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Re: [TeXmacs] Input welcome for discussion on the future of TeXmacs


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  • From: François-Xavier Thomas <address@hidden>
  • To: address@hidden
  • Subject: Re: [TeXmacs] Input welcome for discussion on the future of TeXmacs
  • Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2012 22:05:09 +0100
  • Authentication-results: mr.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of address@hidden designates 10.180.87.100 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=address@hidden; dkim=pass header.i=address@hidden
Hi all, hello Alvaro!

I only recently joined the mailing list, even though I've been using TeXmacs
for a few years, but if I may I'm still going to give these questions my 2
cents.

I hope you can forgive me for being quite harsh in some answers, I know
you're doing an awesome job, but unfortunately, not a lot of people know
about it! Also, if I'm speaking about something that's already there, fell
free to tell me, I'd be happy to learn about it!

You'll also notice I'm talking a lot about appearance, but unfortunately
that's what users will look first when they first look at TeXmacs.

On Mar 1, 2012, at 8:30 PM, Alvaro Tejero Cantero wrote:

> ! What would you like to happen with TeXmacs?
> * three most important point
> * then summarize in just one

I can't think of 3 points, but in one word : modernization :
- Of the interface
- Of the documentation
- Of the website

TeXmacs still looks like a weird software from 1995. I'm a die-hard Unix
user, so I use the keyboard for almost everything, and I don't often use a
mouse, but most new users most certainly don't use the shortcuts first : I
know I didn't!

They will take their mouse and fiddle with new things, and notice that you
can't resize an image with it, you can't easily draw a figure, you can't open
some kind of "Properties" box when they want to edit settings for some item.
And they will leave.

Now, the QT interface is a HUGE improvement, I was in awe the first time I
saw it. But it needs to be improved a lot more!

The documentation is also strongly lacking, for first time users, but I'll
write about it later.

> ! What are the most important bugs?
> * three bugs
> * one bug

I can't think of any huge bug, but, at least for me, there has always been a
lot of issues related to images and graphical content. Sometimes, they won't
display, sometimes, there are artifacts, etc. Not really critical, but it
hinders the user experience.

> ! What would be best for TeXmacs to become adopted?
> * three points
> * one point

See first question.

> ! How to organize TeXmacs as a community
> * three points
> * one point

First, forums of any kind could help beginners a lot, instead of having them
subscribe to a mailing list.
But then, perhaps a user-contributed template repository with nice preview
images, for instance?

> ! What kind of documentation would you like to see more?
> * three points
> * one point

The documentation is nice to have, but :

- Not graphical enough : It's a huge bunch of text people have to read, and
usually they will quit halfway through if they're not experienced already.

- No easy tutorial : Neither for beginners, nor for advanced users. I'm
sure writing macros would be really useful, for instance, but once again the
lack of real-life examples that are actually useful prevented me from reading
the loooong documentation. Look at http://www.texmacs.org/Tutorial/ for
another example, which is the first Google result for "TeXmacs tutorial"....
Erk...


I'm often taking class notes in TeXmacs, and a lot of fellow students are
looking at that, saying "Wow, what's this software? Looks nice!"
Then, they try to use it, and come back later saying "I've tried it, but I
can't type so fast, how can you type so fast?". I explain them about the
shortcuts and the basics, and each time they tell me they never saw this in
the docs. It's there, though, I've checked. But not accessible, nor visible
enough.

> ! How should TeXmacs be publicized
> * Name change (or not): three suggestions and one suggestion
> * New website, new general graphical design (logo?).

The logo from iTeXmacs looks great, imo (don't know if it is in the main repo
yet?), even amongst OS X icons on the dock (see :
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/825/screenshot20120301at942.png/ ), so
no change needed here.
I don't have any suggestion for a new name, though, but I'm not against it if
someone manages to find a good one.

Also, the website certainly looks old. No offense intended, but it needs a
little re-vamping.

> ! What do you think you could contribute?
> * three points
> * one point

I don't know Scheme, so I won't be a lot of help for the core.
Technically, I could help with the website, but I don't have a lot of free
time at the moment.

I'll try to create a simple and beautiful beginner's tutorial, it's been on
my mind for ages.

> * whoever is interested in looking at the names that have been
> proposed already please make yourself a user in http://tiddlyspace.com
> and send to me privately the id so that I can authorize you to see the
> private pages in http://tamiz.tiddlyspace.com. You can suggest new
> names; in that case using the letters 't' and 'm' is of interest to
> ease the transition process.

Count me in! I couldn't find out how to send a PM, but my ID is fxvisual.
And good night to you all!

François-Xavier Thomas
Engineering student at Télécom ParisTech
MSc Image Processing (Ecole Normale Supérieure, Cachan)

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