HaTeX: Chapter 3.2

It's time for a new release of HaTeX: the version 3.2, as announced in my previous post. I'm glad each time I see my library get better. Although the major version is increased again, I expect backwards compatibility, in spite of the changes done in some type signatures. I have tried to get previous code working.

Get HaTeX 3.2 from Hackage: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/HaTeX-3.2.

This is how HaTeX has changed this time.

The LaTeX Parser

It makes me happy to get working a parser of LaTeX. I have tested it with some examples (for instance, with the "fibs.hs" example, included in the library) with a reasonable output. Anyway, the parser is not mature yet. Future working on it will be done when a bugged output is found parsing some LaTeX code.

Greek alphabet

The AMSMath module is still very incomplete, but now it contains the entire greek alphabet.

The graphicx package

A new module with a new LaTeX package has been added. This time was for the graphicx package. The point here is to get all to be done with types, wherever possible. The way to achieve this is to define datatypes that will force you to put correct arguments to the functions. So the includegraphics function receives a [IGOption] and a FilePath as arguments, where each IGOption is a typed representation of each valid argument for includegraphics.

Changes in documentclass

Until now, documentclass function had type:

documentclass :: [LaTeX] -> String -> LaTeX

So if you want to set the font size to 12pt, you had to do:

documentclass [rendertex $ Pt 12]

or to do the trick:

documentclass ["12pt"]

which looks quite dirty.

Following my all-typed approach, I defined a new datatype (ClassOption) for documentclass arguments. This way, the former get done like this:

documentclass [FontSize $ Pt 12]

I find this more correct. Anyway, the second way still work, while the first one don't.

Other minor changes

Other minor changes have been done, like GHC 7.4 compatibility (thanks to Alexey Khudyakov) or addition of some new functions. To view a complete list see the commit history of the library.

News about HaTeX

A lot of news about HaTeX have happened since the last time I wrote here about it. I want to sum up all of them now, with the 3.2 version release in mind.

HaTeX-3.1.0 and warnings

There was a release of the version 3.1.0 (along HaTeX-meta-1.1.0). It was announced in Haskell-Cafe [1].

The key novelty in this release is the incorporation of Warnings. Warnings are data generated from a LaTeX value checking. They give you information about your LaTeX value (e.g. if you skipped the document environment, or if you called to an undefined label). They are called "Warnings" instead of "Error" because they won't stop the execution.

Other new features are: Num instance for LaTeX and LaTeXT, an implementation of the LaTeX AMSThm package and a directory with examples (currently only one) shipped with the package.

HaTeX-3.2

The next release will be the 3.2 version.

The main new feature is a LaTeX code parser. This means you can read a file with LaTeX code and get its AST in Haskell! Although is still uncompleted and untested, I'm sure this feature will become HaTeX in a more complete library.

Before the release, I want to ask: what do you think this new version must to have?

HaTeX closer

In order to make easier collaboration of developers, I hosted the HaTeX code in GitHub [2]. And I already receiving contributions!

It also was very useful to place all together the code repository, an issue tracker and a wiki. So, if you are interested in HaTeX, feel free to contribute by any of the ways.

A mailing list [3] is also open to everybody, so we can discuss there about any topic related someway to HaTeX.

I also created a Twitter account for HaTeX-related tweets [4].

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to being connected with this project! I have done this to make easier as possible contributions in the future.

The lack of a manual

But not all news are good! HaTeX still lacks a manual. I have been writing one, but I stopped a while ago and I'm thinking now to continue this work. Sorry for this!

Thanks

Finally, I want to say thanks to all people who has contributed in some way. Thanks!

References

[1] - Announce of HaTeX 3.1.0 in Haskell-Cafe: http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2011-December/097416.html
[2] - HaTeX in Github: https://github.com/Daniel-Diaz/HaTeX
[3] - HaTeX mailing list: http://projects.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hatex
[4] - HaTeX Twitter account: https://twitter.com/HaTeX_updates