Re: scientific publishing process (was Re: Cost and access)

On 2014-10-08 15:14, Luca Matteis wrote:
> Dear Sarven,
>
> I really appreciate the work that you're doing with trying to style an
> HTML page to look similar to the Latex templates. But there's so many
> typesetting details that are not available in browsers, which means
> you're going to do a lot of DOM hacking to be able to produce the same
> quality typography that Latex is capable of. Latex will justify text,
> automatically hyphenate, provide proper spacing, and other typesetting
> features. Not to mention kerning. Kerning is a *huge* thing in
> typography and with HTML you're stuck with creating a DOM element for
> every single letter - yup you heard me right.
>
> I think it would be super cool to create some sort of JavaScript
> framework that would enable the same level of typography that Latex is
> capable of, but you'll eventually hit some hard limitations and you'll
> probably be stuck drawing on a canvas.
>
> What are your ideas regarding these problems?

We do not have to have everything pixel perfect and comprehensive all up 
front. That is a common pitfall. Applying the Pareto principle is 
preferable.

LaTeX is great for what it is intended for! This was never in question. 
We are however looking at a bigger picture for Web Science communication 
and access. There will be far more concerns than the presentation layer 
alone.

As for your technical questions: we need to create issues or features, 
and more importantly, open discussions like in these threads, to better 
understand what the SW research community's needs are. So, please create 
an issue because what you raise is important to be looked into further. 
I do not have all the technical answers, even though I am very close to 
the world of typeface, typography, and book design :)

In any case, if it was possible in LaTeX, I hope it is not naive of me 
to say that it can be achieved (if not already) in HTML+CSS+JavaScript.

-Sarven
http://csarven.ca/#i