Software that GNU TeXmacs depends on
In order to run GNU TeXmacs, you should have installed a TeX distribution on your system, as well as the Guile/Scheme extension language. Below, we will shortly describe these packages and give some useful links. For more installation on how to install TeX and Guile, click here.
TeX (= tau epsilon chi, and pronounced as "tecch") is a computer language for use in mathematical typesetting, developed by D.E. Knuth from the late 1970s until the late 1980s. The main aim was to provide output with a typesetting quality that you would expect in nicely printed books. In the meantime, D.E. Knuth also developed Metafont, a tool to automatically generate nice looking (mathematical) character fonts. In the 1980s and 1990s TeX has been extended by many people, given rise for instance to LaTeX, amsTeX and so on. Current TeX distributions usually contain all these different programs.
In order to use TeXmacs, it is assumed that you have installed a TeX system on your system, although TeXmacs really only uses the Metafont program to generate its fonts. At the moment, TeXmacs also needs the bibTeX program for generating bibliographies.
More information about the TeX system can be found at
Guile/Scheme is a full implementation of the object oriented and lisp-like programming language Scheme. It has special support for linking external C or C++ programs. This provides a transparent way to dynamically extend the language with fast new routines. Guile/Scheme is intended to become the major extension language for the GNU project and Gnome.
In particular, all high-level TeXmacs editing routines have been interfaced to Guile. These routines thereby are available to users who can write extensions to the editor, without going into the C++ code of TeXmacs. In the future, we also wish to implement a port to Guile-gtk. This extension of Guile implements a graphical user interface via gtk, which makes it possible to create menus, iconbars, file selectors, etc. in a very simple way.
More information about Guile can be found at
Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 by Joris van der Hoeven.
This webpage is part of GNU TeXmacs and the larger GNU project. Verbatim copying and distribution of it is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. For more information or questions, please contact Joris van der Hoeven.
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