From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Holistic Emacs/AUC TeX/preview-latex/LaTeX/amsmath tutorial? Date: 29 Dec 2002 14:46:02 +0100 Organization: T-Online Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+gnu-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1041169796 13680 80.91.224.249 (29 Dec 2002 13:49:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 13:49:56 +0000 (UTC) Cc: preview-latex-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 18SdpC-0003YT-00 for ; Sun, 29 Dec 2002 14:49:54 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 18Sdpu-0001Np-03 for gnu-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 29 Dec 2002 08:50:38 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!cyclone.bc.net!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!newsfeed.vmunix.org!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsmm00.sul.t-online.com!t-online.de!news.t-online.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: comp.text.tex,comp.emacs,gnu.emacs.help Original-Followup-To: comp.text.tex Original-Lines: 86 Original-X-Trace: news.t-online.com 1041169563 06 23055 OGDpEloVS5AVfV 021229 13:46:03 Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@t-online.com X-Sender: 520018396234-0001@t-dialin.net X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6,xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN;i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3.50 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu comp.text.tex:238874 comp.emacs:76663 gnu.emacs.help:108576 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-cc: auc-tex@sunsite.dk X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+gnu-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:5105 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:5105 Hi, I was thinking about what documentation one would want to set up complete newbies with. Like, when one was bundling a complete system including Emacs with AUCTeX and preview-latex preinstalled, and some TeX distribution like fpTeX or MikTeX or TeXlive. Or maybe a complete bootable Linux system like Knoppix or something, that maybe got the bulk via Internet so that people could just start out with a specialized TeX workstation install. Quite a few possibilities. Anyhow, I think for the more common case of crashing newbies into everything, the current dispersion of learning material does not cut it. I am thinking of some sort of tutorial along the side of not-so-short-introduction to LaTeX, with lots of cross references to more elaborate documentation, but which is intended mostly as an online reference, telling people to "move the cursor there. Now press C-c C-p C-e to see what the typeset result would look like. If you now move with cursor left-right into the preview, you should see the source again. Now insert an equation environment of your own. You can do this from the menu LaTeX/Insert Environment. As you can see from the the menu, the keyboard shortcut for this will be C-c C-e". You get the drift. The walk-through tutorial should introduce people at the same time into editing features from AUCTeX and RefTeX, as well as basic LaTeX and some more advanced stuff. And of course, Emacs packages and features worth knowing about for editing purposes should be mentioned as well. Of course, some people would want to skip some chapters they already know about. Using the document navigation possibilities of RefTeX, that would be reasonably simple to do. I think it very important to specialize a tutorial for a specific editing platform so as to be able to minimize the amount of parallel reading concerning, say, RefTeX+AUCTeX+LaTeX material when all the user wants to do is manage cross references. The tutorials would be strictly kept under an open document license, so that spinoffs for different platforms (like WinEdt and the like) will be possible as long as a maintainer for such platform volunteers. I would volunteer to manage the main project efforts, incorporate usability suggestions that writers come up with into Emacs (where I am codeveloper), AUCTeX (head maintainer), preview-latex (main author and maintainer) and also LaTeX (contributor of a few specialized styles and stuff). If there is sufficient interest for paper or CD circulation eventually, I'll try doing what is necessary to get this going. And pocket whatever I can reasonably make from this as well as trying to raise funds and cooperation for such a project elsewhere in order to keep afloat as well as I can. One obvious task would be to create specialized versions for mathematicians, literature scientists, liberal arts people and so on: particular newbies have particular demands, and at least the introductory sections should cater for that. When going more into detail, it might make sense to make separate chapters for the various target audience. The electronic versions would basically include everything under the sun, the printed versions might be stripped somewhat: ultimately people are supposed to get the whole story, if needed, interactively. Suggestions, volunteers, comments, funds, manpower? I am currently having so many ideas about what could and should be done with regard to TeX/LaTeX that I could keep myself busy for years. So I'd better concentrate on getting others to do the job, and me to manage collecting the bucks, uh, contributions. You know, "winning things", like Chief Bromden puts it to McMurphy. Followups directed to comp.text.tex in order to keep them more or less in one place. I would be grateful if interested parties followed them there, unless they are just involved with one of the more specialized mailing lists. I'll try to keep the different media up to date, though. Waiting for your enthusiastic participation. If we get enough willing contributors to fill in the gaps, I'll volunteer to put up a framework if nobody else does so, and walk prospective contributors through any problems they might have with AUC TeX/preview-latex/Emacs installation and stuff. Ok, I do this anyway, but it would be nice if people considered contributions as they see fit, nevertheless. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum