The LaTeX Project

New home for the regression test suite

Sun, 25 Jun 2017 02:00:00 +0200

New home for the `l3build` regression test suite

The team have developed l3build starting from the need to support work on LaTeX3/expl3 code. We have been using it for other work, most obviously for testing and releasing the LaTeX2e kernel, for some time.

Having l3build in the same (Subversion) repository as LaTeX3 developments did have some advantages for the team, but it meant that following the change log could be a bit tricky. Moreover, as it has become more general, the need to do releases of l3build to support non-LaTeX3 work has increased: for example, for releasing the LaTeX2e kernel! We have now spun l3build out to a new (Git) repository:

https://github.com/latex3/l3build

The history in this new repository includes all of changes to l3build since the team established it as a more than a build script for just the LaTeX3 repo.

Please report issues, etc., with l3build in this new location.

The l3build system can be useful to any package writer

The regression test suite carries “l3” in its name, but it was designed to support any typical TeX code development, i.e., it is in no way tied to LaTeX3 development.

It can therefore be very useful to any package writer who likes to set up

automated testing of code
automated generation of documentation
automated production of releases suitable for sending to CTAN

You will find an introduction in the TUGboat article “l3build — A modern Lua test suite for TeX programming” from 2014 that can be found on the project publication page. Check it out, in case you hear about this test suite for the first time!

Regards

Joseph, Frank

Talk from the 2017 TUG/Bachotek conference

Sat, 10 Jun 2017 02:00:00 +0200

Globally optimizing documents with floats

At the TUG/Bachotek conference Frank presented further results (and the theoretical background) from his work on globally optimizing the pagination of documents. This is a follow up to the DocEng 2016 article “A Framework for Globally Optimized Pagination”.

The slide material and handouts from this tak as well as the earlier article can be found on the project publication page.

New LaTeX release --- Issue 27 of LaTeX2e news released

Sun, 16 Apr 2017 02:00:00 +0200

New LaTeX release — Issue 27 of LaTeX2e news released

We have made a new LaTeX distribution in time for the new TeX live 2017 distribution.

The most important changes and additions are documented in ltnews27.pdf. It can be found on the LaTeX2e news page.

New snapshot (SVN 6984) of LaTeX3 code released to CTAN

Thu, 09 Mar 2017 01:00:00 +0100

LaTeX3 code snapshot (SVN 6984) released to CTAN

Joseph recently submitted the following updates of LaTeX3 material to CTAN.

`xparse` package

Adjustments to xparse to allow document commands to continue to function inside csnames: note that the team expect to give a clear statement on the scope of use of document commands in the near future
\NewExpandableDocumentCommand and related commands have been added to xparse
\IfValue(TF) is now marked as stable
There have been some questions about the (removed) k-type argument: see StackExchange question for some transitional code (note that the replacement e-type is experimental)

`xfp` package

New package to provide a document level interface to the LaTeX3 FPU: \fpeval

`expl3` programming interface

New \tl_range:nnn function
Reduction in use of \c_<number> constants in favour of explicit numbers

`l3build` system

Normalisation of lines from luaotfload added
Better performance of cmdcheck target when working with file bundles

As usual, this may take a day or so to propagate.

Videos from the 2016 TUG conference

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 01:00:00 +0100

Videos from the 2016 TUG conference, Toronto are online

Most of the talks of the TUG conferences 2016 in Toronto got recorded and are now online at Zeeba TV.

Two talks at that conference have been given by Frank:

Alice goes floating — global optimized pagination (near the end of the video the audio failed unfortunately)
Honoring the life and work of Sebastian Rahtz

The related articles and slide material can be found on the project publication page.

New LaTeX release --- Issue 26 of LaTeX2e news released

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 01:00:00 +0100

New LaTeX release — Issue 26 of LaTeX2e news released

We have made a new LaTeX distribution with improves the support for the Unicode engines and has a number of other updates and improvements. Also important: we now officially require the engines to support the eTeX primitives in order to build a LaTeX format (all major engines do that already for a long time).

The most important changes and additions are documented in ltnews26.pdf. It can be found on the LaTeX2e news page.

Videos from the memorial for Sebastian Rahtz (13.2.1955 - 15.3.2016)

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0100

Videos from the memorial for Sebastian Rahtz (13.2.1955 - 15.3.2016)

Earlier this year our good friend and colleague Sebastian Rahtz passed away — with him the TeX community lost one of its very influencial members.

On September 27th 2016 the Oxford e-Research Centre hosted a memorial session for Sebastian at Wolfram College, Oxford titled “SPQR a digital legacy: what Sebastian Patrick Quintus Rahtz did for us”. Videos of the event have now been made available and they are certainly worth watching.

Phil Taylor talks about Sebastian’s contributions to the TeX world and Anne Trefethen reads a short statement from Don Knuth. I very much enjoyed listening to Joe Talbot’s talk about “What Sebastian Taught Us” and there are many more presentations that are all worth watching.

I wrote a short memorial on Sebastian for the Technische Komödie (the newsletter of the German TeX User’s Group (DANTE)). It was also was also translated to English as a TUGBoat article. Both articles can be found on the Publications page.

Sebastian and his legacy will stay with us.

Frank

New procedure for reporting LaTeX bugs

Sun, 27 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0100

New procedure for reporting LaTeX bugs

The LaTeX Project Team maintains a bugs database for the core LaTeX software (LaTeX kernel + packages maintained by the team). Due to the fact that we get more and more bug reports that we can’t help with (as they are for one of the many third-party packages out there) we have written a small package that helps with classifying issues and that identifies the correct addressee for a bug report. This package should be used in every test file showing a bug prior to reporting that bug to us.

The new procedure and some helpful information is now described in a dedicated bugs page that you find here.

Issue 10 of LaTeX3 news released

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 01:00:00 +0100

Tenth issue of LaTeX3 news released

It has been a while since we published an issue on LaTeX3 development topics, but that doesn’t mean nothing has happened in the meantime. On the contrary.

Issue number ten of the LaTeX3 news brings some info about testing LaTeX (or even non-LaTeX) packages using l3build; refinements to expl3; an experimental extension to xparse and on globally optimized pagination of documents.

Future releases of LaTeX will require an eTeX-enabled engine

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0100

Future releases of LaTeX will require an eTeX-enabled engine

LaTeX2e was released in 1994 and since then the LaTeX3 Project have been committed to keeping it working smoothly for users. That means balancing up keeping the code stable with fixing bugs and adding new features.

Back in 2003 the team announced that the eTeX extensions would be used by the kernel when they were available. The new primitives offered by eTeX make many parts of TeX programming easier and often there’s no way in ‘classical’ TeX to get the same effect. As eTeX was finalised in 1999, starting to use it seriously in around 2004 meant most people had access to them.

Since then, the availability and use of eTeX has spread, and almost all users have them available. Indeed, the standard format-building routines for LaTeX have included them for many years. There are also a lot of packages on CTAN that use eTeX, most obviously any using the expl3 programming language that the LaTeX3 Project have created.

The team had always meant to say at some stage that eTeX was now required, and indeed thought we had until we checked over the official newsletters! So as of the next LaTeX2e release, scheduled for the start of 2017, the kernel will only build if eTeX is enabled. For this release, we are likely to add a test for eTeX but no actual use directly in the kernel, though in the future there will probably be more use of the extensions.

The LaTeX Project

New home for the regression test suite

New home for the l3build regression test suite

The l3build system can be useful to any package writer

Talk from the 2017 TUG/Bachotek conference

Globally optimizing documents with floats

New LaTeX release --- Issue 27 of LaTeX2e news released

New LaTeX release — Issue 27 of LaTeX2e news released

New snapshot (SVN 6984) of LaTeX3 code released to CTAN

LaTeX3 code snapshot (SVN 6984) released to CTAN

xparse package

xfp package

expl3 programming interface

l3build system

Videos from the 2016 TUG conference

Videos from the 2016 TUG conference, Toronto are online

New LaTeX release --- Issue 26 of LaTeX2e news released

New LaTeX release — Issue 26 of LaTeX2e news released

Videos from the memorial for Sebastian Rahtz (13.2.1955 - 15.3.2016)

Videos from the memorial for Sebastian Rahtz (13.2.1955 - 15.3.2016)

New procedure for reporting LaTeX bugs

New procedure for reporting LaTeX bugs

Issue 10 of LaTeX3 news released

Tenth issue of LaTeX3 news released

Future releases of LaTeX will require an eTeX-enabled engine

Future releases of LaTeX will require an eTeX-enabled engine

New home for the `l3build` regression test suite

`xparse` package

`xfp` package

`expl3` programming interface

`l3build` system