Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source • Hacker News Board

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#81

Post by magicalhippo » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:11 PM UTC

nohaydeprobleme wrote: post #42

shuntress wrote: post #25

I have spent probably too much time trying to gain a comfortable level of proficiency with LaTex and I have not been able too. Maybe I just don't use it often enough but I always now find myself just using HTML/CSS instead. Even when the thing I'm laying out is specifically just something to be printed. I feel similarly about LaTeX and Vim. I like them. They are interesting. I appreciate the history around their deve…

If you need to share a professional document that involves mathematical expressions and equations, LaTeX is very helpful as a tool to use. The need arises if you are a professional or student registered in a course in mathematics or computer science. It's much easier to type multiple lines of equations, with the equation signs aligned, in LaTeX than in Word. It's a bit of a grind, but you can learn the fundamentals o…

Yeah for math stuff I loved LaTeX. I even solved large equations directly in the document, was so easy to read.

But once I had to write some pseudocode, make some larger tables, or embed images I suddenly longed for Word. Word certainly can make me curse, but it was still far easier than getting that done in LaTeX.

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#82

Post by alephaleph » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:13 PM UTC

xavxav wrote: post #39

I was looking for a way to procrastinate on my thesis writing, maybe I'll convert it all to typst! More seriously, I am really following this project closely, and now that it's open source I'd like to see if its possible to add the key libraries my field needs: mathpartir, and something like semantics? especially if typst can provide better syntax and errors!

Unfortunately Typst is completely incompatible with LaTeX and its packages, so you either have to go back to working on your thesis or procrastinate even more by reimplementing these yourself!

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#83

Post by varenc » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:13 PM UTC

sebzim4500 wrote: post #31

swyx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder if gpt4 eases that pain a bit i suspect it does for basic usecases but will still be ultra painful for advanced ones

GPT-4 probably makes it much easier to write, but modifying latex will still be a pain. Unless you want to copy it into another window, tell ChatGPT what modification you want, and then copy it back.

.tex files work fine in VSCode with the Copilot AI integration. Haven’t tried actually writing LaTeX with it but some cursory investigation shows that it seems to be working well. I suspect it’ll perform decently for basic modifications!

(Side note: it’s always impressed me how Copilot works well in even the more obscure languages)

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#84

Post by dang » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:14 PM UTC

Typst: Compose Papers Faster - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32209794 - July 2022 (30 comments)

Typst: Compose Papers Faster - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32205005 - July 2022 (1 comment)

Also

Writing an Incremental Typesetting Engine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33215909 - Oct 2022 (0 comments, but looks interesting)

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#85

Post by elteammate » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:15 PM UTC

m4lvin wrote: post #80

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #52

Latex is "typesetting-complete". This language is not, so it's not a replacement. For instance * The syntax does not use escape sequences for functions/symbols, i.e. phi instead of \phi or floor instead of \floor. You will inevitably run into situations where, for instance, you want to write the letters phi, and have to resort to some ugly hack to write the natural language. This is not okay. * There is reasonable sy…

> i.e. phi instead of \phi or floor instead of \floor. You will inevitably run into situations where, for instance, you want to write the letters phi, and have to resort to some ugly hack to write the natural language. I thought exactly the same: What if I want to write the product of f,l,o,o,r? Well, the "ugly hack" is explained in the readme: You just write "floor" with quotes instead of floor. Seems alright to me…

The product of f, l, o, o, and r is denoted as $f l o o r$ (Same as $floor$ in latex). "floor" is exactly $\operatorname{floor}$

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#86

Post by codetrotter » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:16 PM UTC

sebzim4500 wrote: post #31

swyx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder if gpt4 eases that pain a bit i suspect it does for basic usecases but will still be ultra painful for advanced ones

GPT-4 probably makes it much easier to write, but modifying latex will still be a pain. Unless you want to copy it into another window, tell ChatGPT what modification you want, and then copy it back.

> Unless you want to copy it into another window, tell ChatGPT what modification you want, and then copy it back.

There will be no copying. Plug-ins exist or will exist, such that you will be able to ask GPT-4 directly from within your editor and the plug-in will pass the contents of the document or selection alongside your prompt. Conversely the plug-in for your editor will replace the contents of your document or selection with the output of GPT-4.

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#87

Post by alephaleph » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:16 PM UTC

m4lvin wrote: post #80

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #52

Latex is "typesetting-complete". This language is not, so it's not a replacement. For instance * The syntax does not use escape sequences for functions/symbols, i.e. phi instead of \phi or floor instead of \floor. You will inevitably run into situations where, for instance, you want to write the letters phi, and have to resort to some ugly hack to write the natural language. This is not okay. * There is reasonable sy…

> i.e. phi instead of \phi or floor instead of \floor. You will inevitably run into situations where, for instance, you want to write the letters phi, and have to resort to some ugly hack to write the natural language. I thought exactly the same: What if I want to write the product of f,l,o,o,r? Well, the "ugly hack" is explained in the readme: You just write "floor" with quotes instead of floor. Seems alright to me…

this isn't even a hack -- in Typst you write `$a b$` for implicit products, `$ab$` is always parsed as an identifier and you'll get a compile error if its not defined.

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#88

Post by alephaleph » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:18 PM UTC

aarpmcgee wrote: post #38

If any of the project maintainers are seeing this — I am trying to sign up for the public beta, but the verification email never arrives. I've confirmed that I have submitted the correct email address. Any ideas?

people are reporting similar in the discord, I think their email service is just getting a little hammered rn

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#89

Post by airstrike » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:23 PM UTC

V__ wrote: post #71

airstrike wrote: post #48

I'm not really into LaTeX but I am really into the specific problem of authoring documents with a certain (user-defined) look-and-feel by leveraging some (very user-friendly) DSL that is close to markdown but with more features Does Typst support themes so that I can achieve that? Are there other tools I should be aware of? Are there tools that do all of the above and have themes defined as CSS? I'm aware of RMarkdow…

If you don't have high typesetting needs, maybe WeasyPrint fits your use case. [1] https://weasyprint.org/

Oh my god, this is fantastic. It doesn't solve the DSL part but it does solve the output-to-PDF-using-CSS part. They also seem so nice!

I guess I can clobber together my own DSL and then run with this. I can't thank you enough

Re: Typst, a new markup-based typesetting system, is now open source

#90

Post by Gualdrapo » Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 8:25 PM UTC

BrandonS113 wrote: post #69

Its doomed to failure. Latex is horrible but makes beautiful documents and the relevant world either uses latex or Mircosoft Office. Why use anything else? Latex lives by the community of people who use latex for their work and to collaborate. All know 20 year old latex documents will be compilable in 20 years. No competitor outside of Microsoft can survive that.

It's all about use cases.

I as a graphic designer have been using ConTeXt for more than 10 years now, and I think it's amazing for producing more 'custom' documents and handling typography and stuff. LaTeX and Word fall too short in that purpose.

I guess Typst more of a tool oriented for programmers and computer science people as it seems targeted to give some programming power right into their documents. I may be wrong, but I don't see LaTeX that approachabe from that way (unless you have a decent knowledge of TeX and you are not prone to headaches caused by backslashes).