[texworks] adding luatex and lualatex to the typesetting menu

Paul A Norman paul.a.norman at gmail.com
Fri Jul 15 04:01:43 CEST 2011


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”)

Just had a look, a great overview Arno,

Many thanks for that!

Paul

On 14 July 2011 07:38, Arno Trautmann <Arno.Trautmann at gmx.de> wrote:
> 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
>



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