From Amazon.com:

Math into LaTeX : Third Edition
by George Gratzer

List Price: $49.95
Our Price: $14.98
You Save: $34.97 (70%)

Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours.
Paperback - 520 pages 3rd edition (June 23, 2000)
Springer Verlag Pub (Computer Bks); ISBN: 0817641319 ; Dimensions (in 
inches): 1.26 x 9.54 x 7.56

Amazon.com Sales Rank: 2,058

If you write a lot of equations, you should definitely consider using AMS-LaTeX (just LaTeX with some additional fonts and macros). If you use AMS-LaTeX, this book is a wonderful reference to have handy since it is the only book I am aware of that covers the AMS-LaTeX extensions.

This is the 2nd final candidate release of Alpha 7.4 (not AlphaTcl). It is available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. I don't know what changes have been made to Alpha itself, but here are the changes to AlphaTcl since 7.4fc1:

• workaround for addMenuItem problem in ftp menu (thanks Martin)
• optional 'editable' flag to pickAFileset, which strips out the non-editable items, used by editAFileset, fixes problem noted on Alpha-D.
• small fix to Tcl::DblClickHelper.
• further overhaul of filesets code to fix recent issues.
• various fixes from Alpha-D list (mostly Dominique -- thanks).
• workaround for bad Menu bug in menu::buildHierarchy
• help/TIP mode example/template issues resolved.
• fix to setupAssistant
• fix to C/C++/Java indentation inside /* */ comments, when there are leading non-whitespace characters.
• various fixes from Dominique (filesets).
• ellipsis fix to various procs.
• replyHandler properly deals with lists as handlers (e.g. [list updateFileset $name])
• more filesets fixing!
• added some ' *' to bibtexMode so items properly found.
• filters menu with new icon.
• added macos html help viewer option.
• even more filesets fixes.
• bibtex mode 4.0
• added forceLoadAE to www.tcl.
• win::searchAndHyperise has default limit of 100 characters for the length of any hyperised text.
• ftpMenu gives a reasonable error msg if the ftp operation failed when creating ftp filesets.
• fix to supersearch and filesets containing directories.

This is the first final candidate release of Alpha 7.4 (not AlphaTcl). It is available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. Change to Alpha include:

• added numerous icon resources to Alpha
• renamed a few internal commands to avoid clashes with Tcl/Tk
• fixed the resources in some dialogs
• updated Mercutio resource
• minor other changes

This is the first final candidate release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b24 (7.4fc1) updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b24 (7.4fc1) updates supporting .tcl files and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b23 are:

• filesets menu fix with new procedural filesets.
• simplified resumeHook, avoiding dubious global variables. Updated spellcheck, codewarrior code to use hooks instead.
• fixed problems in recentFilesMultiMenu when you delete filesets. The menu now detects this and removes those recent files groups.
• updated stats modes and bibtex mode (+ helpers) from Craig. Thanks!
• further improvements to "Bug Reports and Debugging"
• added file::openAsTemplate
• updated electric corrections.
• fix to mode search paths.
• lots of modified help files (thanks Craig).
• www.tcl forces ae code to load in Alpha 7, hopefully helping to prevent some timeout issues. Also reduced Fetch timeout.
• pascal mark file (thanks Craig), also various fixes to help files, and alphaDefinitions from Craig and Johan.
• updated ftpMenu.
• added recursive searching to tex mode.
• simplified help menu code a little bit, after renaming MacPerl, Macros help files.
• lots of fixes from Dominique and Craig (thanks!).
• moved tclae init out of thinkMenu init and into code which is only used if think menu is actually active (else bug on Alphatk).
• better java mode marking.
• updated setext mode, lots of updated help text for modes, packages (thanks Craig), updated mark procs.
• updated lisp, scheme modes (moved mutual require into bodies of files, to avoid startup issues).
• thinkMenu error message if no Think
• temp::path improvement.
• numerous help text additions (thanks Donavan)
• various changes/fixes to filesetsMenu, ftpMenu.
• docprojects fix, sql upper improvements, gplt additions.
• various filesets, ftp, filesetsMenu changes to simplify and unify the various update/make/rebuild codes. This now means 'rebuild all filesets' does just that (and therefore will take rather longer than before). It also required changes to each fileset type (codewarrior, think, tex, etc...). Please test thoroughly!

Blue Sky is Looking for Input

What follows is part of an email message I got from the folks at Blue Sky. It appears that they want to know how soon we want to see a "native" Textures on Mac OS X. I, for one, want to see this as soon as possible. Send them an email to the address shown below and let them know your thoughts.

We are very grateful for your encouraging comments on Textures: "It's as easy to use as advertised!", "Synchronicity is truly outstanding", and so on. If you haven't upgraded yet to Textures 2.1, please consider doing so; if you have, please tell your friends!

Now, about your own Christmas list for NeXT year ... surely you are aware of Apple's new Macintosh OS X operating system, now in public beta release and scheduled for official release in the first part of the coming new year. Although OS X includes a "Classic" environment for existing Macintosh applications, we are considering our schedule and approach for making Textures a native application under OS X, and we would appreciate knowing some of your thoughts about OS X.

If you are planning to move to OS X, or if you're planning -not- to move to OS X, please take the time to write to us (osx@bluesky.com) to fill us in on your opinions and plans regarding OS X. This is a big step for Apple, and will be a major development for Blue Sky Research, so your input into our planning will be very important to our next year of development.

MATLAB and Mac OS X

Since I know many TeX users are also users of mathematical software, I thought I would also pass on the following little tidbit. The MathWorks appears to be thinking about the future of MATLAB and is asking about Mac OS X. They have posted an "Operating System Survey" in which they ask "Which platform/OS, if any, do you plan or would like to migrate MATLAB to?" Amazingly enough, one of the choices is Mac OS X. So, if you would like to see MATLAB brought back into the Macintosh world, head on over to their survey and place a vote for Mac OS X.

This is the first final candidate release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b23 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b23 updates supporting .tcl files and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b21 are:

• added messages to change mode marking.
• better instructions in "Bug Reports and Debugging"
• renamed win::isReady to winCreatedHook and moved it to alphaHooks.tcl, since it is called by Alpha's internals, similary renamed file::preOpeningCheck to filePreOpeningHook and moved to alphaHooks.tcl. Also documented exactly when they should be called.
• new oserrors.tcl
• dialog::getUrl is a little better; added url::browserWindow (hopefully works on MacOS and Windows)
• changed Suncompiler sig to javc in javaMode.tcl
• improved text::isInComment for C /* ... */ comments.
• file::showInFinder handles directories as well as files (openFolder now obsolete).
• few simplifications, fixes to dialogs, help code.
• html viewing preference made extensible; moved some code to www.tcl.
• changed a lot of newPref statements to reflect the proper type ('sig', 'color', etc). In the future we may remove the automatic typing of preferences based on name, which would streamline a lot of the dialogs code.
• various debugging/procs improvements.
• improved TIP mode.
• still allow Tcl exit with one optional argument in renamed version.
• added quote::Unurl to invert what quote::Url does.
• changed all 'glob -t' to 'glob -types' to avoid possible ambiguity with later versions of glob and '-tails'.
• updated mode::getVar
• more updates from Jon, esp. to AETcl code.
• small fix to mailMenu.tcl (thanks)
• latex, modeSearchPaths improvements.
• renamed hidden array file::config to win::config since it works for both file and non-file windows, added procs win::setInitialMode, win::setInitialConfig, win::isReady

This is the 21st beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b21 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b21 updates supporting .tcl files and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b20 are:

• added proc: quote::Url and proc: url::mailto
• improvements to TIP mode; uses quote::Url to pass on mailto's with the body already setup.
• small fixes to alphaDeveloperMenu, elecCorrections
• put in more conventional app:: calls for spell checking, adds possibility of cross platform support.
• minor change to the version package
• parse '{}' popup added to Igor mode
• VOODOO menu fixes for TclAE
• Added "Copy File To DistributionÉ" to alpha developer menu
• More TclAE compatibility fixes
• some minor fixes to gnuplot mode. The code hasn't been touched for a long time; it would be good to get it working with latest gnuplot on both Alpha and Alphatk.
• added 'dialog::getUrl' to dialogs.tcl, and added new 'newPref' type 'url', which is used by Tcl, TIP, stats modes, etc.
• mailMenu works with mailto url specification, hopefully cross-platform. (mailMenu supercedes 'eudoraMenu').
• fixed problem when a mode's preferences ask for a package which no longer exists.
• quote::Url handles empty strings.
• eudoraMenu replaced by mailMenu which provides some level of abstraction away from pure Eudora support. Eudora help file replaced by "Mail Help"

This is the 20th beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b20 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b20 updates supporting .tcl files and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b19 are:

• made 'titlebar' with 'fetched' work cross-platform
• addition of python mode (thanks Howard Oakley)
• changed default of warning obsolete procedures to 0
• replacing of a file by a directory is now supported in the installer (the file is backed up, if desired)
• added some support for other 'edit actions' than actually editing the file. Only activated for Tcl 8.0 or newer (but see coreFixes.tcl to turn it on for Alpha 7). This allows, for instance, the installer, to avoid opening the unwanted window (and moving it offscreen). Also allows Alphatk/8 to edit files hidden inside virtual file systems.
• 'open via fileset' on hierarchical filesets now presents a dialog which allows exploring up and down the hierarchy, rather than simply listing all files in the fileset.
• when a file is opened which uses the 'unixMode' array to specify its mode, the unixModeHook is called, to allow specific application dependent actions to take place.
• small fix to procUtils.tcl
• addition of debug/applyChanges to Tcl menu.
• various odd fixes to filesets and fileManipulation code.
• addition of TIP mode for editing Tcl Improvement Proposals.
• fixed couple of bugs in the mode creation assistant (which, having just used it, is actually very cool: much to be recommended!)

This is the 19th beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b19 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b19 updates supporting .tcl files and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b18 are:

• small fix to help.tcl
• replaced couple of instances of aebuild::alis for new tclAE
• added some ae procs to BackCompatibility.tcl
• various fixes from Jon to help with new tclAE code.

Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b17:

• small fix to filters menu
• fixes to eudoraMenu (expr/pos::math/minPos etc), prompt::fromChoices used in three places, mailTab fixed.
• help::openFile used in codewarrior, internet config menus.
• AlphaTcl warns the user of duplicate mode definitions when rebuilding indices (e.g. this would have noticed the original 'b9' problems).
• ftp commands more robust (esp. with Tcl ftp package).
• Craig's 'help' improvements added, includes changes to some help files, and help.tcl
• removed use of many deprecated procedures from ftpMenu.tcl, help.tcl, etc.
• addition of temp.tcl in CorePackages, used by ftp menu.
• small fix to tex mode temporary files, and uses temp.tcl
• added 'warning for obsolete procedures' to alpha developer menu
• some vc systems use the temp.tcl stuff.
• fix to alpha's www faq.tcl
• ftpMenu's cache copes better with files of same name, but different location.

Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b16:

• C++ marks on line, not line below.
• small fix to prompt::_complete to work properly with Alpha 7.x
• small fix to filters menu
• many changes from Jon, mostly for Alpha 8.
• some help changes
• better handling of examples.

Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b15:

• prompt::statusLineComplete etc work properly in Alpha 8/tk, I think
• file::renameTo handles errors
• added 'Uhr' to isoTime pacakge to fix problems there.
• added code to installer to attempt to fix line-endings of any .tcl files which are installed. This should help to avoid unfortunate startup errors for users who haven't configured stuffit/ic appropriately.
• more sensible tclHelp lookup procedure in Alpha 8/tk (no %). Renamed variable to make things clearer.
• proper fix to returnToBookmark etc.
• update to Filesets Help.
• small fixes (pos::math/expr) to eudora mode for Alphatk
• added prefs::renameOld to allow extension authors to rename things without inconveniencing users.
• added 'prompt::fromChoices', and 'completion::fromChoices' to allow simplification of some old sPromptChoices, choicesProc etc. This means close/chooseAWindow now benefit from automatic completion, and also implicitly use the 'useStatusBar' flag. Also implies that the 'status' only procs can be obsoleted. Side-effect is that cmd-; now obeys the 'useStatusBar' flag to decide whether to use status bar or a listpick dialog. Made default value of 'useStatusBar' 0.
• general replacement of stripNameCount by win::StripCount
• added support in dialogs code for get_directory with a starting point (only supported in Alphatk at present).
• alpha::reportError gives choice of viewing the stack dump.
• addition of elecCorrections, and menus to elecCompletions/Expansions
• updated manipCols, filtersMenu
• all *tutorial files are placed in Completions directory by installer.
• helpMenu strips extensions and hence is closer to supporting other actions on non-Text help items. Help items with a .tcl extension are assumed to be Tcl scripts which are sourced (and can therefore perform arbitrary actions).
• split AlphaTcl startup process into separate files for finer grained control by editor. Allows Alpha/tk to load 'early' preferences much earlier in the startup process.
• improved parseWords handles [], ensuring correct help text is extracted.
• updated bibtex mode and associated packages (thanks Craig)
• added 'Tests' directory, for general files useful for testing. Installer knows about this directory.
• better C++ marking.
• made auto_load, procs::find and startup more robust to problems. (plus of course fixed the bad problems introduced in trying to split the startup process into two pieces).
• better C++ marking (again)

Want a native implementation of TeX for Mac OS X? It is here in TexShop. TexShop is a TeX previewer for Mac OS X. The previewer is written in Cocoa and takes advantage of the fact that pdf is a native file format on OS X. It uses "pdftex" and "pdflatex" rather than "tex" and "latex" to typeset; these programs in the standard teTeX distribution of TeX produce pdf output instead of dvi output. The link to TexShop and additional info can be found in the TexShop section on the Implementations page.

The original updater put some files in the wrong place. This one fixes that problem. The updater is available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page.

This is the 15th beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b15 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b15 updates supporting .tcl files and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b14 are:

• Moved '* Trace' special case from win::FindMode to hook registered proc in Alpha developer menu, and made Trace pattern more accurate.
• Extended changes file additions to alphaDeveloperMenu.tcl
• Improved title generation of Packages help file
• Better 'Add To XXX Changes File' in alphaDeveloperMenu.tcl
• Suffix Mappings dialog changes width based on screen width, and increases height of longer entries.
• Added brief help to 'compare windows', 'bib to html' packages.
• 'modeExamplesScript.tcl' is obsolete.
• Moved lots of 'file::hyperOpenXXX' procs to 'help::openXXX'
• Replaced some references to procs in BackCompatibility.tcl
• Added proc is::List, and made use of it in suffixMappings dialog; prevents user from entering bad pattern lists which would lead to errors on opening files.
• Removed cadr/caddr/cadddr etc from ftpMenu
• better menu dimming in alpha dev menu
• funcs menu in Tcl includes duplicates with '1 of 2', '2 of 2' etc.
• moved search-hyperising procs to win:: namespace (from file::)
• removed caveat from Quick Start help file; Alpha can be installed in any directory, ever since the 'glob' changes (i.e. since 7.2.1b3).
• two fixes to www.tcl from bugzilla (thanks).
• additions to Tcl completions and electric left.

David Eppstein has released BibGene 1.2.1. BibGene 1.2.1 fixes a crashing bug involving import of BibTeX records containing series tags.

You can find it in the BibGene section of the Tools page.

David Eppstein has released BibGene 1.2. BibGene 1.2 adds a "Find Unlinked" command, which opens all cards that neither link to nor are linked from any other card. Version 1.2 also includes many bugfixes and smaller improvements to BibTeX import/export and report generation.

You can find it in the BibGene section of the Tools page.

This is the 14th beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b14 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b14 updates supporting .tcl files and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b13 are:

• fixes to sortLines/sortParas, file::Utils::uniq (thanks Bernard)
• added to "Alpha Developers FAQ"
• updated Metafont mode (thanks Bernard)
• some additions to Tcl-process communication in tclMode.tcl
• improved Diff mode from Jon
• lots of improvements to Help/Mode Examples from Craig -- many thanks!
• updated ae, error code from Jon (minor regexp addition from Vince: \b\b vs \m\M for Tcl > 8.0)
• 'funcs' finding switches to using marks if the current mode has no funcExpr defined (thanks Tom)
• minor changes for Alphatk 8.0x
• addition of tcl version to packages list.
• fixed bibToRefer for Alphatk compatibility
• update to "Bug Reports and Debugging" help file.
• packages prefs dialog pages are now sorted.
• file::getModeForFile no longer exists. Have made some small changes to how that code works to allow earlier mode/config recognition for files which are opened, and to have a clearer separation between things which happen for 'file' vs 'non-file' windows. New procedure is 'file::preOpeningCheck', although 'win::FindMode' is the one you'll most likely want to use.
• better handling of mode extensions lists in package rebuilding.

This is the 13th beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b13 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b13 updates supporting .tcl files and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b12 are:

• added web-based lookup of Tcl documentation (currently only activated for Tcl 8, since "Tcl Commands" suffices for Alpha 7).
• added *.R to Splus mode.
• helper applications dialog now has sorted list
• TeX mode contains partial support for pdflatex
• made -tabsize option to 'edit' robust to errors in edit.
• minor vcCvs improvements.
• edit filesets dialogs give a message when all changes are complete.
• windows/unix parts of appPaths.tcl: fix some bugs when paths of applications contain spaces.
• change $errorInfo to $errCache in startup error message.
• latex process menu dims items which can't be executed.
• updated www.tcl and ftpMenu.tcl from Johan, so we can interact with NetFinder.
• small fix to alpha dev menu dimming.
• file delete -force added to Alpha 7.
• functionComments dimming etc uses '-m' flag now.
• minor improvements to dialogUtils.tcl (remove extra ':')
• better jumping to marks in Tcl/Alpha Commands help files from Tcl mode
• fixed typo in perforce vc package, minor fixes to local, voodoo packages.
• moved from 'FTP' package to 'ftp' package (part of tcllib distribution, a library of useful 'official' code to come with Tcl). Only impacts Alphatk or Alpha 8.

This is the 12th beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b12 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b12 updates supporting .tcl files (which are what Alpha is really all about) and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b10 are:

• latex help file hyperised on open.
• fix to dialog::make (thanks Johan).
• menu::buildOne fix from Dominique
• added '-tabsize' option to 'edit'. Sets the default tabsize for the new window, but will be overridden if the window already has a tabsize set.
• small help.tcl regexp improvements.
• alpha developer menu uses an icon now.
• keyboard shortcuts in latex process menu changed (may change again if someone suggests a rational approach to redoing the menu).
• if screen width < 800, use a listpick suffix mappings dialog.
• vcCvs.tcl additions for maccvs, maccvspro (thanks Johan) -- if you use cvs version control, please test it!
• various dialogs fixes revolving around dialog::findApp whose second argument is now optional (and is now used on Alphatk) (thanks Johan).
• removed doc url from Readme, since we now have new docs.
• added "Statistical Modes Help" and "Text tutorial"
• setupAssistant fix.
• renamed C++ Tutorial to C Tutorial, but changed title to make it clear it applies to C and C++.
• gfileSetsType existence check in makeFileSetAndMenu (thanks Johan)
• fixes to help/packages file saving (thanks Johan)
• minor "Extending Alpha" changes
• fixed 'unset' problem in modeExamplesScript.tcl
• some minor fixes to bibConvert/bibAdditions (esp. for Alphatk)
• fix to file::ensureStandardPath (esp. for Alphatk)
• provided 'help::openFile' which can be used by other code (e.g. filesets, ftp menus now use it).
• 'new document' package now changes name of 'new' in File menu

IBM techexplorer now on the Mac!

This is great news for us TeX'ies. IBM's techexplorer Hypermedia Browser is now available for PPC Macs. This plug-in (for MSIE, Communicator or AOL) allows one to view TeX/LaTeX documents on the web. I haven't played with it much, but it appears that one can simply take .tex files and view them in your browser. So far I have had some trouble with embedded .eps figures and some packages I like to use (e.g., AMS-LaTeX), but plain LaTeX seems to work beautifully. I suspect I will solve most of my problems by looking through the included docs (they are rather extensive). Here is some information from their web page:

IBM techexplorer is a plug-in for Navigator and Internet Explorer as well as an ActiveX control for applications like Microsoft PowerPoint and Word. techexplorer enables the display of TeX, LaTeX and MathML documents and the publishing of interactive scientific material on the Web. Version 3.0 PR 1 includes full support for MathML 1.01, augmented display of LaTeX, and new ways to enliven techexplorer documents via C++, Java, JavaScript, the DOM, and a web-based equation editor. New to version 3.0 PR 1 is a Macintosh version and a 10-day trial download of the Professional Edition.

Here is the Mac specific info from their installation notes:

The Professional Edition is not currently available for Macintosh platforms.
• This plug-in is known to work with both Macintosh OS 8 and OS 9 as been tested with Internet Explorer 4 and 5 as well as Netscape Navigator 4.
• A PowerPC (PPC) processor is required and older processors are not supported.
• Full LaTeX (ex. .tex) and MathML (ex. .mml) documents MAY not have the appropriate associations with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4. LaTeX and MathML embedded in HTML should work just fine. Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape does not have the issues regarding the file associations.
• Some features in the Microsoft Windows version of techexplorer may not yet be available or fully and correctly implemented in this release. In particular:
  • There is limited support for input boxes.
  • Further Document rendering refinement is needed.

This is the 10th beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 to 7.4b10 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b10 updates supporting .tcl files (which are what Alpha is really all about) and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b9 are:

• bunch of new help files, regexp changes etc from Craig. Also included various new small modes (Stat modes), and updated Mode Examples. Fixes reported in Alpha-D also incorporated.
• Since b9 updated 'install.tcl', we can now include 'Mode Examples' in the updater.
• Added control-double-click in Latex mode goes to web site.
• 'alpha::package require' will now only activate a package if it has never been activated before.

Indonesian Dictionary for Excalibur Updated to Version 1.7

Masanori Kaneko has updated his Indonesian dictionary for Excalibur. See his enclosed "Read Me" for details. You can find it on the Tools page in the Excalibur section.

Standard Dictionary for Excalibur Available Separately

You can now download just the Standard Dictionary (version 2.2) for Excalibur without downloading the application and everything that comes with it. You can find it on the Tools page in the Excalibur section.

This is the 9th beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b9 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b9 updates supporting .tcl files (which are what Alpha is really all about) and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b8 are:

• fixes to TeX mode when process windows (* ... *) are foremost.
• added couple of win:: procs to windows.tcl
• better templates fix in HTML mode (incorrect deleting of tags)
• fixed bugs in Diff mode, startup readmes, dialog::getAKey, ...
• Mac-line-feeds in HTML update files.
• couple of \s-> \t\r\n changes for Tcl 8 compatibility
• various open->alphaOpen changes to fix variety of bugs in Alphatk, esp. so chars>128 display properly for batch searches.
• better marking of help files (esp. Alphatk)
• moved all help/marking stuff to help.tcl
• installer now considers anything *Examples to belong in the 'Mode Examples' folder in Alpha's home directory.

This is the seventh beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b8 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b8 updates supporting .tcl files (which are what Alpha is really all about) and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b7 are:

• various fixes, list of which is unfortunately lost
• fixes to HTML/CSS minor issues
• Craig's auto mark etc included
• some fileset improvements

Rick Zaccone has updated Excalibur, the wonderful spell checker for LaTeX and other things, to version 3.0.2. New Features in version 3.0.2 include:

• Added about 500 words to the Standard Dictionary. Most are proper names. The dictionary now contains 162,459 words. This is version 2.2 of the Standard Dictionary.
• Single clicking on a suggestion copies it to the Change To: box. Double clicking makes the change.

Bugs Fixed:

• Fixed the dialog that warns of an old version of the Appearance Manager. It needed to be a bit larger.
• Fixed a URL parsing bug. Excalibur would sometimes think that a left curly brace was part of a URL. As a result, you would get a LaTeX parsing error.
• Words that contain a long Hungarian umlaut are now added to the dictionary properly.
• Excalibur will run with a monitor that displays just black and white.
• Increased the size of the tabs in the preferences dialog.
• Excalibur no longer becomes unresponsive for 60 seconds after trying to open a locked file.
• User defined environment names may optionally end in an asterisk.
• Excalibur is more careful about declaring that user definitions are dirty.
• Use the new icon and file type for emacs files.

The new version can be found on the Tools page in the Excalibur section.

Updated German Dictionary for Excalibur

Peter Weber has updated his German dictionary for Excalibur. See his enclosed "Read Me" for details. You can find it on the Tools page in the Excalibur section.

Version 2.2 has 113,255 words. 5,698 entries were deleted and 14,610 were added from 2.1. This release completes Adrienne Forbes' revision of the dictionary. For the record, the last of the American spellings to be tracked down and eliminated (in version 2.2) was "whodunit".

You can this updated dictionary on the Tools page in the Excalibur section.

TypeIt4Me 4.8.2b1

This is a new version of TypeIt4Me for use with FasTeX. Changes include:

• worked around problem introduced by Appleworks 6
• fixed it so it remembers the current abbreviations file after restart

You can find it on the Tools page in the FasTeX section.

This is the seventh beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b7 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b7 updates supporting .tcl files (which are what Alpha is really all about) and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b6 are:

• added 'is::Eol' to stringsLists, to allow code like sort-lines, manip cols to not have to worry about the current eol char.
• is::Eol used in various places in manip cols, sort lines, shell mode etc, fixing various bugs when using Alphatk
• status::prompt takes optional -f flag.
• fix for FTP package upload when directory doesn't exist.
• procs::findDefinition fix and simplification for Tcl 8.
• C,C++ marking fixed for Alphtk/Tcl 8 ('.*' is very greedy with new advanced regexps).
• changes to status::prompt to fix some problems (may have introduced some new small issues --- you can try to debug these by modifying status::prompt in 'coreFixes.tcl')
• smarterSource copes with Tcl 8's 'source -rsrc' (thanks Daniel)
• diff mode copes with some perforce style diffs

This is the sixth beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b6 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b6 updates supporting .tcl files (which are what Alpha is really all about) and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b5 are:

• cleaned up some of ftpMenu.tcl, and added to 'Open remote' the option to add a new connection.
• _much_ better setup assistant (thanks Martin), also search.tcl fixes and better emacs integration
• better error handling in ftp fileset creation.
• supersearch dialog improved for when no window is open
• few more improvements to 'Extending Alpha' regarding Tcl 8 and Alphatk-isms.
• minor doc projects fix
• manip cols package added (thanks Bernard), with some fixes for Alphatk.
• minor install mode fix (for cancelled installations)
• addition of 'alphaOpen' which should be used instead of 'open' where you are trying to create/cache code which will later be sourced by Alpha (e.g. the internal cache, package building code).
• bunch of small fixes from Johan (thanks).

This is the fifth beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b5 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b5 updates supporting .tcl files (which are what Alpha is really all about) and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b4 are:

• fix to setup assistant fileset creation
• all fileset changes from edit filesets dialog now saved on exit (some changes were previously forgotten)
• moved couple of items in supersearch dialog so that it is clear which flags only apply to single file searches. Also made multi-file search the default if the dialog is opened when no windows are present.
• small fileset fix (thanks Dominique)
• added 'edit a fileset' to avoid bug in Alpha 7's 'dialog' command.
• 'top window's folder' fileset now represents those files in the folder of the uppermost window which represents a file, so any tcl shells, batch search windows etc are ignored.
• in Tcl::DblClick replaced \S regexp by [ \t] so it works with both Alpha 7.x and Tcl 8.
• better ftp fileset editing/saving, and updating. Should work properly on Alpha 7,8 and Tk, and with 'Edit Filesets' dialog.
• package preferences slightly rearranged to allow for editing of all packages at once (thanks Dominique).
• electric menu automatically clears the cache when indices are rebuilt (added 'cache::compareDates' to allow this).
• '.in' extensions are removed before checking for mode for a file. (typical makefile.in mkInstall.tcl.in configure.in on unix).
• simplified Alpha's readme, removing really old stuff.

Good news for me and for this site!

I haven't been able to spend much time keeping this site up-to-date and adding new stuff the past couple of years due to, mostly, professional responsibilities. The professional responsibilities are not gone, but they have recently taken on a new glow as I found out that I have been promoted and tenured in the College of Engineering at Penn State. This will, hopefully, allow me to fix things up around here. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for changes, things to add, things to remove, you name it. If you have emailed me in the past regarding some additions and they have not been added, please email me again as it probably got lost in the time crunch.

Thank you for your support and kind words over the last three and a half years.

This is the fourth beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b4 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b4 updates supporting .tcl files (which are what Alpha is really all about) and not the application itself. Changes since AlphaTcl 7.4b3 are:

• More vc fixes.
• fully implemented attaching of additional information to existing fileset information. Now, for example, a fileset which uses cvs version control can have extra cvs specific information attached, and a fileset which doesn't won't have that information.
• emacs.tcl fixes (thanks Donavan)
• minor fix to file::pathStartsWith
• compare::files can take the names of the files (rather than asking) as required by some vcs systems, and has a flag as to whether to order the files by date or not.
• 'Local' version control system partly implemented.
• split dialogs.tcl into 3 files for more manageability
• vcs 'state' is now a string. The ckid callback from Alpha 8 translates the ckid code into a string which is passed to the vcs code. cvs improvements.
• added up-to-date and needs-patch states to vcs system
• better status::prompt in alphaCommands.tcl for Alpha 8.
• improvements to Diff mode, including some support for cvs style diffs. A basic cvs diff should work now (not sure about patching, but at least highlighting the different sections).
• added more of Tom's Tcl/trace fixes/improvements.

This is the third beta release of AlphaTcl 7.4. The full Alpha 7.3 package and the AlphaTcl 7.4b3 updater are available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. AlphaTcl 7.4b3 updates supporting .tcl files (which are what Alpha is really all about) and not the application itself. Changes since 7.3 are too numerous to list here -- please read the enclosed docs.

MacGSView 2.0b3

Allows you to view PostScript and PDF files. You can also print them and export them in various formats (including PICT, TIFF, JPEG, PDF). Any Power Mac, PowerBook, iMac, iBook with MacOS 8.5 or later should be enough to use MacGSView. How much memory you need depends on the documents you open and the resolution at which you view them. If you have 5MB free for MacGSView, you should be able to view "standard" size documents.

Since 2.0b1:

• Fixed the always enabled "Zoom Window" menu item
• Fixed a bug which left the window inactive after cancelling a print job
• the opening of a file runs in its own thread now
• fixed a bug which caused some PS files with binary data to render only partial
• added a workaround for the nasty NavServices dialog problem in 8.5/6
• the convert function converts all pages of a document now
• changed standard error box for error -25 to "Not enough memory"
• uses ghostscript 6.01 now
• added anti-aliasing to the mac ghostscript device!!!
• added new settings to preferences panel for transparency (anti-aliasing) settings
• the ghostscript version is now displayed dynamically in the about box
• changed the non-DSC warn dialog to a notice (no choice available)
• fixed the (hopefully) last remaining (but rare) freeze bugs
• fixed smaller bugs and interface glitches

You can find it in the MacGS Section of the Tools Page.

Allows you to view PostScript and PDF files. You can also print them and export them in various formats (including PICT, TIFF, JPEG, PDF). Any Power Mac, PowerBook, iMac, iBook with MacOS 8.5 or later should be enough to use MacGSView. How much memory you need depends on the documents you open and the resolution at which you view them. If you have 5MB free for MacGSView, you should be able to view "standard" size documents.

Since 1.0b1:

• Fixed bugs when exporting PDF documents
• Fixed crash when selecting Page Setup without open windows
• Added toolbar
• Added more Acrobat-like page handling
• Improved performance with big documents
• Fixed 8.6 bug where the export dialog didn't appear
• Fully redesigned Preferences/Export dialogs
• Fixed PICT-Export bugs
• added PNG, PCX, PS, EPS, Fax device
• (almost) the whole application works threaded now, so you can export and view at the same time
• added a Convert function which allows to convert multiple documents in one step, without opening/exporting them one by one
• and many many more

You can find it in the MacGS Section of the Tools Page.

The 2.1.2 updater fixes a problem with the TeX Log marks menu and corrects problems with DVI vertical scrolling. You can find it in the Textures Section.

Excel Tables allows you to copy a table from Microsoft Excel™ and paste the corresponding TeX or LaTeX into your text editor of choice. It keeps simple formatting (like bold and italic), and aligns each column to the alignment of the first cell. A PowerPC computer with Mac OS 7.0 or later is required. It only takes up 400K of RAM. Excel Tables 1.0 did not dynamically expand its memory requirements, nor did it check to see if the scrap was too big to handle. When one would copy an extremely large table, it would have a memory leak, and cause a machine crash. 1.0.1 fixes that.

You can find it in the Excel Tables Section of the Tools Page.

Brad Hanson has released new versions of his BBEdit plug-ins for use with Textures. There are three releases of the plug-ins that work with various versions of Textures and BBEdit. Release 3.0.1 works with Textures 2.1 and BBEdit 5.1.1 or later. Release 2.0.1 works with Textures 2.1 and BBEdit 3.5.2 or later. Release 1.2 works with Textures 1.8 or 2.0 and BBEdit 3.5.2 or later. Some of the plug-ins in Release 1.2 also work with BBEdit Lite 3.0.1 or later. The release 3.0.1 plug-in is a PowerPC plug-in that can only be used on PowerPC Macintoshes. Releases 2.0.1 and 1.2 of the plug-ins are 68K plug-ins that can run on a PowerPC or 68K Macintosh. You can find them in the Textures Tools Section of the Macintosh Implementations of LaTeX Page.

BBEdit LaTeX Glossary by Gianluca Gorni and based on Prof. Uwe Schmock's Textures LaTeX macro menu. This glossary is very nice, but it does noticably slow down BBEdit on my 292 MHz PowerBook G3 Series. I may not even notice it when I get my new 500 MHz PowerBook G3 that I ordered last week. :-) Anyway, try it, you'll like it. You can find it in the LaTeXMenu Section of the Tools Page.

Excel Tables allows you to copy a table from Microsoft Excel™ and paste the corresponding TeX or LaTeX into your text editor of choice. It keeps simple formatting (like bold and italic), and aligns each column to the alignment of the first cell. A PowerPC computer with Mac OS 7.0 or later is required. It only takes up 400K of RAM.

You can find it in the Excel Tables Section of the Tools Page.

Allows you to view PostScript and PDF files. You can also print them and export them in various formats (including PICT, TIFF, JPEG, PDF). Any Power Mac, PowerBook, iMac, iBook with MacOS 8.5 or later should be enough to use MacGSView. How much memory you need depends on the documents you open and the resolution at which you view them. If you have 5MB free for MacGSView, you should be able to view "standard" size documents.

Features and changes since the 5.50 version of MacGS:

• Ghostscript is no longer part of the application but is loaded dynamically from a shared library ("GhostScriptLib PPC").
• MacGSView handles documents conforming to the Adobe Document Structure Convention: you can view/print pages randomly as it really should be. Non-DSC files can still only be viewed from the first to the last page, this cannot be changed.
• You can freely zoom in/out of the pages
• You can render the pages at different color depth and resolutions (depending on free RAM)
• You can copy a page as PICT to the clipboard
• You can save PS/PDF documents as PICT, TIFF, JPEG, BMP, PDF, PNG, ... (more to come)
• You can render multiple documents at the same time
• VERY basic AppleScript support is implemented (open, close, quit)
• Rendering is much faster than in any other Mac Postscript Viewer

Know Issues:

• You cannot save as EPSF and PS although the formats can be selected
• Performance issue with very large documents
• Some PDF documents don't render correctly
• You cannot change the page size: In an DSC document the page size is contained and used by MacGSView. Non-DSC documents default to US Letter.
• Rotated pages are not always handled correctly.

You can find it in the MacGS Section of the Tools Page.

Danish Localization of Excalibur 3.0.1

Christian Flintrup has localized Excalibur for Danish. Most menus, dialogs, etc. are all in Danish. Rick says that he welcomes localizations for other languages. :-)

You can find this Danish version of Excalibur on the Tools Page in the Excalibur Section.

This is the final release of Alpha 7.3 (there were a number of interim releases between 7.2.2 and 7.3). The full Alpha 7.2.2 package is available in the Alpha section of the Editors Page. Changes since 7.2.2 include:

• added NetFinder icon resource for future use.
• new calc mode
• new latexAccents package.
• ftpListing fix for links
• www.tcl additional functionality for FTP package, and addition of optional replyHandler parameter to ftpStore proc.
• fix to prefs::addArray so it deletes old array entries.
• added 'placeText' command which simply inserts text into the window without moving the insertion point or changing the selection.
• improvements to dynamic addition of entries to browse windows.
• fixed some problems with loading of menus.
• added a menuBuild hook to menu::buildSome.
• number of small prefs help text scanning fixes, AlphaBits changes
• AlphaBits robust to Jon's AE changes.
• supersearch fixes for word-match (Tcl 8).
• numerous word-match and/or case-sensitivity fixes for single/multi batch/replace-all searches in supersearch package.
• changes to scancontext etc implemenatation for Tcl 8.
• recent files fix for volume only file differences
• latex/latexComm fixes for textures
• prefs::readAll fix for Tcl 8
• fix for menu::buildHierarchy caused by glob change
• Johan's quick fixes for startup/glob and install. Many thanks.
• glob -t dir now returns directory names without the trailing ':', as does Tcl 8.3b1. This simplifies some code which had special cases for the emulated glob, and fixes the b1 startup problem.
• updated isoTime package (thanks Frederic)
• 'Do you want to activate the standard feature set' fixed
• package::active and list features bugs fixed (thanks Dominique!)
• dialog::menusAndFeatures fix (thanks Dominique!)
• fix various startup/menu issues I hope (bugs raised by Dominique/Pierre) (involved changes to tclMode, eudoraMenu too)
• eudoraMenu now actually contains a mode.
• case-independence of overriding AlphaPrefs now properly handled.

Contributed by Masanori Kaneko, this dictionary includes some 11,000 words.

Dictionary of Words/Names from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible

The dictionary was contributed by Chris Brady.

You can find both of these dictionaries on the Tools page in the Excalibur section.