Re: asked Hans Hagen after VTeX drivers (etc)

["MicroPress Inc." <support@micropress-inc.com>]

A few comments from the VTeX's side...

>------- Weiterleitung
>To: hraban@fiee.net (Henning Hraban Ramm)
>Cc: ntg-context@ntg.nl
>Subject: Re: more TeXs (was: progname explained)
>From: Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>
>Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 09:59:38 +0200
>
>At 10:56 AM 8/26/2001 +0200, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
>
>>Hans promised some day to Michael Vulis (so he told me) to make
>>a driver (or what is needed) for VTeX.
>>I know there's much more that Hans should and will do before,
>>I just wanted to remember... (Even if I can get no hope that
>>everything will ever run on MacOS Classic).
>
>yes, but then i need to install a version of vtex [which means big 
>downloads] first -)

Not a very big download. The entire VTeX/Free distrib is under 20mb;
even on a modem connection it would not take too long. Or, alternatively,
I'll be glad to mail it to you on CD, if you are serious about writing the
context driver.

>
>anyway, if you provide me the specs [the piece of the manual dealing with 
>specials] i can write you that driver

It is really all documented, albeit in different places. I do not have a clear
idea _which_ specials you need. If graphics, the easiest way to look at
vtex.def for the graphicx package. If hyperstuff, see the links and the
outline sections in the manual. If pdf-forms, it is in forms.pdf, or just use
pdfmarks [the build-in PS interpreter does understand pdfmarks, so this
is one way of doing everything.]

>
At 01:19 AM 8/28/01 +0200, you wrote:
>To: "Christof Schardt" <christof.schardt@t-online.de>
>Cc: <ntg-context@ntg.nl>
>Subject: yandytex
>From: Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>
>Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 10:26:57 +0200
>
>At 11:38 AM 8/26/2001 +0200, Christof Schardt wrote:
>
>> > >You mean, different settings based on wether we're running pdftex,
>> > >pdf-e-tex or knuth's tex?
>> >
>> > Just to remember: There's another TeX, the best for PDF: VTeX.
>>
>>Can someone tell some words about Y&Y-TeX and ContexT?
>>(resp. VTeX vs. Y&Y)
>>
>>I wonder, wether Context will make it obsolete
>>bying one of those commercial packets, and
>>- if not - which are teh benefits.
>
>yandytex is just tex, but with dynamic memory allocation; long ago it 
>wasthe only big tex along with hugeemtex, but nowadays there is no need for 
>bying a tex any more since there is web2c and miktex, which are both big 
>and fast. Furthermore, yandytex does not produce pdf output. the dvi to ps 
>backend of yandy is one of the best there is and may be worth bying if you 
>want to produce ps or go from ps to pdf; but i must admit that i always use 
>pdftex today; also dvipsone does only run on windows and does not support 
>virtual fonts

>vtex is another story, since it is an extended version of tex [although i'm 
>not sure if it also implements etex]. 

It has extensions which are parallel to etex's but done in a different
way [like 64k of registers.]. 

>It has a pdf backend as well as a ps 
>interpreter on board [think of tight integration between tex and gs]; as a 
>result, you can do graphics trickery.
>In order to use the power of vtex [and not fall back on low level codig] 
>you need of course macros to handle that.

Ugghh, I'm not so sure this is the case. We did a number of high-level
packages, like business charts of the function plot. But there is just
no way to provide high level packages for everything a user may want
to do, and it is unclear if programming some low-level (but std) postscript
is really much worse than programming metapost.

>
>pdfetex, well, you know that one i suppose, it is a triptest compatible tex 
>with dvi and pdf backend, and a couple of extras that make live more easy 
>as well as some extra typographical extensions
>
>context is a macro package, that works on top of any tex, but in orde to 
>access special features of some tex or backend, a special driver is needed, 
>and writing one is not that big a deal since there is a high level of 
>abstraction;
>
>to be honest, i don't know how well context+metapost compares with 
>latex+vtex but so far i can do what i want; having nice low level trickery 
>available without decent support from the macro package is not interesting 
>for me. on the other hand it should not be that hard to interface to vtex, 
>but i would probably not use the graphic features in there as long as i can 
>use metapost; 

Let me take an exception to this.
There are things that can be done only with PS-level hacking. Inclusion
of MetaPost is specifically "inclusion"; MetaPost cannot change the
material which comes from TeX (like some PSTricks intercepts do) or
from a non-MetaPost EPS data (like PSFrag does). There are situations
when you may want MetaPost, and there are ones when you may want
something else.

>some font trickery on the other hand looks interesting [and i 
>wonder how hard it would be to extend pdftex with it]; 

Makes me wonder what that is exactly... there is quite a lot of font
trickery there. If you are talking about MM support, then you really
need a PS interpreter present for proper job. Some other things
probably can be done on top of the pdftex framework.

>another interesting 
>vtex feature is the html output but i never looked into that

Hmm, not sure it is actually interesting. Mode 10 (HTML) output is almost
entirely done by a macro package. 

>
>so, unless you need very special features present in vtex, you can stick to 
>pdfetex+context; in any case, it may be worth looking into  some of the 
>yandy [lucida,mathtimes] and.or vtex [times,helvetica,informal,...] fonts
>
>Hans

Anyway, if you are serious about providing context drivers for VTeX, we'll
try to help you in any way possible; this would be a really good thing for
everybody -- and you, by virtue of knowing context are in the better position
to do it. Here is a little secret: there will be a new mode, more interesting
than pdf, some time this year... and if your drivers support VTeX in PDF
mode, they should support the new toy as well.

---------------------------------------------
Michael Vulis
MicroPress

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