[texworks] adding luatex and lualatex to the typesetting menu

[Arno Trautmann]

Hi all,

Stefan Löffler wrote:
> On 2011-07-10 07:49, Vafa Khalighi wrote:
>> I use latest TeXworks stabe (whatever version it is) on ubuntu and
>> there is no luatex and lualatex in the typesetting menue. I added it
>> myself but was wondering if in future versions of texworks by default
>> luatex and lualatex are added to the typesetting menue too.
>
> In principle, this sounds reasonable. However, a few questions remain:
> - Is lua*tex widespread already?

At least the ~100 people that have been in my course use it. In total, 
not many may use it, but I think it is already far more popular than 
Omega ever was …
Besides, on every machine I have helped installing TeX, the first thing 
was to add LuaLaTeX to the typesetting tools …

> - Is it available (by default) on all large distros?

Yes, it is in TeX live and MiKTeX. All Linux dristros that take TeX live 
also should have it if they are up to date.

> - What is the benefit of lua*tex over the corresponding pdf*tex?

• full unicode support
• full support for smart fonts
• sane programming language
• possibility to hook into the TeX engine at several important points 
and change what it's doing.

> Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against your proposition in
> principle, but I wonder if adding more and more options by default
> benefits the (new) user, or rather becomes confusing (seeing how many
> mails there were about TeX(works) not working back in the old days when
> pdftex was the default instead of pdflatex)...

Actually I didn't even think that you would consider it *not* to be 
added. I just thought “well, they are waiting some time until it spreads 
more”. However, if TeXworks does not provide Lua*TeX by default, some 
people will think teir distribution does not feature Lua*TeX and stick 
to pdf*TeX …

cheers
Arno