Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: Axiom Book

[C Y]

--- David MENTRE <address@hidden> wrote:
> As far as I recall, noweb (for noweb -> latex conversion) can only
> manage one file at a time. It does not handle tex input files.

OK.  Not critical.
 
> I think the most important point regarding the book is to have the
> graphics incorporated correctly in the pdf version.

I have looked at this.  I think what will have to be done is update the
commands which are loading the graphics files to use includegraphics
instead of the current oddness.  For example:

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\begin{picture}(324,168)%(-54,0)
\special{psfile=ps/h-matsource.ps}
\end{picture}
\caption{Source code for {\tt Matrix}.}
\end{figure}

This special command doesn't seem to be well suited to pdf and ps joint
usage. If I strip the special stuff out, I can include some of the
graphics. Hyperref works fine, and produces a hyperlinked pdf.  The
Bibliography upsets it for some reason - I think we need to modernize
something there - but other than that I get chapter organization and
everything.  I had to remove the setcounter{chapter} entries, however,
to get reasonable behavior in that department. 

I have uploaded a hacked up version of book.pamphlet and the pdf
created here:

http://garnetlisp.sf.net/axiom/book.pamphlet
http://garnetlisp.sf.net/axiom/book.pdf

> Right now, the graphics are in eps format (but with no bounding 
> boxes in some cases. It blocks me to convert the graphics to pdf.
> However I'm for from a postscript specialist). From an engineering
> point of view, the best solution would be to have the reference 
> graphic in one format that can be translated in needed formats by 
> the Makefile.

In order to generate reasonable pdfs from the old ps images (the
bounding box problem) I used eps2eps to clean up the images, and then
epstopdf to make pdf images.  There were several images where eps2eps
failed with a ghostscript error - those might have to be remade since
if eps2eps fails it's usually difficult to do anything reasonable with
them, in my experience.  Perhaps these are also the ones commented out?

If a couple script files are written to automate the conversions, it
shouldn't be hard to reference the eps files for everything, given no
ghostscript errors.
 
> Regarding the 1.0 status, the lacking points are:
> 
>  1. Axiom book in PDF with graphics; 
> 
>     [done for pdf. Nobody is working on the graphics]

If we can use straight includegraphics that will solve 90% of the
graphics problems.  Conversion should be doable except for the ones
throwing postscript errors, which will have to be redone.
 
>  2. Define if the current found bugs are release critical or not. If
>     yes, fix them. If not, document them (and reduce the priority in
>     the 1-3 range);

Is the lack of a replacement for the NAG numerical libraries a release
stopper?  (I seem to remember some mention of the GNU scientific
libraries being possible replacements, but I don't know much more about
it.)

CY


                
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