Re: [Texmacs-dev] Why I hate TexMacs

[Henri Lesourd]

Eli Osherovich wrote:

> TexMacs HAS NO ABILITY TO PRINT/EXPORT/DO SOMETHING USEFULL 
> with images (is eps format). WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT. 
>
>  
You can import GIF, JPEG, etc.

With a little bit more work, you can also
export a 1-page, eps document with no margins,
having the width and height you want. As soon
as you are there, you can export this eps image
to any format by means of the usual UNIX image
conversion tools.

Thus *YES*, one can work with images in TeXmacs,
but as often in TeXmacs, you need a little bit
hacking.


> It is something funny to read a hot discussion on how to compile it under 
> MacOS or any other OS. WHY DO YOU WANT IT???????
>
> All those people probably do not know that the tool they try to port simply is 
> not worth it. 
>
>  
For people who do mathematics, it is very worth it,
otherwise there would be no users, and no TeXmacs
project anymore.

But the fact remains that precisely, there is a
lot of people which use TeXmacs for their daily
work.


> Do you want to waste your time on an editor that has the following "features"
>
> 1. Costant problems with speller (cannot connect to ispell...)
>  
This is a minor domain, especially in mathematics,
where the vocabulary is reduced.


> 2. Has no ability to change an environment (say, you want to change equation 
> to eqnarray or vice versa)
>  
There is definitely such an ability, at least by
means of editing the markup. Otherwise, something
like Ctrl-Tab (if I remember correctly) can be
used to cycle thru variants of a given feature.


> 3. Cannot print or export to PDF any high quality images.
>  
This is because of the external converters we use, but
as soon as you have a better one, plugging it into the
TeXmacs export pipeline is not very hard.


> 4. Export to latex is broken (try to compile a generic style document)
>  
You could contribute to it, instead of only whining !


> 5. And many many others....
>
>
>  
Same answer as previously !


> P.S.
> Actually I like TexMacs for it's ease of use and very good bindings, 
> unfortunately is can be used only for toy-problems.
It has been used for writing several books, and
is routinely used to write math papers by many
people.


> And developers are not 
> interested in any change. They would rather discuss months a new icon sets or 
> crap like that.
>
>  
We try to be well organized and plan things, and this happens to be
our current task, that's all.

As far as implementations and discussions are concerned,
on the one hand discussing is very useful to collect
info from users. And on the harsh side, I would say
that the real problem is rather that wind-moving-with-their-tongues
which say the software is address@hidden while doing nothing are many,
while dedicated developers are scarce...