Conference vaxuum::document_ft

608.0. "Comments by LaTeX converts from Holland" by IJSAPL::KLERK (Theo de Klerk) Wed Jul 08 1987 04:50

 Now that most of our SWAS (customer s/w application services) groups
 have started to use Document and most are familiar with LaTeX, perhaps
 it's useful to pass some of their comments (since they all seem to
 come to me with it). Since frustration is forwarded more often than
 compliments, please take the comments as requests for "fine tuning":
 overall people are quite happy with Document.

Theo

  1. They like the automatic processing from source to LINE or LN03.
     Especially LINE is nice for drafts to be seen on your terminal
     while working via modem at home

  2. The LSE interface is great (if not perfect yet). 
 
  3. The fonts are better looking that most of the CM* fonts of LaTeX.
     They are more difficult to use though from the user point of view
     (always limited to the <EMPHASIS> argument length, and even that
     doesn't give much control over sizing).
     Personally, I think hiding most of this in the design files is
     making documents more uniform for the "simple" user, which is a plus.

  4. We're frustrated about the "professional" unit systems of points
     and picas. At least LaTeX also offered decimal centimeters and
     millimeters for lengths (realize that "inches" to us are just as
     awkward as picas, only 6 time less...). Also use is not consistent.
     Sometimes points are required, sometimes picas....
  
  5. Table making is a true pain compared with the LaTeX way, who would
     find out by itself what size the columns should be and could use
     fixed size columns as well.

  6. Most of us are *very* disappointed about the virtual non-existence
     of making simple linedrawings the way the {picture} environment of
     LaTeX is capable of. Cannot we integrate this environment inside
     document? It's the most wanted thing around here and the main reason
     by people go back into LaTeX every so often.

  7. A suggestion was made to allow for defining your own symbols for tags. 
     Like the LaTeX  \def\short{...a long control sequence used often...}
     we'd like something like  <DEF>(trian\ <MATH_CHAR>(triangle)) which
     allows the use of <TRIAN> to be substituted for the longer definition.
     It would mean a more intelligent tag translator, but a lot less typing
     from our side - even with LSE.

  8. We've noted a different behaviour of Document started from MMS than 
     from DCL. The MMS invoked processing causes many more <CR>s on the
     screen (making it blank at times), whereas the DCL invoked version
     doesn't.

If this is the start of an initiative, I'll second item 7 in .0, to 
allow redefining long tag sequences.  We could do this in BL6 without 
too much restriction; BL7 and BL8 really limited it.  Good example is 
the note I posted last night about <define_symbol> and 
<define_book_name>.

Rose

    
    I think I've said elsewhere before that 
    
    <define>(tag-name\|<tag1><tag2><tag3>&)
    
    will continue to work; it just isn't documented for customers at
    this time. We hope to find a better mechanism for user-definable
    tags in the future. Meanwhile, if you localize the <define> tags
    in a single source file included from the command line, any changes
    we make to the mechanism should be easy to upgrade, if changes are
    necessary.
    
    patti
    

Patti, you no doubt did say that <define> still worked, per previous 
note.  My apologies for not keeping the information near my fingertips.
Others will also appreciate the reminder, I'm sure.

Rose

>      8. We've noted a different behaviour of Document started from MMS than 
>     from DCL. The MMS invoked processing causes many more <CR>s on the
>     screen (making it blank at times), whereas the DCL invoked version
>     doesn't.


    We fixed this bug for TeX V1.0.  I presume it only happens while the
    text formatter is running?
    
    David                         

 Yes, it was the text formatter... We are all eagerly awaiting V1 - the 
 bugless one....

Theo

    Now, THERE is a vote of confidence!   "bugless"     8-)

 Well... I may have some grumbles about Document, but I appreciate
 the effort that is put into it and the way the Document group is
 handling this notesfile: terrific. If only the product did not have
 that many programs, files, converters... there are bound to be
 errors (though Knuth claims his TeX should not have any left...).
 LaTeX in this respect is (equally undocumented), but at least
 you don't have the extra <TAG> layer on top, that as a document
 designer I hate, but I *love* it on the other hand since it puts
 a serious barrier to the "normal" user who now can only write documents
 but cannot format them with \Huge and \it \tt \bf \scriptnote  flavoured
 ingredients which makes every document look slightly different.

 I still expect a bugless version one day and would be very pleased
 once I know every in and out of making <TAG>s and the full vocabulary
 of DocumentTeX.

Theo