Textures 2.2.0b preliminary release

Welcome to native Textures for OS X 10.4 (Tiger), OS X 10.5 (Leopard), OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), and OS X 10.7 (Lion). This is a Universal binary, for both the PowerPC and Intel Macintosh platforms. Although this continues to be a preliminary release, it has been extensively tested and used for large production projects; we believe it can be expected to be functional and dependable in regular use. We wish to be clear, however, that Textures remains far from feature-complete. Now, due to technical changes beyond our control (Apple has discontinued development of the Carbon framework), we will be making extensive behind-the-scenes changes as we move Textures to the Cocoa framework. During this time we will make only bug fix revisions to the Carbon version of Textures.

You can buy an individual copy of Textures 2.2 via the Google Wallet link below, for the current beta price of $149 (US), which includes all updates up to and including the Cocoa release version. You can also purchase a trial copy of Textures 2.2 for $9.99 (US), which is fully functional for a period of 30 days. The trial copy may be renewed for the same price, or upgraded to the full unrestricted copy for $139.50 (US).

If you own Classic Textures 2.1, you can use Textures 2.2.0b5 for free with the same serial number and activation key. When you are ready to upgrade, just download the latest Textures 2.2 beta via the link at the top of this page; when you launch it, it will automatically open a browser window to Google Wallet to allow you to purchase the upgrade activation key for $99 (US).

Some significant bug fixes: A problem with MS-DOS EPSF illustrations was fixed, and the permissible depth of nested folders in the Inputs tree was increased to 99 levels, effectively removing the limit. Also, we fixed a bug that caused a (rare) crash when using Synchronicity on a new Typeset window. (Although very rare, this has by far been the most frequently reported crash in native Textures, i.e., we have had seven reports total. If you have a Textures crash, please report it to us, including the crash log; we used to offer a significant cash reward for reproducible crashes, and we hope to do so again!)

Small changes for reliability and stability. From 2.2.0b14 through 2.2.0b17, we have made a number of bug fixes. Although there is nothing urgent, we recommend all users update to 2.2.0b17.

Font metrics are extended and improved; certain elements are now editable. (The remainder of this note is technical information for those who may wish to add new fonts to Textures.)

Native Textures has for some time supported traditional TeX TFM binary metric files, which makes it easy to add metrics from any other TeX system, e.g., placing an alias in Textures' Metrics folder that points to /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf/fonts/tfm will make those metrics available to Textures. However, this has been of limited utility, because each TFM metric lacks two items: the name of the actual font to be used for display and printing, and the font encoding that determines where glyphs (characters) appear in the TeX character codes.

Textures now supports direct entry/editing of the actual font name (PS fontname) and encoding in the TeX Metrics window, with the data being saved within the TFM file (or resource) itself, in a manner that will not affect other TeX systems using the same metric files. (Changes are saved en masse and only when Textures quits, and may not be effective until Textures is restarted.) Available encodings are AdobeStandard, MacintoshStandard, TeXBase1, and TeXnANSI; there are mechanisms for arbitrary encodings, and the default (null) uses the default Macintosh encoding of the font.

Native Textures supports all OS X font formats, including "old Macintosh PostScript" (LWFN Type 1), TrueType, and OpenType. OS X does not support "naked" PostScript fonts (PFA and PFB), but there are free public tools to convert these to the now-standard OpenType/CFF fonts.

We wish to express our gratitude (and astonishment) to Professor Bruno Voisin for his yeoman's work of cataloging and converting fonts and metrics to make useful families of fonts available to many TeX users. He has been immensely supportive of our work over the years, and we are most grateful.

Document context begins to appear: each document's format is now remembered.

Alas, yes, there is a problem with Snow Leopard, but it's not our fault, and we have a (revised) fix.

We have not yet received confirmation of our analysis from Apple, but our current belief is this: in expanding the address space to 64 bits, a bug was introduced in Apple Typography Services that causes ATS to reject PostScript Type 1 fonts whose screen fonts suitcase exceeds 256KB. Textures' Computer Modern fonts rely on a single screen fonts suitcase (“CM/PS Screen Fonts”) which is 368KB; all of these fonts are (silently) rejected by Snow Leopard on 64-bit capable processors. (Most, not all, Intel Macintoshs are 64-bit capable.) With Textures 2.2.0b12, we have repackaged the CM/PS screen fonts into three suitcases, each less than 256KB; this cures the problem. (UPDATE: actually the fix requires four suitcases, not three; our analysis above is obviously not complete, but at least all the fonts work now.) (FURTHER UPDATE: Apple has corrected the problem as of Snow Leopard 10.6.2, so we have returned to the single suitcase packaging. Please see the Notes file on the disk image if problems persist after upgrading to 10.6.2 of OS X.)

To cure the problem on an existing Textures installation, simply replace the single suitcase

with the new set of four: CM/PS Core Screen Fonts and CM/PS Basic Screen Fonts A, B, and C.

Internal improvements to font encodings, and a new preference, which can be entered from a Terminal window:

Document context begins to appear: each document's format is now remembered.

An ugly bug was fixed, which could cause Textures to crash when attempting to report a system call error.

TeX Log can be searched and saved; the window name indicates the most recent contents.

TFM binary metrics are supported; this allows Textures to share TeX Font Metric files with other TeX installations. (Just put an alias into Textures' Metrics folder.) [NB: this facility should be regarded as experimental, as other font metadata necessary to support correct display and printing are not translated. Yet.]

Textures 2.2.0b8 includes Find (search) functions. (The Traffic Light is also included!)

[What happened to 2.2.0b7? It was a limited-availability release made available to selected customers who indicated an interest in certain technical experiments.]

Classic Textures 2.1 owners must upgrade. We have reached the point in the development of native Textures where we believe that the large majority of current Classic Textures documents are reliably supported by native Textures, so that all Classic Textures users can switch to the 2.2.0b5 beta version with full document functionality¹.

Therefore, although the frozen 2.2.0b5 beta version will continue to be freely available to Classic Textures 2.1 owners, to activate new development releases of Textures 2.2 it will be necessary to purchase a new activation key at an upgrade price. The upgrade price is initially set at $99 (US); it is likely to rise in the future as development progresses.

We remember, with gratitude, that many of our customers have purchased upgrades and new copies of Textures during the development period of the last five years, and that we promised to credit those purchasers toward the cost of the upgrade to Textures 2.2 when it became available. We believe that our automatic upgrade process will correctly indicate this credit and offer a free or reduced price activation key where appropriate; should this not appear to be the case, we will be happy to review individual cases and make corrections if necessary.

¹[There are two cases, HTML links and PostScript primitive inclusions, which are not supported in the 2.2.0b5 beta; some HTML facilities will be available soon, but general PostScript inclusions are not likely to ever be supported. Note that EPS PostScript illustrations are supported.]

Line endings are now automatically corrected to Macintosh (CR only); this corrects some confusing anomalies in the text editor. Any corrected line endings are saved if/when the file is saved, not otherwise.

Reliability improvements, to correct a handful of cases in which Textures could crash. (Although we are not yet ready to reinstate our offer of cash prizes for reproducible crashes, Textures has proven to be generally reliable in regular use.)

Classic Textures typeset material is by default no longer opened if it exists, as this proved to be confusing. If desired, this can be reenabled by a defaults command, see Preferences in Old News, below.

Classic Textures 2.1 upgrades to Textures 2.2 can now be purchased directly from within Textures itself.

New Icons, for Textures itself and some of its documents. Documents created by Textures can be opened by double-clicking. You may also notice improvements in window management.

Color \special support allows TeX jobs to control the color of elements of typeset pages. The available commands are the same as Classic Textures, so existing colored documents will now display and print:

Synchronicity now cross-links TeX text and typeset views. Just command/click takes you back and forth between text and typeset pages. Try it! (It's easier to see it working than to describe it.)

Spell Checking is now available in text windows; right-click to enable. Note that cocoAspell has better support for TeX than the standard OS X spellchecker.

Text Font is now available in the Edit menu. (It will be more useful when Textures remembers it!)

Performance: we are pleased to say that the performance of TeX itself has not been significantly reduced by Synchronicity. (There is a measurable difference, on the order of 10–20 percent.)

Drag the Textures application to your Applications folder. And, drag the Computer Modern folder into your /Library/Fonts folder.

Launch Textures by double-clicking. It will be necessary to enter your serial number and activation key; it will also be necessary to have an Internet connection to request an installation key from the bluesky.com server.

If you have a current Classic Textures 2.1 installation (PowerPC): this native Textures will use the same fonts and activation key. We suggest placing an alias to your current TeX Fonts folder into the folder

This will allow Textures 2.2 to find your current metrics and macros. (These Inputs and Metrics folders will be automatically created when Textures 2.2 is first launched, but you will have to create the aliases yourself.)

Please note that these folder names may be localized, e.g., /Library/Fonts in France may become /Bibliotheque/Polices.

NB: If you need TeX macros, classes, style files, etc.: the 2.2.0b disk image does not include the usual TeX input files, e.g., the LaTeX packages, macros, styles, classes, and so forth. You can download the Classic Textures folder of these files here:

~/Library/Application Support/Textures/Inputs

(Note the tilde!)

When you run Textures the first time, this folder will be automatically created.

For Lion, note that the user Library folder (~/Library) is now invisible. Don't panic: use the Finder's Go to Folder command (in the Go menu) to get there. You can just copy the target from these notes and paste it into the Go to Folder dialog. Or, hold the Option key and the Library will magically appear in the Go menu.

Textures 2.2.0b will be updated frequently; please check this page. (At some point soon we expect to enable automatic update checks.)

Our current priorities are interface improvement, both cosmetic and functional, including the traffic light and document context memory.

We will pay attention to email as to which function and interface improvements will be most useful in your work; please send suggestions to suggest@bluesky.com, and crash logs to crash@bluesky.com. Please include an identifiable subject email header so that our spam filters will be pacified. Alas, it will not be possible for us to respond directly.

We wish to express our profound gratitude and appreciation for your patience, and for the many expressions of support and encouragement we have received in the years of work on this project.

Virtual (VF) fonts are now supported in full; this is particularly relevant for LaTeX and AMS formats. (We believe the implementation to be generally correct, but would not be surprised to still find difficulties with particular fonts, and would appreciate notice of any such problems.)

Save on Quit/Close is now secure, so that Textures will not allow you to close modified documents without confirmation. (There are still complexities that can arise when an external editor has modified a document which is also modified within Textures.)

Preferences are minimally available for some defaults, as example see the following Terminal commands:

Cosmetic improvements have been made in a number of interface details, so that more interface controls work as they should. (There is obviously a great deal still to do here.)

Performance: we are pleased to say that the performance of TeX itself has been further improved, so that typical times to compile the 494 pages of The TeXbook are, e.g., 1.05 seconds on a G5 (2.0GHz) and 0.87 seconds on a MacBook Pro (1.83GHz).

Old Old News: the previous history of Textures 2.2.0a can be read here; it is recommended reading for new users, particularly for the description of the external editor interface and the \special commands for graphics.