
Open Beta of Texpad 1.8, macOS LaTeX editor with integrated realtime typesetting - steeleduncan
https://www.texpad.com/news/macos-v1.8-open-beta
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geoka9
This is tangential to the topic, but of you use TeX or any related system
(latex, texinfo, cweb, metapost, etc.), please consider becoming a TUG (TeX
User Group) member. They rely on membership and donations to keep going (and
there are some tangible benefits to being a member, too).

(Disclosure: a friend who is active there told me they are not doing so well.)

[https://tug.org/join.html](https://tug.org/join.html)

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cefstat
I've downloaded the beta and played for 5 minutes. First remarks and thoughts:

\- When the realtime typesetting works it is _impressive_. For example,
changing the coordinates in a tikz picture results in almost immediate change
of the PDF. And command / environment auto-completion is very smooth, very
well done.

\- However, the typesetter can get stuck and this happened for me in the first
try. I am aware it is only the first public beta so I guess things will
improve.

\- Please, oh please, can any specialized TeX editor reproduce the following
feature I have setup in Emacs? In the editor (not live preview) display
standard mathematical symbols as symbols and not as commands. For example,
make \alpha appear as α or \int appear as ∫. This is so nice that I hesitate
moving to other tex editors because I know I will miss it.

~~~
klancaster
Which extension do you use in Emacs to get the symbols?

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cefstat
I am not aware of an extension doing this. I wrote some elisp for doing this a
few years back.

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curiousgal
Can you share your latex setup?

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Toenex
I'm sure real-time rendering will be useful in a variety of use cases.
However, one of the main reasons I use LaTeX (when I did) was because it
allowed me to separate creation of the content from worrying about the format.
This meant I could switch between author and designer without my (feeble)
focus being distracted by an image jumping around or an equation overflowing.
Indeed I actually found 'compiling' a LaTeX document quite exciting as I
anticipated how it might look.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I can see this being useful in the final phases of a paper, when I’m killing
orphans (words and sentences), overflows, and underclass, via slight sentance
rewriting. Right now it’s modify, build, examine, modify, ...

Of course that I can do this at all is due to tex’s layout algorithms that try
for good fits but not too hard (a good choice IMHO).

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JustFinishedBSG
Finally ! Waited for sooooooooooo long.

Just as I start my PhD too, nice.

~~~
R_haterade
I'll second the other child comment and wish you good luck.

I'll also tell you to check out overleaf--it does most of this in a browser,
so you have the collaborative aspect if you need it.

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pixelHD
I've always used sharelatex, but recently overleaf and sharelatex merged.
Nevertheless, have a look at sharelatex too - I prefer their UI.

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applecrazy
I’m surprised that more editors don’t have a built in TeX distro. I really
don’t want to install 500mb to 1gb worth of software and fonts for something
that I’ll use probably once every 3 months.

~~~
robotresearcher
I think you explained it in your statement. Why bloat an editor for a niche or
occasional use?

Online TeX systems like Overleaf solve the problem.

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rev_bird
So excited for this, really excited to dig in and start kicking the tires. One
question, since it looks like steeleduncan is answering questions in here: How
does the realtime typesetting deal with large documents? I can't tell if it
can keep up because it's only re-calculating a segment of the total document,
but I've been working with LaTeX mostly for book-length documents; my chronic
annoyance is the minute-plus compile times unless I break it up and only
compile a chapter or two at a time. A realtime option would be a huge benefit
for the final typesetting runs where I'm trying to fix image placement and
orphans and whatnot, but I don't know if that's asking too much of the engine.

~~~
steeleduncan
When you move to a new part of the document you will see "Caching" briefly
whilst Texpad prepares itself, then as you say, it will be incremental
typesets from then on.

What you are suggesting should work well, if you have troubles with that in
the beta please get in touch with us at support at vallettaventures dot com
with the document and we'll take a look.

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ertand
Really cool project. I have some comments tho.

I don't quite understand what Connect is. Is it a cloud IDE or is it an add-on
to sync your projects across existing clients on Mac or iOS. I think this
wording confused me the most on the OSX client: "$9.99 + 6 month subscription*
of Texpad Connect". I'd package it as: if you buy OSX client, you get 50% off
from Connect for the next 6 months. Or even better, just give 3 month Connect
for free with each license.

Also, I don't understand why you'd have to buy Mac and iOS licenses
separately. Wouldn't it be nicer to use a single license across all of your
devices?

~~~
steeleduncan
Yes, we are reworking the website for 1.8's release, that is going to be
altered. You are correct, it is a discount when bought together.

Connect is for realtime collaboration. You and your collaborators can use
Connect from within Texpad so that you have a single document between you.

There is no facility in the iOS App Store for us to sell codes, or for us to
find out who has purchased via the iOS App Store, therefore it is an entirely
separate product to that which is sold via our website.

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qubex
I just purchased 1.7 today, this is an unexpected bonus. :)

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qubex
What's the point with deliberately voting down my statement? I was just
rejoicing. I was already happy with 1.7 and 1.8 is even better. How on earth
does demand retribution??

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andrewbinstock
It's not retribution. IMHO, it's a response to posting something that does not
advance the conversation. Nobody gains any knowledge about the product or the
market niche by knowing that you're rejoicing. While this might not seem
welcoming to your comment, the policy keeps HN on track as a forum of high-
quality conversations. Given your good karma numbers and your comment history,
you've contributed many of helpful comments and insights in the past. Thanks!

~~~
qubex
That’s a very clear, concise, and now that I think of it, condivisibile
explanation. You’re right about staying on topic. Thanks for the levelheaded
response, I really appreciate it.

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bionoid
This looks interesting, but I don't think I can commit to mac-only software
for this personally. I stumbled on TeXstudio [0] about a year ago, it has been
very nice, though I still have a ways to go as I had not used any TeX
before... It's GPLv2, cross-platform Linux, MacOS and Windows.

[0] [https://www.texstudio.org/](https://www.texstudio.org/)

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jhanschoo
I’m on mobile at the moment, so please bear with me. There are several
features that AuCTeX + evince gives me that I have not seen together in many
other solutions:

* ability to invert pdf colors for night time * synctex support * ability to also easily switch to other pdfs that I’m referencing

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eastWestMath
How does this work with packages like TiKZ or TiKZ-CD? Right now I’m perfectly
happy with auctex and aquamacs, but if this did real-time tikz rendering then
I would be sold.

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singhrac
By the way, if you're using tikz-cd, you should check out
[http://tikzcd.yichuanshen.de](http://tikzcd.yichuanshen.de). It's not really
complete enough for a final version, but I appreciate being able to put a
quick backbone down and then edit later.

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bump-ladel
See also Compositor, which is also in development and available as a preview.

[http://compositorapp.com](http://compositorapp.com)

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JustFinishedBSG
Thanks it's incredibly impressive.

EDIT: I bought his previous app for iPad. It was equally as impressive but
very quickly discontinued....

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tnecniv
Unfortunately, it crashes instantly upon trying to open any of my documents.

Looking forward to the stable build. I'm a big fan of the editor.

~~~
steeleduncan
Is there any chance you could email us at support at vallettaventures dot com?
Potentially there is something specific about your document triggering the
crash. If you could paste the crash report into the email that would be really
helpful.

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dorian-graph
I wish I had a need for this right now. I used 1.7 to write my thesis and
loved it.

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kennydude
This would be launches as I've graduated. Congrats guys!

Hope I find a use for it soon!

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ninjakeyboard
Whatever happened to ITeX? (rings bell)

