is as at least as much work
>
as converting the 25 mostly style files by hand.
If it is only as difficult as converting 25 style files by hand, its a
profitable prospect, as the convertor, once created, could be used by texmacs
users to access thousands of other class files with a few clicks of the
mouse.
>
>
> You do not understand an editor's point of view there. They (especially
>
> in case of larger journals) do not have the resources or the time (or
>
> even the inclination - for fear of messing up their manuscript processing
>
> systems) to deal with typesetting systems for which there is little / no
>
> well tested markup environment, and the number of people who are
>
> insistent enough (and few prospective authors are - they are trying to
>
> get published first, not teach the editors new things) and simply refuse
>
> to use Word / LaTeX, is miniscule.
>
>
It is up to TeXmacs users to make this change. If you saved half an hour on
>
typing your article using TeXmacs, then you may take five minutes to write
>
a small request to the editor to accept TeXmacs as a new format.
>
A request that is almost doomed to be not honored.
>
> 1. Ease of use gradually draws in users, many of whom leave because
>
> professional publishing houses / journals etc. do not accept the .tm
>
> format. This would probably lead to texmacs becoming another groff or
>
> lout or even an elaborate abiword of sorts. Not a good prospect for an
>
> application otherwise so well thought out.
>
>
>
> 2. Development of two things - a good importing system that reads in .cls
>
> and .sty files and o/p's texmacs style files , and as the OP wanted, a
>
> sensible, non macro based latex export system. This could really light
>
> the fire under texmacs. Many people would still prefer to use LaTeX
>
> directly, but the new users would naturally gravitate towards texmacs.
>
>
>
> Of course you might say that it is not your job to make sure that texmacs
>
> becomes widely used or even the de facto standard. However, from an open
>
> source viewpoint, the larger the user base you have, the larger the
>
> number of possible bugs discovered, and nicer the final product.
>
>
It definitely is not my job to make a 100% reliable converter from/to
>
a rotten, obsolete and ill-defined TeX/LaTeX format from/to our format.
The latex format is neither rotten nor obsolete. Its powerful, only harder to
use than texmacs.
>
I am getting really tired about TeX/LaTeX compatability complaints,
>
especially because people do not even *try* to push editors to
>
accept our format (or Pdf).
Pushing editors is one thing, getting them to accept .tm format is quite
another.
>
>
I have the impression that the huge amount of effort I put in improving
>
LaTeX compatability is never sufficient, so this is basically a huge
>
waste of my time. I also consider the current export filter to be good
I apologize if my criticism was taken to imply that you have not done enough.
I just provided some feedback about what I foresee future development time
could be profitably invested in. I did not denigrate your efforts. Just
presented my assessment. You are obviously free to ignore or accept that
assessment.
>
enough for my personal purposes (I rarely experience problems and they
>
are always easy to correct) and it certainly is 99% reliable at least.
>
The only thing I can possibly do is make it easier to write LaTeX directly
>
in TeXmacs so that it is easy to manually put LaTeX code there where
>
TeXmacs is unsufficient for export purposes.
>
>
In the future, I rather plan to stabilize and well-document the editor
>
as it is (both for users and developers). We are also working on a mode
>
for editing pictures (new conversion problems), and I will still add
>
some tools for annotation and web-services. If scientists still prefer
>
to use Vi-LaTeX for writing papers, then so be it.
>
emacs+auctex+latex is the more commonly used combination, but I get your
point.
Thanks for the frank response.
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