current state of Y&Y web site

[Mike Prager]

Karl,

Your message brings very promising news.

What makes Y&Y TeX special?  To me--

1. Trivial installation of outline fonts & no need to deal with bitmap
fonts at ALL.

2. Excellent (if idiosyncratic) previewer.  I tried yap recently, and was
surprised at how hard the screen was to read.  Either it doesn't use
Windows anti-aliasing (possible, if it uses bitmap fonts) OR I just didn't
know how to set it up right.

3. Excellent (compact, fast, and correct) postscript output.

4.  Until a few Windows XP quirks surfaced, quick and trouble-free
installation.  (The main problem in XP is that some of us can't get
dvipsone to find the Type 1 fonts unless ATM is present.)

Could these nice features be integrated into other implementations?  I
don't know enough about Windows system programming to know that.  I think
one obstacle would be that part of Y&Y's ease of use is that it is (as they
used to advertise) "bitmap-free TeX."

What would be possible improvements to Y&Y?

A.  Clear up the font issue mentioned in #4 above.

B.  I suspect that many want virtual fonts, though I find them
baffling.  They seem to be needed for use of some font combinations (though
perhaps more because others do it that way than because they are truly
necessary?)

C.  Ability to download needed packages from CTAN without a high level of
user expertise, perhaps from within the dviwindo.

and on the Lucida fonts package:

D. Correct the overlong internal font name for lucida sans typewriter bold
italic, which makes that particular font difficult or impossible to access
under Windows.

Now, the hard part.  Though I am enthusiastic, I have neither time nor
knowledge to make much of a contribution.  If the result carried a license
requiring payment from governmental organizations, we would be inclined to
buy a few licenses, but not a quantity that would make a difference.  I
could possibly do a bit of beta-testing.

What I CAN do is say how great it would be to see continued development of
this excellent product.

Thank you for being involved!

Mike



--
Michael Prager
NOAA Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research
Beaufort, North Carolina  28516  USA
http://shrimp.ccfhrb.noaa.gov/~mprager/

NOTE: Opinions expressed are personal, not official. No government
endorsement of any product is made or implied.