[texworks] adding luatex and lualatex to the typesetting menu

[Arno Trautmann]

Hi,

Stefan Löffler wrote:
> On 2011-07-13 20:22, Arno Trautmann wrote:
>> 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 …
>
> FWIW, Omega is not in our default list ;).

For good reasons. Elsewise I would insist on Aleph, too ;)

>>> - What is the benefit of lua*tex over the corresponding pdf*tex?
>>
>> • full unicode support
>> • full support for smart fonts
>
> This sounds reasonable to have for every user...
>
>> • sane programming language
>> • possibility to hook into the TeX engine at several important points
>> and change what it's doing.
>
> ...while this I would consider something the average new TeX user has
> little interest in exploring.

You asked for the benefits of LuaTeX vs. pdfTeX. Plus, I am not an 
average TeX user, but I love TeXworks.

>> 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 …
>
> I do consider both adding it and not adding it. As I said above, my fear
> is that users might be confused (as it is, they have to choose between
> pdftex, pdflatex, XeTeX, XeLaTeX, BibTeX, and two ConTeXts if all they
> want is "TeX" (and I know BibTeX is unrelated, but it has TeX in its
> name)). So, if LuaTeX is intended to supersede pdfTeX, I could imagine
> simply replacing the latter by the former. But in order to do that, it
> must be stable, compatible, and available. That's why I asked.

No, superseding will definitely not happen in the next years.
Maybe a possible improvement would be to offer some kind of drop-down 
menu that separates engines from formats. So one could take LaTeX or 
plain or ConTeXt and then choose between pdf, dvi, lua, dvilua, /or/ Mk 
II, Mk IV, …

> On another point: people should realize early on that TeXworks is not
> their distribution (I know they don't, but still the should ;)). That
> said, there are uncountably many tools that people could install, either
> officially through their distro, or manually, but providing access to
> all of them by default defeats the purpose of Tw to provide a simple
> editor. So, I guess it all comes down to the question: what does the
> majority of new users expect to use? And what does the majority of new
> users have installed by default (this includes average or even minimal
> distro installations, not just the "full" variant)?

I'm not sure, but LuaTeX should be in every minimal variant. However, it 
is the designated pdfTeX successor, so it has some kind of a special role.

> PS: I have to confess I'm not up to speed with all the engines out
> there, especially when it goes in the direction of XeTeX or ConTeXt.
> That's also why I might ask seemingly stupid questions ;).

Maybe this document might help a bit – that's exactly the reason I 
started it for:
https://github.com/alt/tex-overview/blob/master/tex-overview.pdf
(click on “View Raw”)
For ConTeXt, it is quite easy, as Mk IV (the latest version) only uses 
LuaTeX.

cheers
Arno