IBM's techexplorer* is a Web browser for readers and publishers of scientific articles, books, and journals on the Internet. A Netscape Navigator plug-in, it dynamically formats and displays documents containing expressions coded with the popular TeX and LaTeX markup languages.
Chapter 1. Getting started with techexplorer
Learn the benefits of techexplorer and how easy it is to install.
Chapter 2. Viewing techexplorer documents
Discover how to navigate in a document formatted and displayed by
techexplorer, as well as how to tailor the fonts and colors of the
techexplorer display to your liking.
Chapter 3. Creating a techexplorer document
Review the guidelines for effective techexplorer documents.
Then use this reference material to begin adding TeX and LaTeX symbols,
hyperlinks and multimedia, pop-up menus, colors, and more to your own documents.
Chapter 4. Testing your techexplorer document
Review the advice for getting your documents ready for distribution
on the Internet.
Appendix A. Supported and unsupported features
Verify which TeX and LaTeX features are supported by this release
of techexplorer.
Appendix B. Change history and known problems
Check to see what's been fixed and what fixes are upcoming.
User feedback form and mailing list
Send us your comments on how we can improve techexplorer for
you. And join a public discussion of techexplorer topics, by subscribing
to a non-IBM sponsored mailing list.
[ IBM techexplorer product page ]
Choose a topic of interest:
The IBM techexplorer Hypermedia Browser is a Web browser plug-in for people who read or publish scientific articles, books, journals, or even homework on the Internet. If you fit that description and use Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT with Netscape Navigator version 2.01 or higher or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.0 or higher as your browser, then you probably need this accessory!
IBM techexplorer dynamically formats and displays documents containing scientific and mathematical expressions that are coded with the popular TeX and LaTeX markup languages. techexplorer supports a large subset of these languages.
Wondering why only a subset? We've chosen the tags that you need for electronic publishing of your documents, the tags that will enhance your Web presence, and extend your commercial reach to readers who perhaps don't have access to or don't subscribe to the hardcopy equivalent of your articles, books, and journals.
|
MIME type |
Corresponding File Extensions |
|---|---|
| application/x-tex | *.tex, *.bbl |
| application/x-latex | *.latex, *.ltx |
| application/x-techexplorer | *.tcx |
Using Microsoft Explorer or File Manager, create a temporary directory.
You will download the self-extracting zip file into this directory.
Return to the techexplorer page and click download techexplorer now into the temporary directory..
After you accept the license agreement, download the self-extracting installation file.
Using Microsoft Explorer or File Manager, change to the directory where you downloaded the file, and double-click the file.
Now that you have techexplorer installed, you can access navigational aids and extensive customization options by clicking the right mouse button within a techexplorer window.
Note: While viewing a document, you might see some formatting instructions in red within the document, such as \hookrightarrow. This is techexplorer's way of letting you know it could not find the corresponding symbol from the fonts on your machine. techexplorer is honest about what it cannot do or what is unavailable!
For details on how to use techexplorer to its fullest, see:
Choose a topic of interest:
To view a document that has been enhanced by techexplorer, just open the document using Netscape Navigator. To do this, start Navigator and choose the "File | Open" menu selection. (If you are using Navigator Gold, the selection may be "File | Open File In Browser".)
This is a convenient way to view techexplorer files that you have downloaded from the Web or created yourself.
Note: While viewing a document, you might see some formatting instructions in red within the document, such as \hookrightarrow. This is techexplorer's way of letting you know it tried but couldn't find the corresponding symbol from among the fonts on your machine or didn't understand the command. If you have fonts that you would like to see techexplorer support, please let us know.
You have several options when viewing documents and expressions formatted by techexplorer. To choose your options, click the right mouse button within the plug-in window, and then select techexplorer Options from the pop-up menu.
techexplorer documents displayed in full-screen mode support the Netscape Navigator back/forward document navigational chain.
A techexplorer document may contain information that places the document within a hierarchy of network documents. For example, the displayed document might be a section within a chapter within a series of textbooks. In this case, the above topic would be the containing chapter, the previous topic would be the previous section in the chapter (if any), and the next topic would be the next section (if any).
To link to any of these topics, click your right mouse button on an empty area of the plug-in window, and then choose Above topic, Previous topic, or Next topic from the pop-up menu. See Hierarchical Document Support to learn how to add these features to your documents.
Click the right mouse button within the plug-in window, and then select techexplorer Options from the pop-up menu. If you do not see a pop-up menu similar to the one above, you may need to right click elsewhere within the plug-in window, since authors can customize the pop-up menus in their techexplorer documents.
You can select four font typefaces and point sizes for text display. The size modifiers \tiny, \footnotesize, \small, \normalsize, \large, \Large, \LARGE, and \huge are all computed proportionally to the sizes you select. Use \TrueTypeTextFont locally change the current font.
The Fonts Options page conveniently provides buttons to quickly increase or decrease the sizes of all fonts by one point. The minimum font size is 8 points.
Your selections are automatically remembered. Click the OK button to update all techexplorer windows. If you wish to experiment, click the Apply button to see the effect of your selections. Click Cancel to undo your Apply.
In addition to the fonts it uses for regular, italic, san serif, and monospace text, techexplorer supports four different sets of fonts from which it gets its mathematical symbols, Greek letters, and so on. These sets, in decreasing order of completeness, are:
The techexplorer plug-in initially looks at what is available on your computer and tries to use the most complete set of fonts, based on the order in the list above. You can choose the font set you wish to use from the Math and Symbols tab of the techexplorer Options. If a font set is not available on your computer, you will not be able to select it. Your selection is automatically remembered. Click the OK button to update all techexplorer windows. If you wish to experiment, click the Apply button to see the effect of your selection. Click Cancel to undo your Apply.
A symbol that is not available is displayed in red in the document, as in \hookrightarrow. techexplorer provides fixed-size, fixed-color bitmaps for several of the most commonly used symbols that are missing from the standard Microsoft Windows Symbol and WingDingsfonts.
If you have techexplorer installed, you can look at a "symbols.tex" document containing the available symbols.
If you know of other TrueType math symbol fonts that we should support, please let us know. Also, we plan to add support for additional symbols, such as those from the AMS Symbol set.
You can choose the foreground and background colors for many elements of the techexplorer display, as well as selectively set the colors for elements within math expressions.
The foreground color is the color of the characters in the text. The background color is the color of the screen behind the characters. The colors you can set are:
If you wish to use only black and white in text, uncheck the box labelled "Allow colors other than black and white in text". Your selections are automatically remembered. Click the OK button to update all techexplorer windows. If you wish to experiment, click the Apply button to see the effect of your selections. Click Cancel to undo your Apply.
By default, mathematical expressions within techexplorer are displayed using the Math Foreground color as described in the above section. It may be easier for you to comprehend an expression if a range of colors is used in its display. You can choose different colors for the standard elements within the expressions from the Math AutoColor tab of the techexplorer Options.
Be sure to check the "Automatically add color highlights to math expressions" box to have your color scheme used. Your selections are automatically remembered. Click the OK button to update all techexplorer windows. If you wish to experiment, click the Apply button to see the effect of your selections. Click Cancel to undo your Apply.
Choose a topic of interest:
techexplorer supports a large subset of TeX and LaTeX. It adds features for hypertext, multimedia, pop-up menus, and other extensions so that you can produce sophisticated electronic scientific and technical documents for Internet distribution.
Once you have installed the techexplorer plug-in, you will be able to view a number of examples directly. These are indicated below by techexplorer Example.
We will not review the definitions of common TeX and LaTeX features; refer to your TeX and LaTeX documentation for details.
When you create a techexplorer document, you should use an editor that can save your file in plain text. That is, if you use a word processor, make sure that you choose to save the file in ASCII format.
In this release of techexplorer, very long documents may not format correctly and, even if they do, may process very slowly. You should break longer documents into smaller ones and then add hypertext links and hierarchical document support. In fact, this is a good general practice for Internet document distribution, since users of your documents can quickly receive and view document sections on demand. See Cross References for some tips on adding hyperlinks and references between the smaller documents.
You should build flexibility into your techexplorer documents so that they can display on a variety of users' screens. Avoid thinking in terms of a fixed page width. Also, one document is one page, so control sequences that do page ejects, set running titles, and do similar page-oriented things are usually accepted by techexplorer but have no effect.
And finally, as you create techexplorer documents, be sure that all contained document names mentioned are absolute (for example: http://...) or relative to the current document (for example: \includegraphics{mylogo.bmp}). techexplorer and Navigator will work together to find the files when your viewers request them.
techexplorer can display a mathematical or scientific expression within a window in the display of a document. (This is usually an HTML document, but it could also be a document displayed by another plug-in that can itself embed plug-ins.) Or it can display the entire document in the Netscape Navigator display area.
When the techexplorer plug-in installs itself, it becomes auto-registered with Netscape Navigator to handle Web documents with the following MIME types and corresponding file extensions:
|
MIME type |
Corresponding File Extensions |
|---|---|
| application/x-tex | *.tex, *.bbl |
| application/x-latex | *.latex, *.ltx |
| application/x-techexplorer | *.tcx |
For full-screen mode, Netscape Navigator uses the techexplorer plug-in when it is asked to link to a file with the above file extensions or MIME types. The techexplorer plug-in itself can link to other documents on the network in this way, even if they are not techexplorer documents.
To set a fixed window size for the display of a document containing mathematical or scientific expressions, use the EMBED HTML tag to define the size of the window and the source file containing the techexplorer expression or document to be displayed. The SRC attribute gives the relative or absolute URL (location) of the file to be displayed. The WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes assert the desired size of the plug-in window, in pixels. For example:
<EMBED SRC="math.tex" WIDTH=500 HEIGHT=200>
Note that the SRC attribute name is used to tell Netscape Navigator where to obtain the source markup. If you are using Netscape Navigator 3.0 or a compatible browser, you can also specify the TeX makup directly inline. For example,
<EMBED TYPE="application/x-techexplorer"
TEXDATA="\pagecolor{silver}$$\pmatrix{2&\sqrt{3}&\alpha\cr\beta&4&5}^T$$"
HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=200>
This looks like the following (without the black border):
Restrictions: Unfortunately there are just some things you cannot do very well with plug-ins today. These include:
For the above reasons, we recommend that you use techexplorer to display the full text of your document if there is math embedded within paragraphs or there are more than a few display math expressions.
These symbols are obtained from the symbol font set you are using. A symbol that is not available is displayed in red in the document, as in \hookrightarrow. techexplorer provides fixed-size, fixed-color bitmaps for several of the most commonly used symbols that are missing from the standard Microsoft Windows Symbol and WingDings fonts. "symbols.tex" techexplorer Example.
\alpha \beta \chi \delta \epsilon \eta \gamma \iota \kappa \lambda \mu \nu \omega \phi \pi \psi \rho \sigma \tau \theta \upsilon \varepsilon \varphi \varpi \varrho \varsigma \vartheta \xi \zeta
\Delta \Gamma \Lambda \Omega \Phi \Pi \Psi \Sigma \Theta \Upsilon \Xi
\Downarrow \Leftarrow \Leftrightarrow \Longleftarrow \Longleftrightarrow \Longrightarrow \Rightarrow \Uparrow \Updownarrow \downarrow \hookleftarrow \hookrightarrow \leadsto \leftarrow \leftharpoondown \leftharpoonup \leftrightarrow \longleftarrow \longleftrightarrow \longmapsto \longrightarrow \mapsto \nearrow \nwarrow \rightarrow \rightharpoondown \rightharpoonup \rightleftharpoons \searrow \swarrow \uparrow \updownarrow
\amalg \ast \bigcirc \bigtriangledown \bigtriangleup \bullet \cap \cdot \circ \cup \dagger \ddagger \diamond \div \land \lor \lhd \mp \odot \ominus \oplus \oslash \otimes \pm \rhd \setminus \sqcap \sqcup \star \times \triangleleft \triangleright \unlhd \unrhd \uplus \vee \wedge \wr
\approx \asymp \bowtie \cong \dashv \doteq \equiv \frown \geq \gg \in \Join \leq \ll \mid \models \neq \ni \parallel \perp \prec \preceq \propto \sim \simeq \smile \sqsubset \sqsubseteq \sqsupset \sqsupseteq \subset \subseteq \succ \succeq \supset \supseteq \vdash
\"A \"E \"I \"O \"U \"a \"e \"i \"o \"u \AA \AE \Box \Diamond \Im \O \OE \P \Re \S \Vert\aa \ae \aleph \angle \backslash \beth \bot \cents \clubsuit \copyright \dag \daleth \ddag \diamondsuit \digamma \ell \emptyset \exists \flat \forall \gimel \hbar \heartsuit \imath \infty \jmath \langle \lceil \ldots \lfloor \mho \nabla \natural \neg \o \oe \partial \pounds \prime \rangle \rceil \registered \rfloor \sharp \spadesuit \ss \surd \thorn \Thorn \THORN \top \trademark \triangle \varkappa \varnothing \vert \wp
\bigcap \bigcup \bigodot \bigoplus \bigotimes \bigsqcup \biguplus \bigvee \bigwedge \coprod \int \oint \prod \sum
A link causes something to happen when the link is executed. When the cursor passes over a link, it turns into the familiar "pointing hand" cursor, indicating a hot spot. In techexplorer, a visible link is executed when you click the left mouse button or press the Ctrl-Enter key when the mouse cursor is over the link. Links are not underlined in techexplorer, because any expression can be contained in the hot spot, even a complicated mathematical one. By default, links are displayed in blue, but you can change this in the Color options page.
Links are also used with pop-up menus and can be executed in response to user actions in dialog boxes created by \inputboxLink and \yesNoLink.
Use \docLink to jump to another network document and \labelLink to jump to another location within the same document.
\docLink{ documentFileName }[ label ]{ textToDisplay }
This is a (possibly) non-local hypertext link. The documentFileName URL can be a TeX file or an arbitrary URL: Netscape Navigator might display the document itself or invoke techexplorer or another plug-in.
This link displays textToDisplay in the document. When executed, the document with the given documentFileName is loaded, and is scrolled so that the document element with the given optional label is visible. If the label is omitted or not present in the document, the beginning of the document is displayed. Known problem: the display may overwrite itself while it scrolls to the correct location given by label, though it eventually looks correct.
See \labelLink for information about hypertext links within the same document, though \docLink can be used in this situation. If necessary, use \verb with documentFileName if it contains backslashes or other special characters.
\labelLink{ label }{ textToDisplay }
This is a local hypertext link. This link displays textToDisplay in the document. When executed, the document is scrolled so that the document element with the given label is visible. The label must be present in the current document. Use \docLink to jump to a label in another document. "symbols.tex" techexplorer Example.
\label{ label }
Use the \label control sequence to set a label target for a hypertext link. For example:
\section{4.2 Elementary Functions}\label{elemfuns}
It could be used in this way with \labelLink:
For more information, see \labelLink{elemfuns}{\S~4.2}.
A techexplorer document itself may contain information that places itself within a hierarchy of network documents. For example, the displayed document might be a section within a chapter within a series of textbooks. In this example, the above topic would be the containing chapter, the previous topic would be the previous section in the chapter (if any), and the next topic would be the next section (if any). You link to one of these topics by right clicking on an empty area of the plug-in window and then choosing Above topic, Previous topic, or Next topic from the pop-up menu.
\aboveTopic{ topicName }
This defines topicName to be the "above topic" for the current document. topicName can be an arbitrary URL (document location) on the network. Netscape Navigator is used to get the document, so topicName need not be a techexplorer document. When this topic is defined, the Above topic menu choice is enabled in the techexplorer pop-up menu.
\nextTopic{ topicName }
This defines topicName to be the "next topic" for the current document. topicName can be an arbitrary URL (document location) on the network. The Netscape Navigator is used to get the document, so topicName need not be a techexplorer document. When this topic is defined, the Next topic menu choice is enabled in the techexplorer pop-up menu.
\previousTopic{ topicName }
This defines topicName to be the "previous topic" for the current document. topicName can be an arbitrary URL (document location) on the network. The Netscape Navigator is used to get the document, so topicName need not be a techexplorer document. When this topic is defined, the Previous topic menu choice is enabled in the techexplorer pop-up menu.
Rather than working with a single large document, techexplorer is optimized to work with a series of hyperlinked documents that move quickly to your desktop and onto your screen. When a reference is given to an object in another document, techexplorer needs to know the document location. Use \docLink to jump to another document and \labelLink to jump to another location within the same document.
Current Restriction: In this release, techexplorer does not handle automatic numbering of sections, figures, and so on. The \ref and \pageref control sequences always display ???.
We suggest that you now manually label these items and create macros for expressions containing labels and referencing labels. These macros can be changed later if numbering support is enabled. For example,
\def\Section#1#2#3{\section{#1\quad#2}\label{#3}}
\def\SectionRef#1#2#3{\docLink{#2}(#3){\S~#1}}
The \Section macro accepts a section number (#1), a section title (#2), and a label (#3). It creates a standard heading with a label. The \SectionRef macro accepts a section number (#1), the name of the document containing the section (#2), and the label of the section within the document (#3).
Here are some additional, similar macros that you may find useful in converting larger files to smaller, cross referenced ones:
\def\refGeneral#1#2#3#4{\docLink{#3.tex}(#1){#4 #2}}%ref label, number, file
\def\refCorollary#1#2#3{\refGeneral{#1}{#2}{#3}{Corollary}}
\def\refDefinition#1#2#3{\refGeneral{#1}{#2}{#3}{Definition}}
\def\refLemma#1#2#3{\refGeneral{#1}{#2}{#3}{Lemma}}
\def\refProposition#1#2#3{\refGeneral{#1}{#2}{#3}{Proposition}}
\def\refRemark#1#2#3{\refGeneral{#1}{#2}{#3}{Remark}}
\def\refSection#1#2#3{\refGeneral{#1}{#2}{#3}{\S}}
\def\refTheorem#1#2#3{\refGeneral{#1}{#2}{#3}{Theorem}}
You may find it helpful to create versions of these macros that work with local references (within the same file) and \labelLink.
\audioLink{ audioFileName }{ textToDisplay }
This link displays textToDisplay in the document. When executed, the audio file given by the URL audioFileName is played if your hardware supports sound. techexplorer currently only supports WAV sound files. The audio file is played asynchronously: control returns to techexplorer as soon as the sound begins.
If necessary, use \verb with audioFileName if it contains backslashes or other special characters.
\videoLink{ videoFileName }{ textToDisplay }
This link displays textToDisplay in the document. When executed, the video file videoFileName is played in a pop-up window. techexplorer uses the Windows MCI facilities to display the video, so the display success will depend on your hardware and on the video drivers installed. Once started, the video plays until its conclusion.
If necessary, use \verb with audioFileName if it contains backslashes or other special characters.
\includegraphics[ lowerLeft ][ upperRight ]{ imageFileName }
This control sequence displays the image contained in the document imageFileName. If the image is being received from the Internet, there may be a delay in rendering: the image may arrive after the document does.
Current restrictions:
\altLink{ secondDisplay }{ firstDisplay }
An alternating link is used to show one of two possible displays. When you click the link, the display alternates between the two possibilities. "altlink.tex" techexplorer Example.
\appLink{ commandLine }{ textToDisplay }
This link displays textToDisplay in the document. When executed, the given commandLine is passed to the operating system for execution. In the case of Windows, control returns to the techexplorer once the command line is executed. The command line can be created by evaluating control sequences, particularly those assigned to input areas. For example,
Enter the name of the file:
\fbox{\inputbox›2in!{\TheFileName}{\verb+c:\autoexec.bat+}}\newline
Click \appLink{NOTEPAD \TheFileName}{\buttonbox{here}} to edit the file.
This link is conditionally enabled from the Security tab of the techexplorer Options. Your selection is automatically remembered. Click the OK button to update your settings.
\inputboxLink[ responseLink
]{ controlSequence }{ inputboxText }
{ dialogBoxDescription }{ dialogBoxCaption }{
textToDisplay}
This link creates a dialog box containing the text in dialogBoxDescription and an input edit box initially containing the text inputboxText. The dialog box has the titlebar caption give by dialogBoxCaption. If dialogBoxCaption is empty, then the application title is used. This link displays textToDisplay in the document.
If the user clicks OK, then the control sequence controlSequence is given the value entered in the edit box by the user. If present, the responseLink link is executed after OK has been chosen. The text within responseLink may refer to controlSequence.
If Cancel is clicked instead, the control sequence is given the value !-Cancel-!.
\popupLink{ popupText }{ popupCaption }{ textToDisplay }
This link creates a popup window containing the question in popupText. The popup window has the titlebar caption give by popupCaption. If popupCaption is empty, then the application title is used. This link displays textToDisplay in the document.
Current restriction: The text is displayed with no formatting.
\yesNoLink[ responseLink ]{ controlSequence }{ dialogBoxQuestion }{ dialogBoxCaption }{ textToDisplay }
This link creates a dialog box containing the question in dialogBoxQuestion. Thedialog box has the titlebar caption give by dialogBoxCaption. If dialogBoxCaption is empty, then the application title is used. This link displays textToDisplay in the document.
The dialog box contains two buttons, labelled Yes and No. After you click one of them, the controlSequence is given the value YES or NO. If present, the responseLink link is executed after a yes/no choice has been made. The text within responseLinkmay refer to controlSequence.
techexplorer allows you to define and use nested pop-up menus (sometimes called context menus). A pop-up menu appears when you click the alternate mouse button. For most users, this will be the right mouse button. For this reason, we'll refer to clicking the alternate mouse button as "right clicking." Every techexplorer document has a default pop-up menu. This menu is fixed and you cannot modify it. Other menus may appear if you right-click over elements of the text. We'll now show you how to define and use custom pop-up menus that you can attach to any element of the text. You also might want to look at an "menuxmp.tex" example of user-defined pop-up menus.
\newmenu{ menuName }{ menuDefinition} }
The \newmenu control sequence assigns a menu definition to menuName for later use with \usemenu. A menu definition is a sequence of links, rules, and \usemenu submenu entries for previously defined menus. Anything else in the definition is discarded. menuName is visible throughout all documents, so choose a unique name for each menu definition unless you specifically want to overwrite a previous one. This is especially important if your menu definitions are generated by an application.
Separators:
Any kind of rule is treated as an item separator. This appears as a horizontal line separating text items in the menu. You can use \rule, \hrule, or \vrule to create a separator.
Menu text:
Links create executable text items in menus. The display text associated with the link is simplified (for example, control sequences are removed) and the link is executed when the menu item is clicked.
Note that if the "data" argument of a link is empty, then the menu item will be disabled and will be displayed in gray. Thus \docLink{}{Examples} will be present in the menu but will be gray and inactive.
If the display text contains a '&', the letter immediately following the ampersand will be underlined. If you press that letter when the context menu is displayed, the corresponding link will be executed. That is, the letter is a "hot key" for the link when the menu is visible.
Submenus:
A menu within a menu is a submenu. First use \newmenu for each submenu definition and then use \usemenu entries to put them in the larger menu.
Here is a definition of a submenu within a submenu within a menu. It produces a nested context menu that looks like this when fully open:
Define the innermost submenu: \newmenu{SubSubMenu}{ \docLink{a}{a} \docLink{b}{b}}
Define a submenu containing the above: \newmenu{SubMenu}{ \docLink{x}{x} \usemenu{SubSubMenu}{Even More...} \docLink{y}{y}}
Define the main context menu: \newmenu{TheMenu}{ \docLink{c}{c} \hrule \usemenu{SubMenu}{More...} \hrule \docLink{d}{d}}
Definitions:
Menu definitions can occur in macro definitions. The menu name can be manufactured from the macro arguments.
Restriction: You are currently limited to a total of 64 menu link entries. This does not include separators or entries for submenus.
\usemenu{ menuName }{ menuScope} }
The \usemenu control sequence assigns a menu to a section of text. The menuName refers to a menu definition previously created by \newmenu.
Nested Menus:
These expressions can be nested: menuScope can contain other \usemenu instances. When you right-click on an area of the screen, the innermost context menu that applies to that area is used.
Document Menus:
If you wish to include an entire document within the scope of a menu, you must use a \vbox within the menuScope argument:
\usemenu{DocMenu}{\vbox{ ... }}
The remaining content of the document should be within the \vbox, except perhaps for a preceding \newmenu definition. To activate the menu, you should right-click on a visible item within the document. That is, click over the text, not the whitespace. If you wish to access the techexplorer default document pop-up menu, you will need to right click somewhere out of the area included by the \vbox. This will most likely be near the left or right margin or at the very top or very bottom of the document.
techexplorer provides the following control sequences for adding color to a document: \color, \colorbox, \colorbuttonbox, \pagecolor, \rgb, and \textcolor. All except \rgb and \colorbuttonbox are defined by LaTeX 2e. The following color names can be used when needed within these control sequences: black, blue, cyan, darkgray, gray, green, lightgray, magenta, red, white, yellow, maroon, olive, navy, purple, teal, silver, lime, fuchsia, and aqua. Some of these colors are not available in LaTeX 2e. Use the Colors options page to change the default colors of document elements.
If you have already installed techexplorer, you can see "colors.tex" examples of these color commands.
Current restriction: The LaTeX 2e features \definecolor and \fcolorbox are not supported.
Use \color to change the color of text. Normal scoping rules apply, so include this control sequence in a group if you intend to localize the color choice. Also, you usually do not want to include whitespace between this specification and the text whose color is to be set to colorName. You can use \rgb to create custom color mixes. Colors can also be used in math mode.
\colorbox{ colorName }{ text }
Use \colorbox to place text in a box with the given background color colorName.
\colorbuttonbox[ invert ]{ colorName }{ text }
This produces a box around text that looks like a button with color colorName. If invert is present, the button appears to be pressed.
\fcolorbox{ lineColorName }{ colorName }{ text }
Use \fcolorbox to place text in a box with the given background color colorName. The box will be surrounded by a lineColorName-colored box.
\pagecolor{ colorName }
Use \pagecolor to change the background color for a whole document. colorName must be a color specification (as in \color; also see \rgb). It is local to the document in which it appears.
Use \rgb to custom mix your own colors using the integer RGB color scheme. This control sequence takes three arguments, each of which must be a whole number between 0 and 255, inclusive. The first is the red value, the second is the green value, and the third is the blue value. Of course, the number of colors supported by your hardware will greatly affect the colors you see.
When all three values are the same you get a shade of gray. The color black is \rgb{0}{0}{0} and the color white is \rgb{255}{255}{255}.
\textcolor{ colorName }{ text }
This is essentially a macro for {\color{colorName}text}.
An important difference between TeX and techexplorer currently is that in techexplorer all macros are globally available. This allows macros defined in one document to be used without redefinition in another document. Together with \inputonce, this allows greater document transmission and processing efficiency.
techexplorer implements a subset of the TeX \def macro facilities and the LaTeX \newcommand, \renewcommand, and \providecommand facilities. \newcommand, \renewcommand, and \providecommand are all treated like \newcommand with no check for previous definition.
Current restrictions:
techexplorer has very basic support for the TeX \if...\else...\fi facility. The \newif construct is currently ignored, as is \techexplorertrue and \techexplorerfalse. This allows you to add
\newif\iftechexplorer \techexplorerfalse
to your TeX document and include or exclude techexplorer markup for processing by using
\iftechexplorer blah blah blah \else nah nah nah\fi
The first condition will be processed only by techexplorer and the second only by real TeX (assuming you have done the \newif above).
The \ifmmode construct is available to allow you to selectively do things based on whether or not you are in math mode. For example, "x squared" will be properly displayed by \xsq independent of whether it is used in a math environment.
\def\xsq{\ifmmode x^2\else $x^2$\fi}
\begin{dirlist}[ format ]... \end{dirlist}
The dirlist or "directory list" environment is a multicolumn list environment that automatically sizes itself and adjusts the number and widths of columns based on the current window width. The list elements are separated by ampersands (&). The dirlist environment has an optional argument format that determines the formatting of the columns and the way the elements are flowed in the list.
Example:
\begin{dirlist}[lv]
nd-dlist.cpp & nd-dlist.bak & globstr.h &
nd-tabul.cpp & ... format.rc & format.bak &
fmtres.h & texparse.cpp & ... ...
\end{dirlist}
\bibfile{ bibliographyFileName}
Defines bibliographyFileName to be the "bibliographyfile" for the current document. bibliographyFileName can be an arbitrary URL (document location) on the network. The Netscape Navigator client is used to get the document, so bibliographyFileNameneed not be a techexplorer document. This document is used within the implementation of automatic hypertext links between \cite commands and \bibitem entries.
\buttonbox[ invert ]{ text }
\dialogbox[ invert ]{ text }
Produces a box around text that looks like a gray button. If invert is present, the button appears to be pressed. Also see \colorbuttonbox. The difference between \buttonbox and \dialogbox is that links contained in text cannot be executed, whereas they will with \dialogbox.
\footnote{ footnoteText }
Automatically numbers footnotes within a given document. A footnote appears in pop-up window similar to \popupLink, rather than at the bottom of the document.
Current restriction: The text is displayed in a simple way with no formatting.
\inputbox[ width ]{ controlSequence }{ initialContents }
Collects text that will be used elsewhere within techexplorer or as input to another application via, for example, \appLink. For example, you could use an input box to get an URL that a \docLink uses for a hyperlink.
The default width of an input box is one inch. Use a width of \hsize to get a box the full width of the screen.
An input box is a multiline edit control. Initially the box contains one line; press the Enter key to add more lines and the Backspace key to remove lines.
When the box is first displayed, it contains the text in initialContents. When the window focus leaves the input box (usually by your clicking elsewhere in the window), the contents of the box is assigned the controlSequence. For example, \inputbox›.5\hsize!{\Country}{Sweden} is initially displayed with a width of one-half the screen size and contains the text "Sweden". If you change it to "France" and click elsewhere in the window, \Country is assigned France. This control sequence may then be used elsewhere in the document or, in fact, any other document.
By default, an input box does not contain a border. Use \fbox to put a plain box around the input box.
You can set the colors used for the text and background via the Colors options page. The monospace font is used within input boxes.
\inputonce{documentName}
Causes the contents of the document with URL documentName to be inserted into the current document location at the current location if the file has not already been read by techexplorer. Because macros have global scope, this allows you the efficiency of not transmitting documentName multiple times across the Internet but still guaranteeing that the file has been read at least once, if needed. Of course, an intermediate redefinition of a macro contained in documentName may cause unexpected results.
The actual document name checked for avoiding the rereading of documentName is its fully expanded absolute URL. That is, if \inputonce{mymacs.tex} is seen in the document with URL http://www.mycompany.com/techexplorer-docs/doc1.tex, then the fully expanded absolute URL saved and checked is http://www.mycompany.com/techexplorer-docs/mymacs.tex.
You can use \input to unconditionally include the contents of the other document in the current one.
\TrueTypeTextFont{fontName}
Changes the current font to that given by fontName. If fontName cannot be located or is not a TrueType font, the current font is unchanged. Use \verb if the fontName contains blanks or special characters. For example, \TrueTypeTextFont{\verb+LucidaSans Typewriter+}. This declaration obeys grouping scope, so you will usually want to enclose the expression with the font change within braces.
To test your document before placing it on a Web site, load it into Netscape Navigator from disk. To do this, start Navigator and choose the "File |Open" menu selection. (If you are using Navigator Gold, the selection may be "File | Open File In Browser".)
Now use the file and directory listing in the dialog to navigate over to the file you wish to view. After you click the "Open" button, your document will appear in the Navigator Window.
Now that you can see your document, you may want to make changes. Press Alt+Tab to move back to your editor, make your changes, press Alt+Tab to return to Navigator, and click the "Reload" button or choose "View | Reload" from the menu. Repeat this cycle as many times as necessary to make your document perfect.
Two common problems you may encounter when testing your document are:
The most common reason for this is that you defined a macro via \def or \newcommand and forgot the closing brace ('}'). The rest of your file was included in the macro!
This version of techexplorer has a limitation on the length of the file it can process. A future version will remove this limitation and improve scrolling performance. In the meantime, take this as a hint that you should probably break your document up into smaller pieces connected with hyperlinks. Use \docLink to jump around to other documents, and use \aboveTopic, \previousTopic, and \nextTopic to build a hierarchical structure of related documents.
Before you publish your document on the Web, be sure that all contained document names mentioned are absolute (for example: http://...) or relative to the current document (for example: \includegraphics{mylogo.bmp}). techexplorer and Navigator will work together to find the files when your viewers request them.
You can control whether techexplorer gives information about parsing errors when it is reading a file.
Click the "Report document parsing errors" to see messages about problems techexplorer encounters when it reads files. Your selection will be remembered automatically when you click OK. If you have suggestions for improving the document debugging features in techexplorer, please let us know.
Choose a topic of interest:
\@ \addtocounter \addtolength \allowbreak \begin{titlepage} \bibliographystyle \boldmath \brokenpenalty \bye \caption \clearpage \cline \clubpenalty \displaywidowpenalty \documentclass \documentstyle \eject \end \end{titlepage} \floatingpenalty \frenchspacing \fussy \goodbreak \hyphenation \indent \index \interlinepenalty \let \limits \linebreak \long \looseness \markboth \markright \multicolumn \newblock \newcounter \newif \newlength \newpage \noalign \nobreak \nocite \nocorr \nofrenchspacing \noindent \nolimits \nolinebreak \nomargins \nonumber \nopagebreak \nopagenumbers \pagebreak \pagenumbering \pagestyle \postdisplaypenalty \predisplaypenalty \protect \raggedbottom \relax \rgb \sc \setcounter \setlength \settodepth \settoheight \settowidth \singlespace \sloppy \special \stepcounter \thispagestyle \techexplorerfalse \techexplorertrue \typeout \unboldmath \unboldmath \usepackage \widowpenalty
Automatic numbering and counters; page dimension settings; full right justification (lines are always ragged right); LaTeX style files; some accents; the picture and list environments; hyphenation; \caption, \sc; primitive TeX box commands other than \hbox, \vbox, and \vtop.
Choose a topic of interest:
\input
and
\inputonce
We'd like to hear from you! For example:
Please use the form below or send e-mail directly to techexpl@watson.ibm.com. Thanks!
To subscribe to a non-IBM sponsored techexplorer mailing list and join in public discussion of the product, send e-mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU. Include SUB techexplorer YourFirstName YourLastName in the body of the note.
For example, if your name is Pat Jones, send e-mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU with the text of the note being SUB techexplorer Pat Jones.