In TeX Live 2014, 3 example files will not export with LuaTeX/XeTeX

Hi Scott,
Thanks for your work in keeping the packages working. I'm still using foils
(foiltex) so I'm very happy if it can be kept working for a long time. In
fact, I was not aware that it is no longer maintained.
That's too bad because I think I'm not the only one who still uses it.

In my personal opinion, beamer uses too many boxes and does not look good
if you use a lot of figures/images on the slides. Beamer slides may look
better for text-only slides but those slides are boring to begin with ;-)

So far (on Mac OS 10.9 using fink) foiltex still works but this is because
its tex installation is old:
pdfTeX 3.1415926-2.3-1.40.12 (TeX Live 2011/Fink)

On one computer I use Mac ports, and here everything is also OK:
pdfTeX 3.1315926-2.5-1.40.14 (TeX Live 2013/MacPorts 2013_5)

I think these are the two most commons TeX installations on Mac OS. As long
as they both support LyX + foiltex, I'm happy!

Post by Scott Kostyshak
Updates to inputenc in TeX Live 2014 will cause several export formats
to break in 3 example files.
- examples/Foils.lyx: DVI (LuaTeX), PDF (XeTeX), and PDF (LuaTeX)
using system fonts.
- examples/fr/Foils.lyx: DVI (LuaTeX) and PDF (LuaTeX) using system fonts.
- examples/aa_sample.lyx: DVI (LuaTeX), PDF (XeTeX), and PDF (LuaTeX)
using system and TeX fonts.
-examples/EuropeCV.lyx: DVI (LuaTeX) and PDF (LuaTeX) using TeX fonts.
http://tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/2014-May/035338.html
It does not seem to be a regression in the core packages but rather
that these classes were doing something messy that is not supported.
A work around (explained in the email thread above) is to put
\RequirePackage[utf8]{luainputenc} before
\documentclass[10pt,english,nologo]{europecv}
and similiar for the fonctspec loading and Foils.lyx.
Is that something we want to do? Does our layout format even support that?
These files are still exportable in other formats so we might just
want to forget about this and not change anything. I do not plan on
contacting the maintainers of Foils (nonfree and old) or EuropeCV
(old) but AA seems to be still maintained so I will contact them.
Any advice on this?
Scott

--
Regards,
Cyrille Artho - http://artho.com/
When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe
conspires to give it to you.
-- Paulo Coelho

Jean-Marc Lasgouttes

2014-05-22 08:12:44 UTC

Post by Cyrille Artho
Hi Scott,
Thanks for your work in keeping the packages working. I'm still using
foils (foiltex) so I'm very happy if it can be kept working for a long
time. In fact, I was not aware that it is no longer maintained.
That's too bad because I think I'm not the only one who still uses it.
In my personal opinion, beamer uses too many boxes and does not look
good if you use a lot of figures/images on the slides. Beamer slides may
look better for text-only slides but those slides are boring to begin
with ;-)

Yes, I depend on foils to. I tried beamer for my last presentation
(because I needed its slide animation features), but I really did not
like it. Too much bling for my taste. OTOH, I reckon that foilTeX slides
can be a bit ugly, and I'd welcome another option.

JMarc

Scott Kostyshak

2014-05-22 08:23:57 UTC

On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 4:12 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes

Post by Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
Yes, I depend on foils to.

I guess there are a lot of users still. I assumed there were not since
the last update was 6 years ago. But I guess that's not a long time in
the TeX world. Beamer was unmaintained for three years or so and then
came back to life.

I will notify the maintainer.

Scott

Liviu Andronic

2014-05-22 17:42:43 UTC

On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes

Yes, I depend on foils to. I tried beamer for my last presentation (because
I needed its slide animation features), but I really did not like it. Too
much bling for my taste.

I also have issues with all the bling that comes with Beamer by
default, but with some few Beamer config tweaks all the bling can be
toned down significantly. This is why I came up with a series of
"simple" Beamer examples on the wiki:
http://wiki.lyx.org/Examples/Beamer

Most changes are obtained very easily via simple Beamer calls in the Preamble.

Liviu

OTOH, I reckon that foilTeX slides can be a bit
ugly, and I'd welcome another option.
JMarc

--
Do you know how to read?
http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm
http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader
Do you know how to write?
http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail

Cyrille Artho

2014-05-22 23:33:52 UTC

Post by Liviu Andronic
On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes

Yes, I depend on foils to. I tried beamer for my last presentation
(because I needed its slide animation features), but I really did not
like it. Too much bling for my taste.

I also have issues with all the bling that comes with Beamer by
default, but with some few Beamer config tweaks all the bling can be
toned down significantly. This is why I came up with a series of
http://wiki.lyx.org/Examples/Beamer
Most changes are obtained very easily via simple Beamer calls in the Preamble.
Liviu

Post by Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
OTOH, I reckon that foilTeX slides can be a bit ugly, and I'd welcome
another option.
JMarc

Hi Liviu,
Thanks for the links. IMHO even the "simple" style is rather heavyweight
for the boxes (with shadows etc.). I think the trend is now towards
cleaner, simpler layouts with no 3 D effects, and only as few
lines/boxes/frames/background colors as absolutely needed.
In that sense, what was done by necessity 15 years ago when doing slides in
LyX/TeX is now again in fashion ;-)

Why FoilTeX works for me (sorry if this is getting off-topic):

For my own slides, I change the bullet symbol and title color in FoilTeX
but otherwise use it without changes. Whenever possible, I avoid bullet
lists in the first place but of course I don't always have enough time to
get rid of enumerations. I never use "striptease slides" as the audience
tends to squint, trying to read the grey text on white, while not listening
to the speaker. IMHO if you use a "striptease slide", then you have failed
in the design and should create 2 - 3 separate (but incremental) slides
instead. Note that these may repeat a figure (with modifications) but
should not repeat the entire text as you'd otherwise again end up with a
wall of text.

In short, beamer can make a wall of text look relatively pretty, and this
may work for a couple of minutes, but after that one realizes again that
walls of text are not suitable for presentations. Without that, the most
compelling features of beamer are not needed anymore.

--
Regards,
Cyrille Artho - http://artho.com/
That men do not learn very much from history is the most important
of all the lessons that history has to teach.
-- Aldous Huxley

Rainer M Krug

2014-05-23 08:41:01 UTC

Post by Liviu Andronic
On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes

Yes, I depend on foils to. I tried beamer for my last presentation
(because I needed its slide animation features), but I really did not
like it. Too much bling for my taste.

I just wanted to take a look at them, and all produce an error when
opening from LyX (LyX Version 2.1.0 (13 Apr 2014)) on a Mac.

,----
| /var/folders/50/wcr5bjwn75q595n6x82gxj280000gn/T/lyx_tmpdir.twUHvMRS5559/Buffer_convertLyXFormatXXXXXX.lyx.kSameUIi5559
| ended unexpectedly, which means that it is probably corrupted.
`----

I though that the conversion by lyx2lyx is the problem, but that one
works without problems.

I attach the converted file (from [1]).

Ironically, all non-simple beamer presentations open without
error... conspiracy? :-)

Cheers,

Rainer

Liviu Andronic

2014-05-28 07:04:18 UTC

Post by Rainer M Krug

Post by Liviu Andronic
On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes

Yes, I depend on foils to. I tried beamer for my last presentation
(because I needed its slide animation features), but I really did not
like it. Too much bling for my taste.

I just wanted to take a look at them, and all produce an error when
opening from LyX (LyX Version 2.1.0 (13 Apr 2014)) on a Mac.
,----
| /var/folders/50/wcr5bjwn75q595n6x82gxj280000gn/T/lyx_tmpdir.twUHvMRS5559/Buffer_convertLyXFormatXXXXXX.lyx.kSameUIi5559
| ended unexpectedly, which means that it is probably corrupted.
`----
I though that the conversion by lyx2lyx is the problem, but that one
works without problems.
I attach the converted file (from [1]).
Ironically, all non-simple beamer presentations open without
error... conspiracy? :-)

I'm not sure. Maybe it is related to the recently discovered issues in
lyx2lyx with more complex Beamer documents.

Liviu

Post by Rainer M Krug
Cheers,
Rainer

Post by Liviu Andronic
Most changes are obtained very easily via simple Beamer calls in the Preamble.
Liviu

Post by Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
OTOH, I reckon that foilTeX slides can be a bit ugly, and I'd welcome
another option.
JMarc

Hi Liviu,
Thanks for the links. IMHO even the "simple" style is rather heavyweight
for the boxes (with shadows etc.). I think the trend is now towards
cleaner, simpler layouts with no 3 D effects, and only as few
lines/boxes/frames/background colors as absolutely needed.
In that sense, what was done by necessity 15 years ago when doing slides in
LyX/TeX is now again in fashion ;-)
For my own slides, I change the bullet symbol and title color in FoilTeX
but otherwise use it without changes. Whenever possible, I avoid bullet
lists in the first place but of course I don't always have enough time to
get rid of enumerations. I never use "striptease slides" as the audience
tends to squint, trying to read the grey text on white, while not listening
to the speaker. IMHO if you use a "striptease slide", then you have failed
in the design and should create 2 - 3 separate (but incremental) slides
instead. Note that these may repeat a figure (with modifications) but
should not repeat the entire text as you'd otherwise again end up with a
wall of text.
In short, beamer can make a wall of text look relatively pretty, and
this may work for a couple of minutes, but after that one realizes
again that walls of text are not suitable for presentations. Without
that, the most compelling features of beamer are not needed anymore.

[1] http://wiki.lyx.org/uploads/Examples/Beamer/Liv/beamer-simple.lyx
--
Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)
Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Stellenbosch University
South Africa
Tel : +33 - (0)9 53 10 27 44
Cell: +33 - (0)6 85 62 59 98
Fax : +33 - (0)9 58 10 27 44
Fax (D): +49 - (0)3 21 21 25 22 44
Skype: RMkrug
PGP: 0x0F52F982

Liviu Andronic

2014-10-05 20:07:25 UTC

Post by Rainer M Krug

Post by Liviu Andronic
I also have issues with all the bling that comes with Beamer by
default, but with some few Beamer config tweaks all the bling can be
toned down significantly. This is why I came up with a series of
http://wiki.lyx.org/Examples/Beamer

I just wanted to take a look at them, and all produce an error when
opening from LyX (LyX Version 2.1.0 (13 Apr 2014)) on a Mac.

With 2.1.2 Juergen seems to have fixed the bugs affecting the "simple"
beamer examples:
http://wiki.lyx.org/Examples/Beamer

They opened just fine here, and compiled as expected.

Regards,
Liviu

Post by Rainer M Krug
,----
| /var/folders/50/wcr5bjwn75q595n6x82gxj280000gn/T/lyx_tmpdir.twUHvMRS5559/Buffer_convertLyXFormatXXXXXX.lyx.kSameUIi5559
| ended unexpectedly, which means that it is probably corrupted.
`----
I though that the conversion by lyx2lyx is the problem, but that one
works without problems.
I attach the converted file (from [1]).
Ironically, all non-simple beamer presentations open without
error... conspiracy? :-)
Cheers,
Rainer

Post by Liviu Andronic
Most changes are obtained very easily via simple Beamer calls in the Preamble.
Liviu

Post by Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
OTOH, I reckon that foilTeX slides can be a bit ugly, and I'd welcome
another option.
JMarc

Hi Liviu,
Thanks for the links. IMHO even the "simple" style is rather heavyweight
for the boxes (with shadows etc.). I think the trend is now towards
cleaner, simpler layouts with no 3 D effects, and only as few
lines/boxes/frames/background colors as absolutely needed.
In that sense, what was done by necessity 15 years ago when doing slides in
LyX/TeX is now again in fashion ;-)
For my own slides, I change the bullet symbol and title color in FoilTeX
but otherwise use it without changes. Whenever possible, I avoid bullet
lists in the first place but of course I don't always have enough time to
get rid of enumerations. I never use "striptease slides" as the audience
tends to squint, trying to read the grey text on white, while not listening
to the speaker. IMHO if you use a "striptease slide", then you have failed
in the design and should create 2 - 3 separate (but incremental) slides
instead. Note that these may repeat a figure (with modifications) but
should not repeat the entire text as you'd otherwise again end up with a
wall of text.
In short, beamer can make a wall of text look relatively pretty, and
this may work for a couple of minutes, but after that one realizes
again that walls of text are not suitable for presentations. Without
that, the most compelling features of beamer are not needed anymore.

--
Do you think you know what math is?
http://www.ideasroadshow.com/issues/ian-stewart-2013-08-02
Or what it means to be intelligent?
http://www.ideasroadshow.com/issues/john-duncan-2013-08-30
Think again:
http://www.ideasroadshow.com/library

Jean-Marc Lasgouttes

2014-05-23 09:54:25 UTC

Post by Cyrille Artho
I never use "striptease slides" as the audience
tends to squint, trying to read the grey text on white, while not listening
to the speaker. IMHO if you use a "striptease slide", then you have failed
in the design and should create 2 - 3 separate (but incremental) slides
instead.

I agree about striptease slider, but my needs are more about animated
diagrams. Tikz is great to create the individual drawings, but I could
use a way to use the beamer facilities like \uncover/\only in a foils
document.

Here is a recent example in foils, where I had to write horrible macros.
The table of contents is some code of mine.
https://who.rocq.inria.fr/Jean-Marc.Lasgouttes/demiheure.pdf
(the interesting part is around slide 6).

And considering how painful it was to animate the drawing, I did not use
LyX for this one :(

JMarc

Cyrille Artho

2014-05-25 23:31:49 UTC

Hi Jean-Marc,
Thank you for your example. I remember having made slides like that, too;
it was essentially a TeX Macro (ERT in LyX) with different parameters all
over. So while I could edit the rest in LyX, the animation required
hand-coding the macro.

I agree about striptease slider, but my needs are more about animated
diagrams. Tikz is great to create the individual drawings, but I could use
a way to use the beamer facilities like \uncover/\only in a foils document.
Here is a recent example in foils, where I had to write horrible macros.
The table of contents is some code of mine.
https://who.rocq.inria.fr/Jean-Marc.Lasgouttes/demiheure.pdf
(the interesting part is around slide 6).
And considering how painful it was to animate the drawing, I did not use
LyX for this one :(
JMarc

--
Regards,
Cyrille Artho - http://artho.com/
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the
opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
-- Niels Bohr

Scott Kostyshak

2014-05-22 08:18:32 UTC