Dear Hans, On Sun, 19 Apr 2009, Hans Hagen wrote:

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is it possible to produce dvi in mkiv? DVI has to be fit for dvips use.

The reason for my question - Asymptote vector drawing tool sets labels by processing PS output of LaTeX and relies on the PS being made by dvips.

you can produce dvi when you force the pdfoutput mode but you will probably get errors reported

best convert that ps to pdf than and include the pdf

No, no, no! I have been misunderstood! The problem is not how to include Asymptote output into ConTeXt. If it is 2D - then it is just normal PDF, that can be included as usual. If it is 3D - I have the code, modeled after movie inclusion (thanks Hans, you fixed it when I have mentioned that it was broken in mkiv). What I am talking about now is how to typeset labels within Asymptote by ConTeXt. Asymptote takes label text, wraps it into a minimal document and feeds to a TeX engine, gets DVI, processes it with dvips, redefines some PS commands (here it relies on the dvips specifics) so that the information on the resulting path is being printed and runs the PS file through ghostscript. Thus Asymptote gets the information of the curves the label consists of. So if it is possible to feed ConTeXt output to dvips, than it'll be easy to adopt Asymptote to use ConTeXt. If mkiv does not produce dvi (now? never will? not intended to?), what about mkii? Sincerely, Michail PS. The black side of mirgation from another system - you are both a novice and need to setup/modify your new tool in unevident ways to translate your existing work into new terms... You barely drive but need to fit that trusty Gatling on the car's roof :(

Dear Hans, On Sun, 19 Apr 2009, Hans Hagen wrote:

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If mkiv does not produce dvi (now? never will? not intended to?), what about mkii?

sure, mkii can produce dvi for several drivers

And what about the first part of the question? The (negative?) answer is implied in your other post, but what is the official position (if any)? Sincerely, Michail

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 15:39, Michail Vidiassov wrote:

Dear Hans,

On Sun, 19 Apr 2009, Hans Hagen wrote:

...

...

If mkiv does not produce dvi (now? never will? not intended to?), what about mkii?

sure, mkii can produce dvi for several drivers

And what about the first part of the question? The (negative?) answer is implied in your other post, but what is the official position (if any)?

The problem is not writing DVI file per se, but conversion from DVI to some reasonable format (both ps and pdf are problematic). As soon as you want to use OpenType fonts and their features, dvips will not be able to convert the DVI to valid PS any more unless someone writes extension for it (which is very unlikely to happen). If you insist in DVI and OpenType fonts, you could just as well take a look at ConTeXt+XeTeX that is able to generate xdv files (extended dvi), but I can guarantee you problems. dvips is not able to handle XDV files. If Asymptote is not able to handle PDF files, maybe Asymptote itself would need extensions. (When I last tried to use Asymptote I gave up since I was not able to figure out how to install it and started using other tools.) But as far as I know, if the only critical step is conversion of font outlines into curves, gs is able to read PDF files as well. I see no reason why one would require PS unless one uses very basic techniques for document manipulation (it's a bit easier to parse and work with PS than it is to work with PDF, but when it's done inside a bigger project it probably pays off to support both; I guess that the overhead should not be that big). If you would like asymptote to handle ConTeXt labels you should start with mkii. But honestly: I don't really see when LaTeX for typesetting labels would not suffice. ConTeXt is extremely good at page formatting, but when it comes to typeset "$A$" for point labels, I would not mind using LaTeX (If it's only about OpenType you cannot do anything unless Asymptote gets extended, but even then you could use XeTeX.) There definitely are few exceptions and there's definitely an extremely good feeling if you're aware that the tool uses ConTeXt in the background ... but that's about all about it. But the answer to your question about mkiv and dvi remains: no, it won't be supported, unless someone provides sufficient funding or writes amazing/extremely useful tools that could cope with XDV format and do something useful with it. Feel free to search dev-luatex archives for lenghty discussions about the issue. Mojca

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 17:03, Michail Vidiassov wrote:

Dear Mojca,

On Sun, 19 Apr 2009, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

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If Asymptote is not able to handle PDF files, maybe Asymptote itself would need extensions. (When I last tried to use Asymptote I gave up since I was not able to figure out how to install it and started using other tools.)

This (installation problems) is part of the question why typesetting in Asymptote with ConTeXt is desirable - no need to maintain separate LaTeX installation, avoiding mixup with older version of ConTeXt that comes with it, etc.

I was mostly talking about dependency problems on libraries when compiling asymptote (I have no idea what libraries it depends on, but there are definitely many of them). If I want to install asymptote with packaging system (like macports), then I *have to* install some ancient version of TeX Live (which is great since I now need to have three copies of TeX Live on hard-drive and without ever using it). If I want to compile asymptote myself, I would drive me crazy before I would figure out all the library dependencies. It would be really nice if someone would be ready to spend time to include asymptote in TeX Live. That would make installation thousand times easier.

And at this moment Asymptote is (almost) the only tool that makes 3D PDF directly (without $$$$ Windows-only converter like Acrobat), is Metapost-like and not some CAD monster or VRML fossil.

No doubt about it. I'm trying to survive by using some random mixture of tools like gnuplot, povray, matlab, mathematica, raw EPS, ... Mathematica has become really impressive recently and is able to export 3D figures, but it's not free. I wanted to use asymptote, but I had to finish something until the deadline and didn't have the necessary time left to install and learn it.

...

If you would like asymptote to handle ConTeXt labels you should start with mkii. But honestly: I don't really see when LaTeX for typesetting labels would not suffice. ConTeXt is extremely good at page formatting, but when it comes to typeset "$A$" for point labels, I would not mind using LaTeX (If it's only about OpenType you cannot do anything unless Asymptote gets extended, but even then you could use XeTeX.)

Apart from maintenance problems with the zoo of tools, Asymptote aspires for high quality of labels (and has invested considerable effort to preserve it in 3D mode), that implies that labels are to be in the same font as the main text and/or follow some predetermined style.

True, but usually setting the right font is doable.

As a side note - PS is a programming language very well suited for just this kind of problems. ;)

I agree, but PS is easy to write, while parsing someone else's code automatically is challenging, not to say impossible. -------------------- In any case, I would recommend you to contact asymptote developers. There's a bunch of LaTeX commands that are being harcoded in asymptote source, and those would have to be rewritten and made configurable. Next, you'll probably need some switch to trigger executing ConTeXt instead of LaTeX. There is some split betwen plain TeX and LaTeX, but you'll need a bit more work to include ConTeXt support as well. I don't know how exactly Asymptote works. You said that it uses dvi, but I have seen the word "xelatex" in the source, so there's no reason why you couldn't use LuaTeX. XeLaTeX doesn't generate dvi files either. Ask the developers if it is possible to use PDF. It will be much much easier if you could use PDF since you could have all the three engines supported in a single move. If you'll start with dvi, you'll have to reconfigure everything later to make it work with XeTeX and/or LuaTeX. Mojca