Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: allprose missing file

[C Y]

--- Ralf Hemmecke <address@hidden> wrote:

> What I could provide for Axiom would be to extract several 
> parts of ALLPROSE, so that an Axiom developer could produce a
> hyperlinked .dvi file (with "inverse search" enabled, ie, 
> clicking on the .dvi file opens your favourite editor and 
> jumps immediately to the place in the corresponding .pamphlet
> file).

That's an interesting idea - sort of an "editing" mode for dvi
production.
 
> Anyway, I have to use a script to remove \documentclass, the 
> whole preample and \begin{document}, \end{document} I wonder 
> why they are there anyway. Noweb could produce a wrapper.
> Well, you might say, some files use \usepackage{graphicx} or
> \documentclass{book}. That's true, but you can count those 
> files with your two hands.

While this is currently true, I expect that as more pamphlet files are
filled out with content the latex used will grow more complex.  In my
current version of the units and dimensions tex file I already have
some relatively uncommon logic in place, and while most of what I have
might be acceptable as general logic for pamphlet files there will
undoubtedly be some point at which this no longer makes sense.

> Books are special by their very nature, but as for ordinary 
> code files in pamphlet format I would like to suggest either
> 
> 1) no \documentclass, no preample, no \(begin|end){document} or
> 2) Wrapper in the file in the form
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage{axiom}
> \begin{document}
> ...
> \end{document}
> 
> I'd prefer 1) because the wrapper for 2 could be done by the
> "document" script. If the "document" script will be needed any
> longer anyway.

Actually, I was working myself on evolving an approach to this that
allowed both article and book generation.  The approach I came up with
was something like this:

book.tex.pamphlet
<packagename>_preamble.tex.pamphlet
<packagename>_content.tex.pamphlet

book.tex would be the toplevel logic for making all of the algebra
pamphlets into one large book (or maybe we could do bookvol9,
bookvol10, etc. instead but the basic idea would be the same) using
input to pull in all relevent content files, and the _preamble.tex
files would contain the logic needed for each pamphlet file to become a
standalone dvi/pdf file and an input call to the content file.  the
_content.tex files would contain the actual content, which one would be
able to include in either book or article form without change.

I have created a working trial version of this, but I hesitated to
introduce it since a) there aren't really enough literate pamphlet
files for a full fledged test yet and b) I didn't know if this
variation would be deemed too complex to be of interest.  It's big
payoff is being able to make a book seemlessly without changing any
files except perhaps book.tex.pamphlet but it does mean any pamphlet
authors will have to separate their logic into two files, at least on
cvs commit.
 
> It is absolutely vital for me in order to produce ONE big 
> document that the preample of all files is identical (which is
> nearly the case anyway in the current .pamphlet files of 
> axiom--main--1--patch-46). What do you think?

I agree that most preambles in article form will be similar but I think
the _content.tex idea is a cleaner workaround for this than any kind of
scripting or other approach.

I haven't dug into allprose so I'm not quite sure what benefits Tim is
looking to use and how - I'll have to go back over that discussion. 
But I just wanted to mention the LaTeX approach to pamphlets in both
article and book form, to see if it generates any interest.

Cheers,
CY


                
__________________________________ 
Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
http://farechase.yahoo.com