ccoleman@gmuvax2.gmu.edu (Chuck Coleman) (07/17/90)
It seems that Leo has only one competitor in the TeX front-end market:
VoRTeX. VoRTeX runs on Suns, is apparently out of date and poorly
supported. Jerry Sweet <jsweet@ics.uci.edu> has kindly forwarded his
messages about VoRTeX, which are contained below.
Chuck Coleman "Sorry, no concluding witticism"
School: Work:
Center for Study of Public Choice NPA Data Services, Inc.
George Mason University 1424 16th St. N.W. Suite 700
4400 University Drive Washington, DC 20036
Fairfax, VA 22030 (202) 265-7685
BITNET: ccoleman@GMUVAX
Internet: ccoleman@gmuvax2.gmu.edu
From: Jerry Sweet <jsweet@ICS.UCI.EDU>
Status: RO
---------------Begin Forwarded Message (cc) --------------
Here's the VorTeX info, as promised. I look forward to hearing back
from you about Leo... ;-)
------- Forwarded Messages
Date: Tue, 08 May 90 16:06:38 -0700
From: Jerry Sweet <jsweet@ICS.UCI.EDU>
Subject: all about VorTeX
Here's what I've learned about VorTeX, based on the material sent to
me by Prof. Michael Harrison and the UC Berkeley Campus Software
Office. No one responded to my query for VorTeX details sent recently
to comp.text.tex, which may indicate that there are no current VorTeX
users out there, or might indicate that they exist, but none of them
reads comp.text.tex. No worries.
VorTeX is a research offering that presently consists of some possibly
useful TeX-related software frozen in a 1988 environment, to wit:
- Sun 1, 2, or 3 hardware
- SunOS 3.5 (not explicitly stated, but implied by the 1988 date)
- X10
The current version of SunOS is 4.1 (four releases after 3.5) and the
current version of X is X11R4 (four releases after X10). Although
there exists an X10 compatibility library under X11, it is not known
whether VorTeX can use it. THEREFORE, you should be prepared to do
some work yourself to update VorTeX to the current Sun 3 environment,
or to run an old environment on your Sun workstation.
Prof. Harrison said that VorTeX per se is no longer under development,
but that a successor is being developed. Based on the information
that has been sent to me by Prof. Harrison and by the UCB CSO, my
guess is that the successor is strictly PostScript-oriented. This is
only a guess, however.
Because VorTeX is a research offering, there is NO SUPPORT. This does
not mean that the software is public domain. There is a license fee,
priced to discourage casual users: $500 for a single site. This is,
of course, not bad compared to single-workstation prices for
commercial WYSIWYG documentation systems (Interleaf and FrameMaker in
particular). There is nothing in the VorTeX information packet to
indicate whether one may evaluate VorTeX before deciding whether or
not to pay the license fee, but I expect that one cannot obtain
evaluation copies.
The tape (supplied by you) contains 12 Mbytes of sources, makefiles,
documentation, etc. It includes the following:
- VorTeX, a visually oriented editor that emits and reads TeX.
(The nature of the editor, whether command-driven or mouse/menu
driven, is not stated; it might be helpful to see a comparison
to EMACS.)
- TeXdvi, LaTeXdvi, and SliTeXdvi, apparently programs
that coordinate between TeX and DVItool, a previewer.
It is not clear whether this is used directly by VorTeX
or whether this is a separate program.
- DVItool, a previewer running under SunView. It is claimed
that it "responds gracefully to missing fonts."
- dvi2x and dvi2x11, previewers for DVI files that run under X10
and X11.
- PXtool, a SUN-based font editor for PXL files. (Note that
current UNIX-based TeX and DVI previewer implementations
tend to use the newer PK and GF font formats.)
- EMACS LISP code for use with TeX, LaTeX, and BIBTeX
(may require adaptation to Gnu EMACS if it's based on
Gosling EMACS; it's not stated which EMACS is used);
works with DVItool. There is also support for dealing with
indices.
- dvitoip, a DVI to Interpress filter for use with Xerox 8044 Raven
printers; Bi-directional Xerox font conversion utilities are
included, as well as an lpr(1) driver.
- Gr2ps, a program to convert "gremlin" files (whatever those are)
to PostScript.
- Makeindex, a general purpose index processor that sorts the entries,
deals with ranges of pages, and produces the actual index file.
Up to three levels of subitem nesting within the same entry is
supported.
In addition to the above software, the VorTeX overview confusingly
refers to software "available in early 1989" which is NOT on the
VorTeX tape, and which may be still under development. In particular,
a program called UCBPS is mentioned in the VorTeX overview, which
involves a separate license agreement with UCB CSO, which goes for
$10,000 (you've got it---ten thousand dollars U.S.), not including
another piece of software, an encryption/decryption program (why or
whether this is required is not stated), for another $10,000. UCBPS,
like VorTeX itself, runs under X10 or SunView (old SunView, anyway).
It is a PostScript previewer.
For info straight from the horse's mouth, send e-mail to
"vortex@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu" or write to:
Michael A. Harrison
Computer Science Division
571 Evans Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
(415) 642-1469
For information about UCBPS, you'll have to write to the UCB CSO:
Mark Ross
University of California, Berkeley
Campus Software Office
2320 Shattuck Avenue, Suite B
Berkeley, CA 94704
(415) 643-7201, FAX: (415) 642-4566
In conclusion, my personal view is that VorTeX, given its current
state with respect to SunOS and X, coupled with the lack of support,
is not worth the $500 expense, especially when one considers all the
goodies available on the University of Washington's UNIX tape,
available for only $140. I reserve the right to revise this opinion
in the event that new information about VorTeX comes to my attention.
Furthermore, the related PostScript software is completely out of
reach for the average TeX user, and as such, should not be described
so confusingly in the same documents as the rest of the VorTeX
distribution. Note well that these opinions are based solely on
written information supplied by the VorTeX project and by the UCB
Campus Software Office. I have seen neither VorTeX nor UCBPS in
operation. I invite anyone who has used the aforementioned software
to speak up, by writing either to me or to the USENET group
comp.text.tex.
------- Message 2 [edited to remove some redundancy]
Date: Wed, 09 May 90 14:29:56 -0400
From: Clement Pellerin <clement@opus.cs.mcgill.ca>
To: jsweet@ICS.UCI.EDU
cc:
Subject: Re: all about VorTeX
We bought the tape 1.5 years ago but we never ran the program because
it was already so much out of date. We didn't have much use for it yet.
>The tape (supplied by you) contains 12 Mbytes of sources, makefiles,
>documentation, etc. It includes the following:
>
> - VorTeX, a visually oriented editor that emits and reads TeX.
> (The nature of the editor, whether command-driven or mouse/menu
> driven, is not stated; it might be helpful to see a comparison
> to EMACS.)
>
> - TeXdvi, LaTeXdvi, and SliTeXdvi, apparently programs
> that coordinate between TeX and DVItool, a previewer.
> It is not clear whether this is used directly by VorTeX
> or whether this is a separate program.
The architecture of VorTeX is divided into 3 processes that map to 3
Unix processes (no threads back then). I beleive VorTeX itself is
just a front end that coordinates the 3 programs. incTeX is the
incremental TeX. The editor is emacs. And there is a previewer.
More details in Chen's thesis (UCB 88/436) and Coher's (sp?) thesis
(UCB 88/457 )
>
> - DVItool, a previewer running under SunView. It is claimed
> that it "responds gracefully to missing fonts."
>
> - dvi2x and dvi2x11, previewers for DVI files that run under X10
> and X11.
you can find similar programs available PD. (texx and texsun).
> - EMACS LISP code for use with TeX, LaTeX, and BIBTeX
> (may require adaptation to Gnu EMACS if it's based on
> Gosling EMACS; it's not stated which EMACS is used);
> works with DVItool. There is also support for dealing with
> indices.
yes the built-in emacs editor has a TeX mode.
> - Gr2ps, a program to convert "gremlin" files (whatever those are)
> to PostScript.
gremlin is the name of a page description language for some printer.
> - Makeindex, a general purpose index processor that sorts the entries,
> deals with ranges of pages, and produces the actual index file.
> Up to three levels of subitem nesting within the same entry is
> supported.
makeindex was made available through ftp, you don't need vorTeX to
run makeindex.
>In addition to the above software, the VorTeX overview confusingly
>refers to software "available in early 1989" which is NOT on the
>VorTeX tape, and which may be still under development. In particular,
>a program called UCBPS is mentioned in the VorTeX overview...
>It is a PostScript previewer.
I don't beleive the postscript previewer was ever released (or completed).
With display postscript (NeWS and NeXTstep) you don't really need it anymore.
>Note well that these opinions are based solely on
>written information supplied by the VorTeX project and by the UCB
>Campus Software Office. I have seen neither VorTeX nor UCBPS in
>operation. I invite anyone who has used the aforementioned software
>to speak up, by writing either to me or to the USENET group
>comp.text.tex.
We bought the tape and we never saw it running either:-)
- --
news <clement
Clement Pellerin, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
clement@cs.mcgill.ca
------- Message 3
Date: Thu, 10 May 90 11:53:27 -0400
From: Clement Pellerin <clement@opus.cs.mcgill.ca>
To: jsweet@ICS.UCI.EDU
Subject: Re: all about VorTeX
> From jsweet@ICS.UCI.EDU Wed May 9 21:57:52 1990
> Thanks for the additional info and references, Clement. I might be
> able to find 'em at the UC Irvine library.
there's an article in TUGboat v10 n1 April 1989.
The first time I heard about vorTeX was in LNCS 236:
TeX for scientific Documentation.
> You mentioned incTeX; that's another one of the programs "to be
> released in early 1989" that I must assume is not in the current
> VorTeX distribution.
It's on the tape, I did not run it so I can't tell if it's anygood.
Now that I have reread the TUGboat article, it seems incTeX is
a separate processor that can typeset a minimal set of
modifications between two runs of the same file.
VorTeX is based on ctex a port of tex in C. Since it does not use
web2c, I see no hope of having incTeX for TeX 3.0
> If the core editor is EMACS, then I wonder how VorTeX can be a WYSIWYG
> editor, unless they've massively modified the display code. Do you
> know if the EMACS is Gosmacs or Stallmacs? With VorTeX being so out
> of date, it could be either one.
The toughest part was to synthesis
the source when the visual representation was modified.
I beleive you have to resyncronize the visual representation
once you modify the source. It's not done in real time.
It seems they wrote their own emacs editor written in their own lisp (vlisp).
That's what the TUGboat article says.
> As regards display PostScript---have you played at all with Gnu
> GhostScript, or is that an entirely different beast altogether?
I don't have to, I have access to a NeXT.
<clement
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