iPad and TeX/LaTeX
Hooman
After today's unveiling of the iPad, I was wondering if it will be
possible in the future to have a full fledge TeX implementation for
iPhone OS to run on iPad. For those who use Pages or similar products,
there will be available tools to compose documents. For those of us
who use TeX/LaTeX and will own an iPad, a complete TeX implementation
can prove very helpful. From what I read, the CPU power should be more
than enough.
What are your thoughts on this subject? Has anyone tried to make TeX
Live run on iPhone OS?
Best,
Hooman Javidnia
Steve Checkoway
> What are your thoughts on this subject? Has anyone tried to make TeX
> Live run on iPhone OS?
$ du -csh /usr/local/texlive/2008
1.9G /usr/local/texlive/2008
1.9G total
I can't imagine wanting to burn 2GB of a maximum of 64 GB on TeX.
Presumably, one wouldn't need all of TeX Live, but I suspect it would
still be pretty large with a reasonable subset of TeX Live.
--
Steve Checkoway
Franck Pastor
Rowland McDonnell
I don't see why not. You can get a reasonable TeX installation on a Mac
with a 40MB HDD. I know: I've done it. Standard OzTeX installation.
Hmm. Or a reasonable TeX installation on an MS-DOS PC with a 20MB HDD.
I did that once too. Standard emTeX installation.
TeXLive's a *HUGE* bundle of stuff - `all the goodies anyone could want,
and far more than anyone could possibly learn about'.
A TeX installation 1/10th the size would still be very useful. I know I
use almost none of what's supplied with MacTeX - most of TeXLive's
simply inaccessible to normal users due to the complete absence of
decent documentation. Experts only...
Rowland.
--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland....@dog.physics.org
Sorry - the spam got to me
http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk
UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
Simon Spiegel
While LaTeX on the iPad would certainly be a cool thing to have, I
think the killer application would be a bibliographic app for managing
your PDFs and handling your bibliographic data. Think of BibDesk,
JabRef or Zotero for the iPad.
Simon
Franck Pastor
> Steve Checkoway <schec...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hooman <hooman.javid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What are your thoughts on this subject? Has anyone tried to make TeX
>>> Live run on iPhone OS?
>>
>> $ du -csh /usr/local/texlive/2008
>> 1.9G /usr/local/texlive/2008
>> 1.9G total
>>
>> I can't imagine wanting to burn 2GB of a maximum of 64 GB on TeX.
>> Presumably, one wouldn't need all of TeX Live, but I suspect it would
>> still be pretty large with a reasonable subset of TeX Live.
>
> I don't see why not. You can get a reasonable TeX installation on a Mac
> with a 40MB HDD. I know: I've done it. Standard OzTeX installation.
>
> Hmm. Or a reasonable TeX installation on an MS-DOS PC with a 20MB HDD.
> I did that once too. Standard emTeX installation.
>
> TeXLive's a *HUGE* bundle of stuff - `all the goodies anyone could want,
> and far more than anyone could possibly learn about'.
>
> A TeX installation 1/10th the size would still be very useful. I know I
> use almost none of what's supplied with MacTeX - most of TeXLive's
> simply inaccessible to normal users due to the complete absence of
> decent documentation. Experts only...
>
> Rowland.
Not only OzTeX: as I said, BasicTeX (85.2�MB), a small but autonomous
part of TeX�Live, would be a nice solution.
And it seems that this kind of distribution could relatively easily
exist on another platforms. See the explanations of Richard Koch, the
creator of TeXShop and BasicTeX:
Franck Pastor
BasicTeX (85.2 MB) plus the MacTeX-addition (190.2 MB) which contain
BibDesk, TeXShop… Once again, it would probably be a valuable candidate
for this iPad's TeX Distribution …
Simon Spiegel
Unfortunately, you can't just magically make BibDesk run on the iPhone
OS. Apart from the fact that you would need a completely new UI, one of
BibDesk's developer has just said the following on the BibDesk mailing
list: "As for the code base, I can tell you that 90% of BibDesk and
Skim are totally useless for use on an iPad or iPhone".
Simon
William F. Adams
There is at least one project to get TeX running on an iPhone.
I'd be interested in seeing this happen in conjunction w/ something
like to Infty Reader:
or FFES:
http://research.cs.queensu.ca/drl//ffes/
I use the former on my Fujitsu Stylistic and it works quite well ---
I've also written a couple of publications using my Stylistics
including my TUG2003 presentation.
But the iPad has no stylus or handwriting recognition.
A fully ported LyX would be a lot more interesting, but again,
handicapped by the lack of HWR. Ditto for BibDesk.
William
Joris
Does anyone know if the ipad comes with wings?
JohnF
> Hooman <hooman.javid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> After today's unveiling of the iPad, I was wondering if it will be
>> possible in the future to have a full fledge TeX implementation for
>> Live run on iPhone OS?
>
> There is at least one project to get TeX running on an iPhone.
> I'd be interested in seeing this happen in conjunction w/ something
> like to Infty Reader:
> http://inftyreader.org/
> or FFES:
> http://research.cs.queensu.ca/drl//ffes/
> I use the former on my Fujitsu Stylistic and it works quite well ---
> I've also written a couple of publications using my Stylistics
> including my TUG2003 presentation.
> But the iPad has no stylus or handwriting recognition.
> A fully ported LyX would be a lot more interesting, but again,
> handicapped by the lack of HWR. Ditto for BibDesk.
> William
Are devices in this class real productivity tools vis-a-vis La(TeX)
or will it be some time before they become more than toys?
Seems to me like the effort required to get a usefully complete
TeX environment up-and-running on such devices is a job in itself,
leaving little time left over for the job you wanted to do with it
in the first place. And unavoidable usability compromises can make
it hard to accomplish your work. I've found a netbook (a Samsung
nc10 in my case) much more productive -- TeX came along with the
linux distribution I easily installed on it (dual booting with
its native winxp), and everything runs as usual, and typing is
pretty comfortable. Maybe it's a bit bigger and its five-hour
battery life a bit smaller, but it seems to me like the best
combination of compromises for getting down to work and for
getting work done. Would that be the concensus?
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j...@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )
Turgut Durduran
> pretty comfortable. Maybe it's a bit bigger and its five-hour
> battery life a bit smaller, but it seems to me like the best
> combination of compromises for getting down to work and for
> getting work done. Would that be the concensus?
I use LaTeX on a SamsungQ1 Ultra, UMPC (slate). I would not do very heavy
documents on that but for editing my presentations, writing up quick
letters, editing papers, it does the job. I cheat a bit and use a small
external keyboard though. I think that is the biggest pain in using LaTeX
on these type of gadgets.
ugdc
Friedrich Vosberg
> one of BibDesk's developer has just said the following on the BibDesk mailing
> list: "As for the code base, I can tell you that 90% of BibDesk and
> Skim are totally useless for use on an iPad or iPhone".
So they have to do a hard bit of work.
Kind regards, Friedrich
--
Kinderl�rm ist Zukunftsmusik.
vatolin (at) me (dot) com
Friedrich Vosberg
> I can't imagine wanting to burn 2GB of a maximum of 64 GB on TeX.
IMHO the point is the in-App-purchase-principle. E.g. there should be a
basic standard and very slim TeXLive App. Form inside this App one could
load every additional required package to customize ones individual TeX
installation on the iPad.
And with the additional keyboard and docking station for the iPad I
think this is a very usefull mobile TeX gadget.
Sebastian Szwarc
> Steve Checkoway <schec...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I can't imagine wanting to burn 2GB of a maximum of 64 GB on TeX.
>
> IMHO the point is the in-App-purchase-principle. E.g. there should be a
> basic standard and very slim TeXLive App. Form inside this App one could
> load every additional required package to customize ones individual TeX
> installation on the iPad.
>
So we wait for TexLive team for preparing version for iPhone. Should be
not very difficult however I'm not sure what language are tl sources
written in,native apps on iPhone need objective-c ....
Sebastian
Yue Wang
Well, actually TeXLive is not hard to compile on iPad (except XeTeX,
which relies on ATSUI, which is not available on iPad. I think XeTeX
should transit the code to Core Text, since ATSUI will be deprecated
in the future Mac OS X).
The major problem is how to design a good interface for TeXShop.
The most difficult part is there is no PDFKit on iPad. We should use
Core Graphics instead.
After this is done than we can think about things like bibtex and
skim.
Yue Wang
Yue Wang
Already available in Windows 7. No luck for iPad.
Yue Wang
JohnF
> JohnF <jo...@please.see.sig.for.email.com> wrote:
>> pretty comfortable. Maybe it's a bit bigger and its five-hour
>> battery life a bit smaller, but it seems to me like the best
>> combination of compromises for getting down to work and for
>> getting work done. Would that be the concensus?
>
> I use LaTeX on a SamsungQ1 Ultra, UMPC (slate). I would not do very heavy
> documents on that but for editing my presentations, writing up quick
> letters, editing papers, it does the job.
Yeah, that makes lots of sense. iPad TeX could be very reasonable for
short revisions to existing documents that you want to make on the road.
I'd been thinking of your "heavy" editing, and overlooked the short
revision requirement.
> I cheat a bit and use a small
> external keyboard though. I think that is the biggest pain in using LaTeX
> on these type of gadgets.
> ugdc
I think really usable very small form factor devices will have to wait
for availability of flexible displays, e.g., http://flexdisplay.asu.edu/
(that are touch sensitive with tactile feedback) or some such new
technology. Meanwhile, I haven't come across anything smaller than
a netbook that's sufficiently general purpose and sufficiently
ergonomically comfortable (for me).
Peter Flynn
> On Jan 27, 8:50�pm, Hooman <hooman.javid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> What are your thoughts on this subject? Has anyone tried to make TeX
>> Live run on iPhone OS?
No, but there is a very usable (if slightly outdated) TeX package for
the Nokia N800 which I use frequently, so the idea of squeezing TeX onto
a palmtop device works and is not new.
> $ du -csh /usr/local/texlive/2008
> 1.9G /usr/local/texlive/2008
> 1.9G total
In my case,
$ du -sh /media/mmc1/tex
303.0M /media/mmc1/tex
That includes TeX and a bunch of plain that I don't use, the core of
LaTeX, all the packages I want, all the CM fonts, and all the Adobe "35"
(all in PFB), but it's pdflatex only, no DVI (the N800 already has a
good PF viewer). It includes Beamer, which has saved my face several
times when I needed to redo a presentation on the fly. I did have to
redirect the installation packages to make it install on one of the
plugin SD cards (by default it was headed for the internal memory :-)
which means softlinking the binaries back to /usr/local/bin, but that
was just a for...do command.
> I can't imagine wanting to burn 2GB of a maximum of 64 GB on TeX.
Nor can I. It wouldn't be appropriate on a small device.
> Presumably, one wouldn't need all of TeX Live, but I suspect it would
> still be pretty large with a reasonable subset of TeX Live.
Doesn't seem to be, but my needs are limited by the nature of the
documents I typically handle. And the N800 has an X terminal anyway, so
I can always log into one of my servers remotely to do anything big.
Incidentally, Emacs also runs on the N800, as do Apache and CUPS, all of
which make life a lot easier when dealing with publishing stuff in LaTeX
and XML :-)
///Peter
Robin Fairbairns
>Simon Spiegel <si...@removethsi.simifilm.ch> wrote:
>
>> one of BibDesk's developer has just said the following on the BibDesk mailing
>> list: "As for the code base, I can tell you that 90% of BibDesk and
>> Skim are totally useless for use on an iPad or iPhone".
>
>So they have to do a hard bit of work.
if they feel like it. they certainly wouldn't be doing it for my
benefit...
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge
Luis Rivera
It would be nice if it could also lay eggs and build nests... oh: and
also breed all year round.
Louie.
Adam R. Maxwell
Or for anyone else's benefit :). For the record, BibDesk's developers
have no intention of adapting it to the iPad or iPhone. If someone
else wants to do that, BibDesk's code is BSD licensed, so borrow it as
you see fit and feel free to ask questions on bibdesk-develop.
I can't speak for the iPad, but the iPhone apparently doesn't allow
running a separate process via NSTask [1] (Cocoa object that does
fork/exec), so you can probably forget about TeXShop as well, unless
there's a library version of pdftex and other programs.
--
Adam
[1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1536400/nstask-or-equivalent-for-iphone
Joris
Thanks for giving it a better connotation than I had in mind.....
Peter Flynn
[...]
> Does anyone know if the ipad comes with wings?
I wouldn't recommend using it as a frisbee without them...
///Peter