I have read this discussion with great interest. After two-plus years
of working hard at learning Xe(La)TeX, the learning curve is finally
starting to flatten. So I am certainly in favor of improved
documentation or anything else that will help beginners. Having a
comprehensive XeTeX manual would be wonderful; not having a one-stop
reference unquestionably made my learning more difficult, as did the
need to filter out old material that was not relevant (LaTeX font
handling, babel, etc.). I agree with Elliott about the need for clear
statements about the relationships among all the varieties of TeX--that
confused me when I started.
Some people in this discussion have focused on help for those who are
new to Xe(La)TeX, and others on more adequate documentation of the inner
workings of XeTeX for advanced users and package developers. I think
the former is the more immediate need--not that the latter would not be
good too! Wilfred's comment about users not being in a hurry to change
once they've learned how to do something is very apropros. Maybe a
volume 1 / volume 2 approach, with the advanced material in the latter?
I am very willing to help in this effort. Some folks here may know that
I have written a short tutorial for beginners on using OT/AAT features
with XeTeX. I'm making some updates right now and will post a notice
here when the new version is available. If any of this material could
be adapted for user in a larger book that's fine with me.
If we can come up with something, I'd like to see both a downloadable
PDF and a printed book. I've just finished a book (typeset with memoir,
which is an incredible resource but also represented a baptism by fire)
that will be available through print on demand (POD) technology.
Printing this way can be inexpensive; a 600 page book in the usual
computer manual size can be done for around US$9.00. I can provide more
details about POD if people are interested.
We also need to be realistic. Trying to replace the _LaTeX Companion_
would be tremendous undertaking and is perhaps not necessary. I suggest
a book that would:
a) give a good introduction to the world of TeX, but assuming that
people will want Unicode, system fonts, OT/AAT, etc. (i.e., XeTeX)
b) lay out the essentials of Xe(La)TeX, as other have suggested;
fontspec, polyglossia, etc.
c) provide guidance on how to accomplish common tasks, with reference to
the various packages
d) provide advanced information for package writers etc [written later,
perhaps as a seprate volume]
My thinking about c) is as follows: I didn't have the _LaTeX Companion_
until recently. I often went to CTAN and looked for packages to do a
particular task (use color, set tables, whatever) and sometimes found a
lot of material I had to wade through to determine the best way to do
what I needed. I think it would be possible to provide a list of
relevant packages, with some comments but without going into as much
depth as the _LaTeX Companion_. That should be enough to get people
started.
David
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