[pracjourn-forum] Welcome to the forum

[Lance Carnes]

Welcome to the PracTeX Journal forum.

If you haven't already, please sign up for the forum at 
http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/pracjourn-forum .  Invite others to join 
also.  (For those of you new to mail lists, by joining you will be 
automatically copied on all messages sent to 
"pracjourn-forum at tug.org".  This avoids maintaining a huge cc: list for 
each message sent.  Also, you can refer back to the archives, and review 
the discussions by date, thread, author, etc.)

This list will be administered by Arthur Ogawa and others.  Feel free to 
post messages on any topic you like.  There are a few topics that are of 
current interest, though, so perhaps begin threads on these:


(1) TeX's Interface Challenges

Arthur Ogawa wrote an opinion in The PracTeX Journal Issue 2 
http://tug.org/pracjourn/2005-2/ogawa/ which is an excellent taking-off 
point for this discussion.  It's a well-written and well thought out piece.

Three other articles which touch on the same point are Peter Flom's article 
http://tug.org/pracjourn/2005-2/flom/, A. Schremmer's article 
http://tug.org/pracjourn/2005-2/schremmer/, and D.P. Story's TeX/LaTeX 
survey results http://tug.org/pracjourn/2005-2/story-survey/ (be sure to 
read the long responses also
http://tug.org/pracjourn/2005-2/story-survey/longresp.pdf and especially 
the answers to Question 20 beginning on p.28).



(2) The Pracjourn Manual of Style (PJMS)

This is a guide we eventually want to provide to authors, reviewers, copy 
editors, and the production people who do TeX formatting for The PracTeX 
Journal.  It will most likely be similar to other manuals of style, and cover:

- For typeset papers: conventions for formatting software names, URLs, 
email addresses, package names, acronyms, etc.; choice of fonts; whether to 
include these conventions in the pracjourn style or in a separate file; and 
any other style issues.

- For HTML pages: TOC format (indentation of subtitles, fonts for titles 
and subtitles, etc.); conventions for formatting of url and mailto links; 
use of -- for em-dashes; where to use italicized and bold fonts; sizes for 
text, headlines, etc.; color of fonts (interesting suggestion by Wendy 
McKay); etc.

         Perhaps also discuss some of the issues with the site generation 
program, and new or revised features, in this HTML section (or maybe this 
is best handled in a separate thread?)

*** It was originally suggested that the guide be split into two parts to 
separately cover LaTeX and ConTeXt.  Hopefully someone will take the lead 
on each of these guides, and maintain a working document.

*** Keep in mind that the guide(s) should not be too exacting or 
restrictive.  Dave Walden made a good point: "... while I think having a 
consistent style of papers, their titles, etc., is nice, I think we should 
*not* work too hard to make producing this on-line journal hard and fussy 
to do."

*** It would be good to have a draft of the PJMS ready a month or so in 
advance of the next issue (#3), so that as papers are received we can make 
a test run using the Guide(s) as we review, copy edit, and format the 
papers for publication.  Since the next issue is slated for July 15, 
perhaps shoot for having the draft done by June 15.  (This will be during 
the PracTeX05 conference, so those who attend can even have an in-person 
meeting to review the final draft.)

[If this schedule is too ambitious, then you all can decide on when it's 
feasible to have a completed draft.]



(3) A Guide to common pitfalls

This guide will list common errors made in TeX formatting (LaTeX and 
ConTeXt), e.g. forgetting to close a macro ("... \TeX is ..."), misusing 
hyphens for en and em dashes, putting footnotes in the right place (e.g. 
before punctuation), etc.

*** It would be nice to publish version 1 of the Pitfalls Guide in the next 
issue (#3).  Since the next issue is slated for July 15, perhaps shoot to 
have the draft done by June 15.  As we receive papers for #3 and copy edit 
and format them, we can use the Guide to spot problems and perhaps add new 
entries as authors come up with new pitfalls ;-)

[Again, if this schedule is too ambitious, then you all can decide on when 
it's feasible to have a completed draft and version 1.]


Have fun with these topics and others as they come up.
Best,
Lance
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