Developments: late 1996 to mid 1997

During the latter part of 1996 there was much work on improving the capabilities of L^ATEX2HTML. Some of this was due to the World Wide Web Consortium's proposals for HTML 3.2, becoming a formal recommendation in November 1996, and their subsequent acceptance in January 1997. Existing L^ATEX markup for effects such as centering, left- or right-justification of paragraphs, flow of text around images, table-layout with formal captions, etc. could now be given a safe translation into HTML 3.2, compliant with a standard that would guarantee that browsers would be available to view such effects.

At the same time developers were exploring ways to enhance the overall performance of L^ATEX2HTML. As a result the current V97.1 release has significant improvements in the following areas:

image-generation

is much faster, requires less memory and inline images are aligned more accurately;

image quality

is greatly improved by the use of anti-aliasing effects for on-screen clarity, in particular with mathematics, text and line-drawings;

memory-requirements

are much reduced, particularly with image-generation;

mathematics

can now be handled using a separate parsing procedure; images of sub-parts of expressions can be created, rather than using a single image for the whole formula;

macro definitions

having a more complicated structure than previously allowed, can now be successfully expanded;

counters

and numbering are no longer entirely dependent on the .aux file generated by L^ATEX;

decisions

about which environments to include or exclude can now be made;

HTML effects

for which there is no direct L^ATEX counterpart can be requested in a variety of new ways;

HTML code

produced by the translator is much neater and more easily readable, containing more comments and fewer redundant breaks and <P> tags.

error-detection

of simple L^ATEX errors, such as missing or unmatched braces, is now performed -- a warning message shows a line or two of the source code where the error has apparently occurred;

For these developments, thanks goes especially to:

  Jens Lippmann

<lippmann@cdc.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de> for creating and maintaining the CVS repository at http://cdc-server.cdc.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/~latex2html/user/. This has made it much easier for the contributions from different developers to be collected and maintained as a ``development version'' which is kept up-to-date and available at all times. Together with   Marek Rouchal he produced an extensive rewrite of the texexpand utility.

  Ross Moore

<ross@mpce.mq.edu.au> for extensive work on almost all aspects of the L^ATEX2HTML source and documentation, combining code for L^ATEX, Perl, HTML and other utilities. Most of the coding for the new features based on HTML 3.2, many of the new packages, faster image-generation and the improved support for mathematics and other environments, is his work.

  Marek Rouchal

<marek@hl.siemens.de> for extending the former pstogif utility, transforming it into pstoimg which now allows for alternative image formats, such as PNG. Also he produced the neat configure-pstoimg script, which eases L^ATEX2HTML installation, and a rewrite of texexpand.

  

  Marcus Hennecke

<hennecke@dbag.ulm.DaimlerBenz.COM> who has always been there, up-to-date with developments in HTML and related matters concerning Web publishing, and tackling the issues involved with portability of L^ATEX2HTML to Unix systems on various platforms.

Furthermore Marcus has produced L^ATEX2HTML-NG, a version of L^ATEX2HTML which handles expansion of macros in a more ``TEX-like'' fashion. This should lead to further improvements in speed and efficiency, while allowing complicated macro definitions to work as would be expected from their expansions under L^ATEX. (This requires Perl 5, using some programming features not available with Perl 4.)

  Fabrice Popineau

<popineau@esemetz.ese-metz.fr> has produced an adaptation for the Windows NT platform, of L^ATEX2HTML V97.1.

  Uli Wortmann

<uli12@bonk.ethz.ch> showed how to configure Ghostscript to produce anti-aliasing effects within images.

  Axel Ramge

<axel@ramge.de> for various suggestions and examples of enhancements, and the code to avoid a problem with Ghostscript.

Thanks also to all those who have made bug-reports, supplied fixes or offered suggestions as to features that might allow L^ATEX2HTML to be used more efficiently in particular circumstances. Most of these have been incorporated into this new version V97.1, though perhaps not in the form originally envisaged. Such feedback has contributed enormously to helping make L^ATEX2HTML the easy to use, versatile program that it has now become.

Keep the ideas coming!

   1st L^ATEX2HTML Workshop
Darmstadt, 15 February 1997

Thanks again to   Jens Lippmann and members of the   LiPS Design Team for organising this meeting; also to the   Fachbereich Informatik at   Darmstadt for use of their facilities.

This was an opportunity for many of the current L^ATEX2HTML developers to actually meet for the first time; rather than communication by exchange of electronic mail messages.

•   Nikos Drakos talked about the early development of L^ATEX2HTML, while...
• ...   Ross Moore,   Jens Lippmann and   Marek Rouchal described recent improvements.
•   Michel Goossens presented a list of difficulties encountered with earlier versions of L^ATEX2HTML, and aspects requiring improvement. Almost all of these now have been addressed in the V97.1 release, so far as is possible within the bounds inherent in the HTML 3.2 standard.
•   Kristoffer Rose showed how it is possible to create GIF89 animations from pictures generated by TEX or L^ATEX, using the     Xy-pic graphics package and extensions, developed by himself and   Ross Moore.

Also present were representatives from the   DANTE e.V.   Praesidium and members of the   L^ATEX3 development team.
In all it was a very pleasant and constructive meeting.

   TUG'97 -- Workshop on L^ATEX2HTML
University of San Francisco, 28 July 1997

On the Sunday afternoon (2.00pm-5.00pm) immediately prior to the TUG meeting, there will be a workshop on L^ATEX2HTML, conducted by   Ross Moore¹.

Admission: $50, includes a printed copy of the latest L^ATEX2HTML manual.

TEXNortheast TUG Conference, TEX/L^ATEX Now
March 22-24, 1998, New York City

Includes a workshop/presentation by   Ross Moore².

Euro-TEX'98, 10th European TEX Conference
St. Malo, France -- 29-31 March, 1998

Several of the L^ATEX2HTML developers will be present. All European (and other) L^ATEX2HTML users are encouraged to attend.