May 2018

From: Dr Christopher Mabb, Scientific Word Ltd.
To: Our Scientific Word/WorkPlace/Notebook Technical Typesetting list

1. Version 6.0.28:    Here's the list of changes, updates and improvements in v6.0.28:
   
   
   • Changed various dialogs to improve resizing and persisting; resized certain dialogs to avoid needing scroll bars
   • Improved save to web to include all graphics and avoid showing contents of T_eX fields
   • Corrected problem that prevented toolbar customization
   • Removed Themes from Toolbar menu. Select theme using Preferences
   • Removed Help button from Hyperlink dialog since it was not helpful
   • Fixed a problem that caused invalid-markup
   • Changed text in Breaks dialog from "Discard at line end" to "Discard at page end" when using custom vertical space
   • Changed position of Footnote from first to last in the list of note types in the Note dialog. Footnote is available directly from the Insert menu so shouldn't be the default selection for the Note dialog
   • Added a level of depth to the Entering and Editing Mathematical Objects section in the Working with Mathematics chapter of the online help
   • Added xcolor and xspace to the list of available packages in the Options and Packages dialog
   • Fixed a problem where the cases environment was not imported
   • Fixed a problem where a table inside a margin note was not imported
   • Removed unneeded font size attribute from some sample text in the Standard_LaTeX_Report shell document
   • Fixed a problem where \bordermatrix used in a .tex file was not imported
   • Allowed footnotes and other notes to have different preferences for raggedleft and raggedright
   • Added solution to the list of known theorem-like objects
   • Fixed a problem with an expression that caused a crash when it was evaluated
   • Added black box to the screen display at the end of the proof environment
   • Improved performance when deleting using the Backspace key
   • Changed the increment of some controls in the default graphics sizes. Changed so increment would be .1 instead of 1
   • Fixed where a4paperpaper instead of a4paper was added to \usepackage line for geometry after changing paper size via Document Format dialog
   • Fixed a problem where --SW-- would appear after switching to source view and then back to normal view caused by a thinspace in maths mode
   • Fixed typos in the graphics properties dialog (changed "Expession" to "Expression" and "Orientatin" to "Orientation")
   • Fixed a problem that prevented the Animation settings button from activating in the graphics user settings dialog
   • Updated shell documents to remove <address> tags (use Shift+Enter inside <author> tag to add address lines in the front matter)
   • Updated shell documents to use current correct form of the <thanks> tag in the front matter
   • Updated shell documents to use numbering="none" as the attribute for <msidisplay> for unnumbered displays instead of numbering="eqns". The latter is no longer used and the cursor could not be placed in a display with that attribute
   • Fixed an import problem where the tikzpicture environment (used by the tikz package) is now placed inside a T_eX field
   • Updated the copyright to say "Copyright 2015-2018 by MacKichan Software, Inc."
   • Removed the multimedia package from the beamer shell. It is not needed and caused a compile problem after a bad beamer update from CTAN
   • Updated document export of %EndExpansion to be on a line by itself
   • Updated the shell documents to replace obsolete <QTP type="Body Math"> with <bodyMath> tags
   • Updated the shell documents to delete spurious <br> tags
   • Updated various help system graphics to use current screen captures
   • Changed export of &#x2A38; from \circleddivide to \odiv. The macro \circleddivide doesn't exist anyplace, but \odiv is defined by the stix package
   • Added mappings for about 900 symbols that are Unicode characters defined by the stix package
   • Added a new symbol panel tab for new stix characters. NOTE: With some 900 characters on the new symbol panel it can be awkward to use the panel directly. Drag the symbols you want to use to the User panel for easier access to the probably much smaller group of symbols that you will end up using
   • Fixed a problem that prevented plotting expressions containing a comma
   • Added textcomp (part of L^aT_eX base) and stix packages to list of available packages for every known class in the Options and Packages dialog
   • Fixed problems with the index entry dialog
   • Fixed a problem where the special appearance value from an index entry would appear in the body of the document
   • Fixed a problem where parameters to assume were being treated as variables
   • Changed export of \text macro to not add \; (thin space) before and after when generating L^aT_eX
   • Removed set and book from the section/environment tags drop down list of divisions since they are not used by typesetting specifications
   • Updated shell documents to remove spurious spaces at the end of paragraphs
   • Fixed a problem where a backspace at the beginning of a paragraph following an empty list causes crash
   • Changed the default save interval from 10 to 30 seconds (try to avoid race condition that has been reported where keyboard entry becomes slow)
   • Updated shell documents to use a correct sample table with caption
   • Fixed a document import problem for certain figure environments and \includegraphics statements
   • Deleted .addr. automatic substitution since address tag is no longer used, and added .date. automatic substitution as it was missing
   • Revised Activate dialog to put serial number at top (and avoid possible problem where computer id can be deleted by a random keystroke)
   • Fixed problems caused by backspacing in lists
   • Added some background colours to the Normal view for elements not commonly used, and not easily distinguished from other elements: verbatim, shortQuote, longQuotation, flushleft, and flushright (used same colours for last two as in 5.5)
   • Fix a problem where you could not backspace from the beginning of an empty paragraph to delete text in the previous paragraph
   • Updated the fragments to use the <bodyText> tag
   • Updated a command file to suppress the message: '""' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. This happened if preferences on a Windows installation was set to open a PDF using the default viewer program
   • Fixed display problem with some graphics
   • Fixed a problem where the cursor was lost when switching between text and maths
   • Various edits to the help system to improve grammar, formatting, and accuracy




2. Hold it!    You might remember the issue a couple of years ago when the release of TeX Live 2016 broke the MacKichan installer; this information was disseminated in our June 2016 mailing Item 2.
   We're sorry to say that the release of TeX Live 2018 has done the same thing; the problem appears to be the MacKichan installation routine's inability to create the 2018 subfolder of \texlive (and its subfolders).
   For installation of v6.0.28, please follow our standard v6.0 installation instructions in conjunction with the temporary instructions for manual installation of TeXLive. This will apply until v6.0.29 is released.
   The text in green below is now redundant.
   
   
   1. If you are trying to upgrade a Scientific Word/WorkPlace system from v6.0.26 or v6.0.27 to the latest v6.0.28 then simply uncheck the TeX Live Network Install module after accepting the licence agreement (where Ghostscript and Inkscape are probably also unchecked). This will allow you to run SW/P v6.0.28 with the existing TeXLive 2017
   2. If you are creating a new SW/P installation:
      • First install TeXLive manually. The page here links you to http://tug.org/texlive/acquire-netinstall.html. There you can download install-tl-windows.exe, which you should then Simple install – Next – Install.
        This process will take some time. After the unpacking, click Next on the blue TeXLive 2018 panel. (There are instructions, though not very good ones, at http://tug.org/texlive/windows.html.)
      • After you have installed TeXLive, follow our v6.0 installation instructions. In Step 4 you should uncheck the TeX Live Network Install module after accepting the licence agreement (where Ghostscript and Inkscape are probably also unchecked).
   
   Note that the file C:\texlive\tlyear (you can open it with NotePad) tells you which version of TeXLive it thinks it's trying to use. On a Mac, it's the file ~/.tex/tlyear (you can open it with TextEdit).
   Of course, all this is just a temporary fix to get you off the hook – no doubt the next update of Scientific Word/WorkPlace will remove the problem.




3. Beamer & PowerPoint:    As you know, Scientific Word/WorkPlace does not produce PowerPoint presentations, though it allows you to copy and paste maths in as graphics (coincidentally, one of the clips included in the Training videos demo from 2m30s to 3m10s). The closest Scientific Word/WorkPlace comes to PowerPoint is Beamer, but Beamer produces PDFs to project directly from the Acrobat Reader rather than by exporting to PowerPoint.
   An academic who has been one of our users for over 25 years wants to customise a Beamer theme so as to reproduce the appearance of a given university PowerPoint template, writing:

   As a quick fix I opened the template in LibreOffice Impress and exported it as a pdf, I then exploded it to separate pages and included them in the Beamer presentation as background images using default style and disabling the footer and navigation icons.
   It works but I wonder if there is a way to produce a Beamer theme that will reproduce this appearance just by adding \usetheme{university} to the preamble making it easier to convert presentations for use inside and outside the university.

   This is a non-trivial problem. If the university fails to commission a Beamer theme as a matching pair with its PowerPoint template, then our best suggestion is to ask the university to supply the
   
   
   • graphics
   • fonts
   • colours (as RGB or hex)
   
   involved, and commission a Beamer theme to be professionally produced by someone whose expertise is in L^aT_eX and Beamer themes matching PowerPoint. Googling “produce beamer theme to match powerpoint” yields some promising results...
   If any of our users have already solved this problem, do please let us know, and we'll pass the information on to the user concerned and include it for a wider audience in our next mailing. Thanks.




4. v6.0 serial number:    Just a recap. that:
   
   
   1. A v6.0 serial number will Register a v5.5 system (although it will lose any British English dictionary your v5.5 serial number might automatically unlock), but
   2. A v5.5 serial number will not Activate a v6.0 system
   3. All those who bought v5.5 systems after November 2010 were eligible for a complimentary v6.0 upgrade, and our June 2015 mailing Item 4 gives details of how to obtain the corresponding v6.0 serial number
   4. The v6.0 systems we supplied in early 2015 were delivered as v5.5 serial numbers (so as to get the users up and running immediately), to be upgraded as above as soon as v6.0 was released.
   
   That's the background to the exchange we had a couple of months ago with one of our users in Finland:

   I bought or pre-ordered scientific workplace 6.0 from you some time ago and installed it but have not used it for a while <snip>. I tried today to use sci workplace 6 (mainly for the convenient math engine) but for some reason my licence doesn't work anymore. I tried to reenter the licence but sciworkplace didn't accept it.

   The details of our reply might be helpful for others:

   The licence and serial number below (E0600) are for Scientific WorkPlace v5.5; at the time of your Order the v6.0 serial numbers (E0700) had not been released. To obtain your E0700 serial number for v6.0, please see our June 2015 mailing Item 4.
   If you’re wanting to use the the Scientific WorkPlace v5.5 you’re familiar with, you can still use your v5.5 serial number (note that the licence file below is specific to the machine for which it was issued; you can register v5.5 on another computer as well if you’ve changed machines). Version 6.0 feels a little different being a complete re-write of the program, and will require the v6.0 serial number.

   In summary: best practice is to use v5.5 serial numbers for v5.5 systems, and likewise with v6.0.




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