trunk/doc/ltnews09.tex

   1 % \iffalse meta-comment
   2 %
   3 % Copyright 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
   4 % The LaTeX3 Project and any individual authors listed elsewhere
   5 % in this file.
   6 %
   7 % This file is part of the LaTeX base system.
   8 % -------------------------------------------
   9 %
  10 % It may be distributed and/or modified under the
  11 % conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3c
  12 % of this license or (at your option) any later version.
  13 % The latest version of this license is in
  14 %    http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
  15 % and version 1.3c or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
  16 % version 2005/12/01 or later.
  17 %
  18 % This file has the LPPL maintenance status "maintained".
  19 %
  20 % The list of all files belonging to the LaTeX base distribution is
  21 % given in the file `manifest.txt'. See also `legal.txt' for additional
  22 % information.
  23 %
  24 % The list of derived (unpacked) files belonging to the distribution
  25 % and covered by LPPL is defined by the unpacking scripts (with
  26 % extension .ins) which are part of the distribution.
  27 %
  28 % \fi
  29 % Filename: ltnews09.tex
  30
  31 % This is issue 9 of LaTeX News.
  32
  33 \documentclass
  34 %    [lw35fonts]
  35    {ltnews}[1999/02/23]
  36
  37 %\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
  38
  39 \publicationmonth{June}
  40 \publicationyear{1998}
  41 \publicationissue{9}
  42
  43 \begin{document}
  44
  45 \maketitle
  46
  47
  48 \section{New math font encodings}
  49
  50 A joint working group of the \TeX{} Users Group and the \LaTeX3
  51 Project is developing a new 8-bit math font encoding for \TeX{}.
  52 It is designed to overcome several limitations and implementation
  53 problems of the old math font encodings and to simplify switching
  54 between different sets of math fonts, much as the \LaTeX{} font
  55 selection interface has simplified switching between text fonts.
  56
  57 Since the work on this project relies entirely on volunteer work, we
  58 cannot give a specific release date yet.  However, a prototype
  59 implementation already exists.  This contains several sets of virtual
  60 fonts, some \LaTeX{} packages and a kernel module; we hope to
  61 integrate it into the main \LaTeX{} distribution for the next
  62 release.
  63
  64 Documents using only standard \LaTeX{} commands for math symbols
  65 should not be affected by switching to the new math font encodings
  66 However, documents, classes or packages making specific assumptions
  67 about the encoding of math symbol fonts are likely to break.
  68
  69 Further information about the Math Font Group may be found on
  70 the World Wide Web at \texttt{http://www.tug.org/twg/mfg/}.
  71
  72
  73 \section{A new math accent}
  74
  75 A new math accent, \verb|\mathring|, has been added. This is a math mode
  76 version of the ring accent (\r{}) which is available in text
  77 mode with the command \verb|\r|.
  78
  79 \section{Extended \cs{DeclareMathDelimiter}}
  80
  81 The command \verb|\DeclareMathDelimiter| has been extended.
  82 Normally this command takes six arguments. Previously, when being used
  83 to declare a character (such as \texttt{[}) as a delimiter, a variant
  84 form was used with only five arguments. The argument specifying the
  85 default `math class' was omitted. Now the full six-argument form may be
  86 used in this case. The extra information is used to implicitly declare
  87 the character via \verb|\DeclareMathSymbol| for use when the symbol is
  88 not used with \verb|\left| or \verb|\right|.
  89
  90 The old five-argument form is detected and will work as before.
  91
  92 \newpage
  93
  94 \section{Tools distribution}
  95
  96 The \texttt{multicol} package now supports the production of multiple
  97 columns without balancing the last page. To get this effect use the
  98 \texttt{multicols*} environment.
  99
 100 The \texttt{layout} package was partly recoded by Hideo Umeki to
 101 display page layout effects in a better way.
 102
 103 As suggested by Donald Arseneau, the \texttt{calc} package was extended
 104 to support the new commands \verb|\widthof{<text>}|,
 105 \verb|\heightof{<text>}|, and \verb|\depthof{<text>}| within a
 106 \texttt{calc}-expression.  At the same time we modified a few kernel
 107 commands so that \texttt{calc}-expressions can now be used in various
 108 useful places such as the dimension arguments to the \texttt{tabular}
 109 environment and the \verb|\rule| command. For many other standard
 110 \LaTeX{} commands this was already possible.
 111
 112
 113 \section{Support for Cyrillic encodings}
 114
 115 We are very pleased that, after a lengthy period of development, a set
 116 of fonts, encodings and support files for using \LaTeX\ with Cyrillic
 117 characters will soon be available.
 118
 119 Test versions of the `LH' fonts for these Cyrillic encodings, based on
 120 the Computer Modern design, are available from CTAN archives in the
 121 directory \texttt{fonts/cyrillic/lh-test}.  The \LaTeX\ support files
 122 (by Werner Lemberg and Vladimir Volovich) are also available from CTAN
 123 archives in\\
 124  \texttt{macros/latex/contrib/supported/t2}
 125
 126
 127 \section{Default docstrip header}
 128
 129 Many \LaTeX\ users now distribute packages in documented source form
 130 using the \textsf{docstrip} system. Docstrip allows a header to be
 131 placed on generated package files, suitable for giving copyright
 132 information, or distribution conditions.
 133
 134 We have changed the default version of this header so that it allows
 135 stripped files to be distributed in ready-to-run installations such as
 136 the \TeX{}Live CD\@.  If you use the default header for distributing
 137 your files you should check that the new copyright text is acceptable
 138 to you.  The file \texttt{docstrip.dtx} explains how to produce your own
 139 header if you wish to do so.
 140
 141
 142 \end{document}