Hi

Tomorrow's TeX Hour is about what would be nice to add to TeX Live. Your suggestions are important. Next week's TeX Hour is about squeezing everything into the 8GB available on the TeX Collection DVD.

When and where. Thursday 17 June, 6.30 to 7.30pm UK time. The UK time now is at https://time.is/UK. The zoom details are
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/78551255396?pwd=cHdJN0pTTXRlRCtSd1lCTHpuWmNIUT09
Meeting ID: 785 5125 5396
Passcode: knuth

One of Don Knuth's goals in writing TeX was to give people software that worked the same for everyone, across space and time. In the 1980's the TeX Users Group contributed to this by distributing source code tapes (the best medium at that time). Today TUG's support for the TeX Collection DVD and the TeX Live distribution has a similar purpose.

This week and next TeX Live is the focus of the TeX Hour. TeX Live provides a shared software experience for LaTeX to PDF. The focus this week is what would be nice to have in TeX Live, for other outputs such as HTML and EPUB.. And for other inputs such as Markdown and XML transformed to LaTeX.

In case this seems a bit strange and off-topic, remember that Don Knuth's WEB system of literate programs produces Pascal source and TeX source as output, from a single WEB file. And tools such as bibtex produce LaTeX source from content held in bibliographic databases.

The focus this week is on what's nice to have, in enlarging the shared TeX Live experience to include outputs such as HTML and EPUB, and inputs such as Markdown and XML. Today many authors and publishers want multiple media outputs. And it's key for accessibility. And for integrating with modern learning systems.

Next week the focus is on shrinking and simplifying the present TeX Collection DVD, and making year-on-year change more manageable, without significantly reducing the user experience. For the R-community, TinyTeX shrinks TeX Live to 100MB.

The videos for the last two weeks are available at

3 June 2021: Rethinking the beginner experience
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw1FZfIX1w7gTrQjLKPx6tdidALVbNiUB

10 June 2021: Code and Math Accessibility: Hard? Easy? When? Why?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw1FZfIX1w7igKkNMZDU2CLQuvVE9ERCo

with best regards

Jonathan

Jonathan,

For HTML pandoc comes to mind and for EPub the lwarp package which
already is in LeXLive and is being actively developed.

Even in (not so) deep Africa, where I find myself (Namibia),
connectivity is so that I would not bother with a DVD for 8 GB these
days and would rather propose not to waste time and effort with outdated
technology (DVD) ie don't look for what is nice to have but look to drop
what one doesn't need to get up and running.

One should see if one can duplicate MacTeX's BasicTeX approach, ie
create a minimal functioning system, into which one afterwards loads
(only the) missing packages with the Tex Live Manager.

I got 22Mbps this morning (I pay for 25) when upgrading one of my Macs
to 11.4 (5GB which is roughly the size of the gzipped TeXLive 2021). If
you run it over night the actual bandwidth doesn't matter at all, and if
you use

wget -c

you don't have to start from scratch if interrupted.

MacTeX's BasicTeX is an install-able PKG and comes in at only 93 MB
(obviously compressed) but producing a TGZ and then creating a script to
install should not be too much work, even if one needs to figure out how
to create a pseudo DEB or RPM so that the package manager thinks it's
installed properly.

Creating proper DEB and an alternative Package Repository (on CTAN) is
more effort, but only required once, abd would be the ideal solution.

Doing something like:

TODAY=$(date +%F)
tlmgr list --only-installed \
| gawk '{gsub(/:/, ""); print $2}' \
> texlive.$TODAY.installed.$$.txt

before an Upgrade (once a year) will save all installed packaes, and
then

tlmgr update --self
tlmgr install $(cat texlive.$TODAY.installed.$$.txt)

after the Upgrade will install only the missing ones (sequaling just a
little about the packages which are already installed from the
BasicTeX).

It finally needs an

tlmgr update --all

to make sure all is up-to-date, does the trick.

On the Mac I have a script which upgrades BasicTeX including a few
tuneups, so I could not be bothered, but if I had to do this from
scratch I would just pull the full MacTeX over night, put it on a stick
and sneakernet it onto all my machines.

Diskspace is so plentiful these days, that whether my BasicTeX on
steroids is 1.2 GB or the full one is 8GB makes no difference in
practice any more.

greetings, el

On 2021-06-16 19:57 , Jonathan Fine wrote:
> Hi
>
> Tomorrow's TeX Hour is about what would be nice to add to TeX Live.
> Your suggestions are important. Next week's TeX Hour is about
> squeezing everything into the 8GB available on the TeX Collection DVD.
>
> When and where. Thursday 17 June, 6.30 to 7.30pm UK time.
>
> The UK time now is at https://time.is/UK. The zoom details are
> https://us02web.zoom.us/j/78551255396?pwd=cHdJN0pTTXRlRCtSd1lCTHpuWmNIUT09
> Meeting ID: 785 5125 5396 Passcode: knuth
>
> One of Don Knuth's goals in writing TeX was to give people software
> that worked the same for everyone, across space and time. In the
> 1980's the TeX Users Group contributed to this by distributing source
> code tapes (the best medium at that time). Today TUG's support for
> the TeX Collection DVD and the TeX Live distribution has a similar
> purpose.
>
> This week and next TeX Live is the focus of the TeX Hour. TeX Live
> provides a shared software experience for LaTeX to PDF. The focus this
> week is what would be nice to have in TeX Live, for other outputs such
> as HTML and EPUB. And for other inputs such as Markdown and XML
> transformed to LaTeX.
>
> In case this seems a bit strange and off-topic, remember that Don
> Knuth's WEB system of literate programs produces Pascal source and TeX
> source as output, from a single WEB file. And tools such as bibtex
> produce LaTeX source from content held in bibliographic databases.
>
> The focus this week is on what's nice to have, in enlarging the shared
> TeX Live experience to include outputs such as HTML and EPUB, and
> inputs such as Markdown and XML. Today many authors and publishers
> want multiple media outputs. And it's key for accessibility. And for
> integrating with modern learning systems.
>
> Next week the focus is on shrinking and simplifying the present TeX
> Collection DVD, and making year-on-year change more manageable,
> without significantly reducing the user experience. For the
> R-community, TinyTeX shrinks TeX Live to 100MB.
>
> The videos for the last two weeks are available at
>
> 3 June 2021: Rethinking the beginner experience
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw1FZfIX1w7gTrQjLKPx6tdidALVbNiUB
>
> 10 June 2021: Code and Math Accessibility: Hard? Easy? When? Why?
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw1FZfIX1w7igKkNMZDU2CLQuvVE9ERCo
>
> with best regards
>
> Jonathan

--
To email me replace 'nospam' with 'el'

In article <2e985e51-e722-b50b-9c18-862d9abe3ea4@lisse.NA>, Dr Eberhard
W Lisse <nospam@lisse.NA> writes:

> Even in (not so) deep Africa, where I find myself (Namibia),
> connectivity is so that I would not bother with a DVD for 8 GB these
> days and would rather propose not to waste time and effort with outdated
> technology (DVD) ie don't look for what is nice to have but look to drop
> what one doesn't need to get up and running.

Not everyone has the fast internet speeds which Namibia does. :-) Just
last night I was at a video conference where slow internet speed was one
of the topics. It is a real problem in some rural areas, even in
first-world countries.

> One should see if one can duplicate MacTeX's BasicTeX approach, ie
> create a minimal functioning system, into which one afterwards loads
> (only the) missing packages with the Tex Live Manager.

I would like to see this as the default setup: Some agreed subset which
is probably enough for 95% of what 95% of people do, then if something
is missing it downloads it from CTAN on the fly.

Jonathan Fine <jfine2358@gmail.com> wrote:
> This week and next TeX Live is the focus of the TeX Hour. TeX Live provides
> a shared software experience for LaTeX to PDF. The focus this week is what
> would be nice to have in TeX Live, for other outputs such as HTML and EPUB.
> And for other inputs such as Markdown and XML transformed to LaTeX.

I prefer Plain TeX rather than LaTeX, and I also don't really like PDF much
(I generally use DVI). However, I did want to output HTML as well as DVI.

What ways might there be for HTML output from a file using Plain TeX? (I
could set up separate macros for HTML output if needed. I do have
mathematical equations too.) I did think of some possibilities, but I
don't know which ones are going to be best. Possibly another program
implementing some parts of TeX? The macro capabilities of TeX would need
to be implemented properly in order for it to work, I think. (I have
tried using TeX directly, but it doesn't work as well)

EPUB is really just a ZIP archive with HTML and XML, and you can display
EPUB files in any web browser that supports the jar: URI scheme.

--
Don't laugh at the moon when it is day time in France.

If it is all so easy...

But then nobody prevents you from reinventing the wheel.

el

On 17/06/2021 06:39, news@zzo38computer.org.invalid wrote:
[...]
I prefer Plain TeX rather than LaTeX, and I also don't really like PDF
> much (I generally use DVI). However, I did want to output HTML as
> well as DVI.
>
> What ways might there be for HTML output from a file using Plain TeX?
> (I could set up separate macros for HTML output if needed. I do have
> mathematical equations too.) I did think of some possibilities, but I
> don't know which ones are going to be best. Possibly another program
> implementing some parts of TeX? The macro capabilities of TeX would
> need to be implemented properly in order for it to work, I think. (I
> have tried using TeX directly, but it doesn't work as well)
>
> EPUB is really just a ZIP archive with HTML and XML, and you can
> display EPUB files in any web browser that supports the jar: URI
> scheme.
>

--
To email me replace 'nospam' with 'el'

Phillip,

I am acutely and fully aware about connectivity in Africa, inside and
outside of Namibia :-)-O And, even in rural Africa I find that if you
have Internet Connectivity (other than Cell or Satellite Phone) you can
grab stuff.

I am, however, also occasionally surprised about the comparatively slow
speeds I get when traveling to Germany or the US for that matter.

How would done go about generating a TexLive BasicTex?

One could "just" use the content of the MacTeX BasicTeX and make a
tl-basic-install.sh for it?

greetings, el

On 16/06/2021 23:37, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <2e985e51-e722-b50b-9c18-862d9abe3ea4@lisse.NA>, Dr Eberhard
> W Lisse <nospam@lisse.NA> writes:
>
>> Even in (not so) deep Africa, where I find myself (Namibia),
>> connectivity is so that I would not bother with a DVD for 8 GB these
>> days and would rather propose not to waste time and effort with outdated
>> technology (DVD) ie don't look for what is nice to have but look to drop
>> what one doesn't need to get up and running.
>
> Not everyone has the fast internet speeds which Namibia does. :-) Just
> last night I was at a video conference where slow internet speed was one
> of the topics. It is a real problem in some rural areas, even in
> first-world countries.
>
>> One should see if one can duplicate MacTeX's BasicTeX approach, ie
>> create a minimal functioning system, into which one afterwards loads
>> (only the) missing packages with the Tex Live Manager.
>
> I would like to see this as the default setup: Some agreed subset which
> is probably enough for 95% of what 95% of people do, then if something
> is missing it downloads it from CTAN on the fly.
>

--
To email me replace 'nospam' with 'el'