[OS X TeX] Who should use (La)TeX - who is able to use it?

[Alain Schremmer]

Clearly, I wouldn't have been able to be a secretary at the computer 
science department of your old university.

I am not familiar with the first TeXGInstaller.app but I don't see what 
would be wrong with such an app as an /alternative/ for those who want, 
or do not know better for the time being than wanting, something like a 
barebone TeXshop with a barebone LaTeX panel incoporated in the main 
menu bar.

Such an /alternative/ combination would already go a long way towards "a 
WYSIWYG editor which would produce the quality of" at least Word. 
Contrary to what seems to be the basic assumption, people are not 
necessarily drawn to LaTeX because of the high quality of its output. 
Speaking for myself, all I /needed/ was something that would satisfy the 
GPL. The output is nicely addictive, though, and now I am glad to have 
it. So, if you will, think of such a combo as a lite version to suck 
people in.

Regards
--schremmer

Gerben Wierda wrote:

> On 14 Nov 2004, at 14:21, Arno Kruse wrote:
>
>> Dear members of the list,
>>
>> For years I read the articles which are announced in this list with 
>> great interest; I got  many suggestions and a lot of help - please 
>> accept my best thanks.
>> But during the last months a worrying feeling was arising more and 
>> more, especially when reading the lot of sometimes extremely 
>> complicated questions and answers: Is a "normal" user generally 
>> capable to use  LaTeX?
>
>
> I recall that the secretaries at the computer science department of my 
> old university were using TeX and they had no trouble with it. It all 
> depends on what you want to do. If you want to influence the outcome, 
> some learning will be involved.
>
>> What to do?
>>
>> It is easy to criticise, but tedious to make things better. Let me 
>> give some ideas what we might do:
>>
>> 1. Most important: It must be much easier to use LaTeX. This begins 
>> with the installation. Thanks to Gerben (next year in january I shall 
>> finally transfer an amount to him, he is doing a great work) it is 
>> quite easy for us, but not for a normal user, who is used to 
>> double-click an icon, the rest is done without  pains.
>
>
> Yes, let's go back to my original design of the first 
> TeXGSInstaller.app: an app with a window and just one button: "Install".
>
> What almost everybody would like was a WYSIWYG editor which would 
> produce the quality of TeX (better even, because some parts of TeX can 
> do with improvement) but which would be completely GUI in its interface.
>
> G
>
> --------------------- Info ---------------------
> Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
>           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>
>
>
>
--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>