Online collaborative LaTeX editor • Hacker News Board

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#31

Post by JohnHammersley » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 4:46 PM UTC

StevenXC wrote: post #15

beck5 wrote: post #4

Founder of http://www.ShareLaTeX.com here, the guys at writelatex have done a great job of making a new clear home page since last time they were on HackerNews ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4385300 ) the example presentation and no sign in required is a really great touch as it helps quickly bring down the bar for those new to LaTeX. The online LaTeX editor is not an easy problem to solve, compiling massive p…

No sign-in is nice as an option, but the fact that you can't sign in is a negative for me - I'd like to be able to manage multiple documents and projects within an account like on ScribTeX. Oh, and ShareLaTeX looks really good; thanks for sharing! I'm going to try it out now.

And as if by magic - you can now sign up to manage your docs on writelatex.com :-)

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#32

Post by JohnHammersley » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 4:50 PM UTC

jdleesmiller wrote: post #30

Founder here... Just pushed an update so you an sign up and manage your docs. Enjoy!

This is not the relaxing weekend I had planned! But yes, user accounts now available, plus a short getting started guide to help new users. As ever, all feedback appreciated

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#33

Post by beck5 » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 5:06 PM UTC

StevenXC wrote: post #29

jpallen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not going down, we've just started pointing new users at ShareLaTeX, since that's where our development efforts are focused. If you have an account with ScribTeX you'll still be able to use if for the foreseeable future.

Ah, thanks. If that's where the development going, would you recommend moving existing projects there? I could do it by hand, but is there a way to use Git or some other automated process to transfer projects?

We don't have an automated way yet but there will be one eventually, most users are doing it add hock as you can import zip files easily. It is up to you which tool you want to use, sharelatex still lacks the git push and pull which may be a deal breaker for you but it is the future.

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#34

Post by dfc » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 5:08 PM UTC

JohnHammersley wrote: post #19

bnegreve wrote: post #12

Wow, it even works with tikz! If it becomes popular, I bet you'll need some CPUs.

tikz is a great package! Re the CPUs - we're working on some neat ways to get round this :-)

Can you give us any insight into how you plan on getting around this? It seems that publication quality typesetting and layout requires a certain level of CPU power, especially with complex graphics from TikZ/PGF and/or pstricks. Do you think your solutions will also help desktop users reduce the amount of CPU latex eats?

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#35

Post by jdleesmiller » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 5:18 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #34

JohnHammersley wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tikz is a great package! Re the CPUs - we're working on some neat ways to get round this :-)

Can you give us any insight into how you plan on getting around this? It seems that publication quality typesetting and layout requires a certain level of CPU power, especially with complex graphics from TikZ/PGF and/or pstricks. Do you think your solutions will also help desktop users reduce the amount of CPU latex eats?

Good question. There's not much we can do at the LaTeX level, but writeLaTeX also has to send images of the pages back to browser, and we can improve that part of the process in quite a few ways.

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#36

Post by rcoh » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 5:38 PM UTC

The images in the right pane are blurry for me -- I guess they're getting stretched out on my monitor. Could you use vector graphics instead of JPGs?

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#37

Post by jdleesmiller » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 5:40 PM UTC

rcoh wrote: post #36

The images in the right pane are blurry for me -- I guess they're getting stretched out on my monitor. Could you use vector graphics instead of JPGs?

Yes, that's on our TODO list. Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#38

Post by stared » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 5:42 PM UTC

beck5 wrote: post #11

stared wrote: post #6

The is also http://www.scribtex.com/ (unfortunately, going down, but was nice, also supporting Git access), https://www.sharelatex.com/ . And for short LaTeX text, there is http://mathb.in/ . Also, http://www.scigit.com/ looks promising (not working yet, though). See also: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/27549/simultaneous-co...

Don't worry we are working hard to get all the functionality of ScribTeX fully incorporated into ShareLaTeX (git push & pull). We also have no long term plans on turning off scribtex while people still use it, but the focus is sharelatex.

It's how I understood things. However, without possibility to invite collaborators (to ScribTeX), there is not much use for me. That said, I used it, liked it a lot, started paying for it... just to discover that I cannot use it (in terms of, well, collaboration) anymore (so I quit paying, but with a bitter "you should have warned me when I wanted to pay, not only in the Sign Up form").

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see git stuff at ShareLaTeX.

Or writeLaTeX.

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#39

Post by beck5 » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 6:31 PM UTC

stared wrote: post #38

beck5 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry we are working hard to get all the functionality of ScribTeX fully incorporated into ShareLaTeX (git push & pull). We also have no long term plans on turning off scribtex while people still use it, but the focus is sharelatex.

It's how I understood things. However, without possibility to invite collaborators (to ScribTeX), there is not much use for me. That said, I used it, liked it a lot, started paying for it... just to discover that I cannot use it (in terms of, well, collaboration) anymore (so I quit paying, but with a bitter "you should have warned me when I wanted to pay, not only in the Sign Up form"). Anyway, I'm looking forward to…

Sorry I don't fully understand, you can invite collaborators on sharelatex into the project via the project settings area. Free accounts are capped to having 1 collaborator (1 person + yourself). Please drop me an email henry.oswald at sharelatex.com

Re: Online collaborative LaTeX editor

#40

Post by joshuagross » Sat, Dec 15, 2012, 6:35 PM UTC

Co-founder of http://www.SpanDeX.io here, it's cool to see so much excitement around web-based LaTeX editing. As Henry mentioned, scaling sites like this is quite challenging as LaTeX wasn't really built for performance or scaling, but it's still more pleasant than running on your own machine ;) Best of luck to everyone!