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UK-TUG Discussion Meeting and AGM 2011

October 23, 2011 in AGM, Meetings | No comments

The annual UK-TUG Speaker Meeting and AGM took place yesterday at Trinity College, Oxford. The audience was small, but discussion was very lively.

Morning session

Joseph Wright began the day’s discussions with a report on the LaTeX training events run by UK-TUG in the last two years. He explained how the materials have been developed, leading to the source being available on GitHub. Joseph explained that the training is delivered with short sessions at the screen with a lot of opportunity for students to work on examples. Jonathan Fine suggested that videoing parts of course would be an opportunity to make the training more widely available. For this, an on-line LaTeX system would be needed. Joseph pointed to ScribTeX as an existing example. Jonathan also wondered about using the slide source to generate an HTML version of the material. Joseph said he’d look at this.

Simon Dales spoke next about documenting TeX sources. He described using Doxygen, a C tool, to take source comments and turn these into documentation in a variety of formats. He explained that this approach can avoid the need to decided in advance how to document code, but that Doxygen is too linked to C-style syntax to be the ideal tool for TeX. He showed a proof of concept demonstration using Doxygen, then described his second-generation approach to the problem, which he is currently implementing in Lua.

After lunch

Jonathan Fine gave the first talk in afternoon, looking at the opportunities presented by iPad and similar mobile devices. He first explained the Knuth was motivated to write TeX because of the limitations of photolithography in reproducing his books. Jonathan explained that the ePub format, used by most devices except the Kindle, is a compressed HTML5-based set of files. HTML5 features SVG as a key component, and Jonathan described how this allows typography in the webpage. Jonathan described how conversion from DVI to SVG can be used to get TeX quality output into ePub output. There was then a lively discussion about the challenges of mobile device typography.

AGM

The formal business of the day followed at 2 pm. A draft of full minutes for the AGM has already been circulated to members. The make up of the new committee was also announced:

  • Simon Dales
  • Jonathan Fine
  • Alun Moon
  • John Peters
  • Joseph Wright

The new committee will be making some more announcements in due course about other matters arising.

Afternoon session

After the AGM, Simon Dales talked about using LuaTeX for programming. He showed a simple Hello World document using Lua to include the text in a LaTeX file, then described the ability to load Lua modules. He showed how you can create your own modules to be loaded by Lua. As a fuller demonstration of the use of Lua, he showed how it allows processing of structured data to produce complex table.

Joseph Wright then talked about the TeX.sx site, and what advantages it has for new users over more traditional threaded lists and forums. He described the various features of the site, such as the Q&A structure, voting, reputation and the ability to edit material. Jonathan Fine is also registered on TeX.sx, and added a number of useful comments.

The day ended with a short stroll around Trinity College, which in the autumn sunshine was very pleasant indeed.

First notice of speaker meeting and AGM: 22nd October, Oxford

August 4, 2011 in AGM, Meetings | No comments

The committee are making initial arrangements for our yearly speaker meeting and AGM. This initial notice is very much to allow for forward planning. This year’s meeting will be taking place on the 22nd of October at Trinity College in Oxford. The arrangements for the day have yet to be finalised, but based on previous years we would expect the formal AGM business to take place early in the afternoon, with talks and TeX-related discussion surrounding that. Suggestions for talk titles, topics for discussion and so on are very welcome.

LaTeX Training Course, 15th April 2011, Cambridge

March 12, 2011 in Meetings, Training | 3 comments

The UK TeX Users’ Group (UK-TUG) periodically runs training courses in using LaTeX. We are very pleased to announce a presentation of our beginners course, loosely entitled ‘Using LaTeX to write a thesis’. The course will cover topics such as:

  • Setting up LaTeX on a computer
  • Creating basic documents
  • Logic structure in LaTeX documents
  • Including graphical material
  • Bibliographies
  • LaTeX Q&A

The course will be taking place on Friday April 15th in central Cambridge, and will run from approximately 10 a.m. to around 4:30 pm. The course will be aimed at new LaTeX users, with an emphasis on hands-on experience. We will be using a computer lab equipped with Windows PCs, but there will the opportunity to set up your system to use LaTeX. More details about the full programme for the day will be circulated to participants nearer to the course date.

Places are strictly limited by the size of the venue. To book a provisional place, please e-mail joseph.wright@morningstar2.co.uk with your details. The non-refundable course fee (£10) and the a copy of the membership form should then be sent to Joseph Wright, UK-TUG Secretary. (The course fee includes membership of UK-TUG for 2011.) Payment should be sent within two weeks of making a provisional booking, otherwise the space may be released. We will also hold a ‘reserve’ list of names if the course reaches capacity: experience suggests that the course will book up very rapidly.

The course material is intended as a general introduction to using LaTeX. However, it is useful to have some idea about the interests of those attending, as this enables us to prepare for at least some of the potential questions. A brief outline of your background is therefore encouraged along with your booking. It is also useful to know what operating system you usually use, as this is useful when preparing instructions on how to set up LaTeX for your own systems.

UK-TUG Discussion Meeting and AGM

October 16, 2010 in AGM, Committee, Meetings | No comments

The annual UK-TUG meeting, including talks on a range of topics and the AGM, took place today at the wider FLOSS meeting in Birmingham. As this was an ‘uncoference’, the day was organised very much as it happened, although the AGM was of course a fixed item!

Opening

The day started with a talk to everyone at the uncoference from Simon Phipps, a member of the Open Source Initiative board. The talk ranged over a wide range of topics, and was very much looking at the big picture for developers in Free and Open Source software. This sparked a lot of discussion, which went on well into the coffee break!

Morning session

After the coffee break, the unconference split into different groups, and those of us with an interest in TeX and related issues got together. The flexible nature of the uncoference meant that along with a core group of the TeX-devoted, there were interested audience members picking up on individual talks.

Jonathan Fine, outgoing Chairman of UK-TUG, took the first talk of the day looking at MathJax, SVG and the web. The focus was on the way that high-quality typography can be presented in modern web browsers. The SVG format was a key part of his talk, and Jonathan demonstrated how TeX output can be converted into scalable, copyable content using dvisvgm. He then explained the issues with Internet Explorer 7 and 8 with this approach: lack of SVG support! The solution to this is the Google-produced SVGweb, which converts the SVG to Flash content. Of course, Jonathan then explained that this is not an ideal solution, but it’s better than no support at all.

Jonathan’s talk led into a wider discussion about the availability of web fonts. Once again, Google’s name was mentioned, and their work on a web font directory. It was very pleasing to see David Crossland, our former Secretary, as the author of several of these.

The second talk of the morning session was given by Alex Regueiro on the topic of running TeX as a service on Windows. Alex started off outline the background:  the cost of starting up a process on Windows, and the need to look beyond MiKTeX and TeX Live for a solution. He then described the approaches he’s tried, first sticking with a standard TeX binary and then looking at a more complete approach in which a change file is applied to the TeX sources to avoid file operations.

AGM

After lunch, the formal business of the day needed to be completed. A draft of full minutes for the AGM have already been circulated to members. The AGM marked the end of Jonathan Fine’s tenure as Chairman: he handed over to new Chairman Alun Moon at the end of the AGM. The make up of the new committee was also announced:

  • Simon Dales
  • Jonathan Fine
  • Alun Moon
  • David Saunders
  • John Peters
  • Jonathan Webley
  • Joseph Wright

The new committee will be making some more announcements in due course about other matters arising.

Afternoon session

At the end of the formal business of the AGM, Alun Moon gave a statement as the new Chairman of UK-TUG. This led on to a wider discussion on the topics he raised, which broadly covered four key topics: advocacy, awareness, usability and training. There was a lot of engagement in all of these areas from the members (and non-members) present.

Joseph Wright gave the first talk of the afternoon on his LaTeX package siunitx. Joseph focussed on how he’s tried to help users, with the detail of the development process very much in the background. siunitx is a package for dealing with typesetting numbers and units, and Joseph highlighted the fact that there are a wide range of user requirements that he has tried to handle using key-value settings rather than a large number of user macros.

The second talk came from Andrew Ford, who focussed on converting a LaTeX book to ePub format, using the example of his wife’s cookbook of vegetarian recipes. Andrew explained that the ePub format is a combination of XHTML and CSS, and that LaTeXML has allowed a relatively painless conversion process. Looking beyond ePub, conversion to Kindle format (which unlike ePub is closed).

Next, Simon Dales talked about his work on using Doxygen as a tool for documenting TeX material. The concept he described makes use of suitably-designed comments to provide the documentation, a concept that many LaTeX programmers will have seen with DocStrip and the DTX format. However, Doxygen makes HTML/LaTeX/… documentation directly from the final TeX/LaTeX package files, so is good at retrospectively documenting code. Simon highlighted some of the compromises he’s had to make to get Doxygen (a tool for C-like languages) to work with TeX. His system is more than a proof of concept and promoted quite a range of discussion on the broader documentation issue.

Squeezed in before the end of the day, Joseph Wright came back to say five minutes about the TeX StackExchange site, something that both he and Jonathan Fine have taken quite an interest in.

AGM Meeting: Sign up for FLOSS!

September 24, 2010 in AGM, Meetings | No comments

This year the AGM meeting will be a bit different.  It will be part of the FLOSS Unconference, which takes place in Birmingham on Saturday 16th October.  You don’t need to book, just to turn up is enough. The Uncoference starts at 9.30.

At the start of the day everyone gets up in turn and says who they are, what their interests are, and what they’d like to do.  Based on this we get topics and then a schedule for the day.

We’ll be sharing the unconference with local Linux user groups, Birmingham Permongers, PyCon UK (Python) and the West Midlands Ruby User Group.  (FLOSS stands for free/libre/open source software.)

So if you’re interested, please visit our wiki page on the FLOSS site and tell us who you and and what you’d like to do.  If you’ve got a talk to give the Committee can probably help with travel expenses, so just ask.

UK-TUG AGM on 16th October

September 14, 2010 in AGM, Meetings | No comments

The 2010 UK-TUG AGM will be held on Saturday 16th October, at 2pm. The meeting will be held as part of the FLOSS Unconference at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, Margaret Street, Birmingham, B3 3BS, within easy walking distance of New Street and Snow Hill stations. We hope that as members as possible will be able to attend the AGM, and also perhaps attend other sessions at the Unconference, or even visit the nearby exhibition of the spectacular Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire hoard of gold and silver jewellery.

Election for Chair

The two-year term of office of the Chair comes to an end at the AGM, and Jonathan Fine has indicated that he does not wish to stand again. Anyone who wishes to stand should ask a member to nominate them for the post (in case of difficulty, ask any current member of the Committee apart from the Returning Officer).

Email nominations should be sent to the Returning Officer at treasurer@uk.tug.org, from the email address registered in the UK-TUG database; the candidate should also send an email agreeing to be nominated, again from the email address in our database.  The closing date for nominations is Monday 26th September. Candidates are asked to include a statement (at most 1,000 words) and, if they wish, their email address and URL. Statements received will be published on the UK TUG website, on pages with commenting disabled. Nominations can also be made by post: UK-TUG members should have received details of this process.

If there is a contested election then there will be a postal ballot. Ballot papers will be sent out on Monday 4th October, and should be returned to the Returning Officer by midnight on Thursday 14th October.

Elections for the committee

We have at present five elected committee members (plus the Chair ex-officio), and at least one has indicated that he will not stand for re-election. It would be good to have some new Committee members; most of our business is conducted electronically, so a remote location would be no barrier. Anyone who wishes to stand should contact the Secretary, Joseph Wright, any time before the AGM. The mechanism for nominations is similar to that for chair (by email to secretary@uk.tug.org, with a member making the nomination and confirmation from the candidate) although there is no need to submit any kind of statement. Again, members will have had details of how to nominate by post.

Motions for the AGM

Any member may submit a motion to the AGM. Motions should be sent to the Secretary either by post or by email, at the address above, and should be received by midnight on Friday 1st October.

Accounts, Treasurer’s Report and Secretary’s Report for 2009-10

The uninspected accounts are available for reading now; the formal inspected accounts will be available at the AGM.The Treasurer’s and Secretary’s reports are also available now.

Speaker Meeting

The AGM will form part of a Speaker Meeting: full details on this will follow shortly.

Elections, AGM, Birmingham meeting

August 15, 2010 in AGM, Committee, Meetings | No comments

There will be elections for Chair and Committee later this year. After four years as Chair Jonathan Fine intends to stand down, as does our Treasurer, David Saunders.

The committee has not yet made arrangements for these elections, but closing dates for nominations will be no earlier than mid-September. So if you’d like to contribute to TeX in the UK as Chair or Committee member, please consider standing.

We’re thinking of holding the AGM as part of the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Unconference in Birmingham, which takes place on Saturday 16th October.

The venue is the classic Birmingham and Midland Institute, in the city centre, just a couple of minutes from the Art Gallery and Museum, which is running an exhibition on the spectacular Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire hoard of gold and silver jewellery.

So please do consider standing for the committee, and let us know how you feel about our plans for the AGM.

BachoTeX 2010: Call for papers

February 4, 2010 in Meetings | No comments

This dropped into the UK-TUG inbox earlier today

Dear TeXies, programmers, typographers – TeX friends and lovers of fine typography,

This is the call for papers and invitation for BachoTeX 2010, the XVIIIth Polish TeX users Group conference. As usual, it will be held at the traditional TeXies’ and GUST meeting place, Bachotek near Brodnica, in the north-east of Poland, from April 30 until May 4, 2010, inclusive. This time we are especially trying to get-together typographers with programmers and designers of typography systems:

Typographers and programmers: mutual inspirations

Typography, the art of composing signs and graphics into pages and designing signs and graphics is nowadays inadvertently linked with using software. Programmers design and create systems which serve as tools for typographic projects.

During this conference we want to get together two groups of people: programmers and designers of typographic systems with typographers and other users of such systems. Share your experiences. Tell others how you are doing it. Let’s together look into what programmers can offer to those who create works containing letters and other signs and how programmers can profit from the knowledge and experience of the users of such systems, designers, typographers or creators of web pages.

The members of GUST, organizers of the conference, are especially sensitive to typesetting precision, solicitude and dependability, both in creating the tools and using them. We’d like the typographic and programming elegance and solicitude to be reflected in the conference presentations.

Especially invited are presentations on:

  • typographic projects ranging from business cards designs through web pages up to multi-volume books; we are interested is problems encountered, technologies employed, drawbacks of available software, unfulfilled dreams, successes or barriers and obstacles.
  • designing and creating programs and programming systems aimed and typographic goals: both batch and interactive typesetting systems, client-server realizations, especially such for web sites.
  • use of typography where programmability is vital: database extracts or combining multimedia and typography.

Of course we will gladly accept presentations relating the above with the TeX typesetting system but that is not a requirement for acceptance.

Let this meeting of typographers and programmers creating helper systems for typography become a step towards beautiful results!

Submissions, deadlines and addresses

Proposals (abstracts) should be e-mailed to the Program Committee, which listens at the address of prog-2010 at gust dot org dot pl. Boguslaw Jackowski (b underscore jackowski at gust dot org dot pl) is the appointed chairman. Also, please note the ‘Call for TeX Pearls’ below.

The deadline for abstracts and other proposals is March 28th 2010. The deadline for final papers to appear in the conference materials is April 10th, 2010.

The conference web pages, including a registration form, are at the canonical address: http://gust.org.pl/bachotex/2010.

Call for TeX Pearls

We are continuing the tradition of ‘The Pearls of TeX Programming’. Here is, briefly, what is wanted:

  • short TeX, MF or MP macro(s)
  • results must be useful, and the solution not obvious
  • easy to explain : 10 minutes at most

If you have something that fits the bill, please consider submitting a proposal. If you know of somebody’s work that does the same, please let us know, and we will contact that person. Other details and previously collected pearls can be found at http://www.gust.org.pl/projects/pearls/. The dedicated email address is: pearls at gust dot org dot pl.

Jerzy Ludwichowski
GUST, President

Special Electronic General Meeting: Voting results

December 21, 2009 in Meetings | No comments

UK-TUG has been holding a Special Electronic General Meeting over the last week. The voting period has now ended, and the Committee are pleased to announce that all four motions to be considered have been agreed. Three motions were day-to-day running matters, and the fourth was a minor clarification of the Constitution. Thanks to everyone who voted.

Spring Meeting: LaTeX Support and Training

November 23, 2009 in Meetings | No comments

Following the successful discussions at the UK-TUG AGM on supporting LaTeX users, the Committee is now planning a Spring Meeting with the title LaTeX Support and Training. At present, things are still at an early planning stage. We are aiming the meeting as an even to bring together people who provide support or training about LaTeX to new users, for example university-based lecturers, IT support staff and active members of the various online support avenues. The Committee are currently inviting a number of exciting speakers to attend: please do make suggestions about potential speakers or to come forward yourself!

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