Support for other previewers and compilers has been greatly improved in this version. The SWP2.5 problems in this respect are now gone.
The greatest potential improvement (see problems below) is the inclusion of a new portable Latex output filter. This gives you a 100% compatible and portable Latex file, so that you no longer need to include tcilatex.tex. Using this filter, pictures are included by means of the graphics packages.
Handling of packages and options has been improved, and SWP can now print out LaTeX files without compilation. You of course do not get the exact layout, but it can save time if you quickly want to read a document.
Not me! Please contact the developers of the software that you use. The information on my web pages is all the
help I can give. For SWP see:
www.mackichan.com/techtalk/support.html
forum.tcisoft.com/visible/tcisupport/dispatch.cgi
The current implementation (SWP3.0 with patch for build 1079) still includes some bugs in the portable Latex output filter. In the sequel I have added the latex files that caused the problems by means of links (for Netscape browsers: shift click to download). The exact problem is described using comments in the files. The bugs I experienced were: (1) the following document is saved with size of almost zero: all contents between begin and end document was lost; (2) SWP crashes when saving a subdocument (master) to portable latex. Solution (from MacKichan support): compile/preview the subdocument first, then save to portable latex.
Changing the font size of a verbatim section to e.g. small still does not work using the Text Tag menu (as in
SWP2.5). The font size command is then simply printed in verbatim mode before each line. Solution: put a \footnotesize
command in an encapsulated TeX field before the verbatim section, and a \normalsize after it.
I use the verbatim mode often for program fragments. The following two bugs however, make the verbatim mode of SWP almost useless for me (so I am forced to use \verbatiminput and put each fragment in a single file):
") character in verbatim is impossible. The character is always
saved as two single quotes (''). The two single quotes are, however, shown on the screen as a
single double quote.~) in verbatim are removed. However, you only become aware of this
after you save and reopen the file.Scrolling over a figure in a document makes SWP read in the figure, even if the figure is iconized. Scrolling stops until the whole figure is read in. This can take quite long if you use large figures (.eps files). I could not get SWP to not read in the figure during scrolling.
If you leave the label in a mathletter environment empty (check the enable lettering checkbox of displayed equations, and leave the "key for whole display" empty), SWP uses the key (label) of the previous mathletter environment, and subsequently complains (after saving and reopening) that the marker occurs more than once in the document.
The SWP parser still rearranges all kinds of things. It moves all Latex comments to the top of the file. This makes it impossible to write general purpose files where, for instance, you can select between using one of two lines with Latex commands (that are each put on a separate line and may be preceded by a % sign) by placing a % sign before one line, and removing the % sign before the other line.
Please don't forget to download the latest patches (available via the MacKichan (formerly TCI) links in the left frame). For win98 users: download the win98 patches (see the MacKichan homepage).
When compiling with a different compiler (such as Y&Y), the Dos box initially may not close when compilation is finished. This occurs under Win98, I do not know about Win95. This finished Dos box blocks the previewer or second compilation phase. Solution: right click the Dos box, select properties, select the Program tab and check the "Close on exit" box. Then close the Dos box. The next time, the box will close itself automatically.
Do to the problems in the portable Latex output filter I still use the old output filter together with my tcigraph package, and a new tcilatex.tex file (works fine for me, but I have done no other testing than to use it on my own files). The new tcilatex.tex file (for Netscape browsers: shift click to download) is based on the file that comes with SWP3.0 (C:\SWP30\TCITeX\TeX\LaTeX\tci\tcilatex.tex). I have also stripped all the asmmath and some symbol stuff in this file that sometimes created problems (SWP3.0 automatically puts an \usepackage{amsmath} in your document. If you compile older .tex files that have not included this package, you may need to include it yourself.) As a result, the tcilatex.tex file is now considerably shorter. If you experience problems with this file, you may try the old version based on SWP2.5. Be sure to read the comments on the SWP2.5 versions of tcilatex.tex and tcigraph.sty.
When my tcigraph package is used on older .tex files where the figure extensions are in capital letters (e.g. .WMF) an error results. Solution: replace the capitals in the extension by lower case (e.g .WMF to .wmf).
A second problem is that figures starting with two periods (e.g. '../figures/tst.wmf') also result in compile errors. Solution: put the figure in the same directory as the .tex file, or make sure that the full file name is used.
In SWP3.0 you can easily navigate to chapters and sections in a document using the navigation bar (drop down
box). The default behaviour is such that subsections are no longer shown in the navigation bar (in SWP2.5 they
were). You can increase the depth off the navigation bar by modifying the relevant .cst file. In the [Defaults]
section, there is an entry that says
TAGLEVEL = 3
If you use an ASCII editor to increase this number, the navigation bar will display a deeper level of section
headings.
Last updated: 8 February 2001