mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Henri Lesourd <address@hidden>]

> Of course it is reversed. And the reason for that is not purely technical but 
> a little akin to the law of demand and supply.
True, but...

> True. But what I am speaking about is reality, not some utopia where things 
> ought to be different (and I agree with you on the conception of that 
> utopia).
>  
If nobody does nothing, reality will never change.

> that could work completely 
> seamlessly (read in .cls and .sty files, produce texmacs templates on the 
> fly, and then export into latex at the end of it all, without any serious 
> need for hand editing the result) but that is not going to happen.
If you really want it to happen, you need to elaborate more, and
describe precisely what you want.

> > write simple scripts/emacs macros, etc. that, in the
> > context of a particular paper, are used to translate the TeXmac's
> > LaTeX output into a better LaTeX.
> >    
>
> Excellent. Except that everytime the same journal comes out with a new .cls 
> file, the task of writing that template has to be done all over again.
That is another problem. But I still don't clearly understand what
you need. As far as I can understand it, there are several possible
levels in TeXmacs->LaTeX translation :

1. Correctly translate TeXmacs files all the time. In this area,
   some work remains to be done (for example, translating
   documents containing .gif images), but currently, the missing
   features can found by the users themselves. We are thus
   left with the problem of enabling those users (as a group)
   to feedbacking useful information, either patches, or even
   small notes, which would describe how, in a particular
   context, they have chosen to translate a particular TeXmacs
   markup construct into LaTeX ;

2. It should be possible, also, given a particular .cls/.sty file, to
    write the corresponding .ts file that you can use to write your
    document. It means that in practice, if your .cls/.sty file defines
    a macro called "mini-chapter" that acts as the usual <section>
    TeXmacs markup, you must use <mini-chapter> instead when
     writing your document ;

3. Read the .cls/.sty files, and automatically translate their content
    & build the corresponding TeXmacs macros. This is extremely
    hard, because at first glance, it seems that in order to do it, you
    would need to be able to automatically translate **arbitrary**
    LaTeX macros to TeXmacs markup language.

The levels (1) and (2) above appear to be feasible, although of
course, they need sustained work. The level (3) above appears
to be quite hard do achieve (but perhaps thinking a little bit more
could bring more clue, I don't know).

So as far as your own needs are concerned, would the levels
(1) and (2) be sufficient for you, or do you also need the completion
of the level (3) ?