jbw@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Jingbai Wang) (12/28/89)
Merry Xmas and happy new year! As the date getting nearer and nearer that jbw accounts on University of Pittsburgh UNIX and VMS machine vanish and that I move into another location in USA, I 'd like to send out some more messages on Ch-series package many of you have already tried out. Since it is only a Beta version, there can be many bugs. Bugs: **** chtext.c (Chinese inputter, recent versions) has a bug that can cause core dump when using CiZu input. This is caused by an extra save_cizu() right below dePinYin(...) in main(...). Just remove that line then everything will be fine. This was found by wwang@... This bug did not exist in earlier versions before I moved some global variables into functions after I received many complaints from Turbo C 2.0. Comments: ******** Among other things are that Prof. Simpson of PSU has written up quite some useful man pages that I will incorporate into the Beta release, and that people are paying too much attention to Chinese TeX which is but a small function of chtex.c. Actually chtex -w (WStroff) is much much more useful for the users who do not need math and fancy tables or formats. It can serve as Chinese->PS or ASCII->PS plain driver or a formatter. Actually all the documents in the release are formatted with it. As far as ChTeX itself is concerned, it is only a minor feature of Ch-series. Once I get more time, I will make it independent of PostScript and special version of dvi2ps as I pointed out to Lee at hawaii some time back. If macros are built, LaTeX can ride on it comfortably just like TeX. Since Ch-series was not designed for UNIX only, little advantage is taken of UNIX. Graphics mode on PC and X/X11 should be supported, but the question is: is VGA going out soon? is X11 popular enough? am I a programmer or a designer? As I pointed out before, Ch-series is just designed to illustrate my new ideas in Chinese input and output, and they believed to be the best ones existing today. The implementations however can be much improved if there is a group of commercial kind or academic nature to cooperate with me. I will keep you informed after I settle down in the new location which is some 400 miles away from Pittsburgh. JB Wang