On Mon, Dec 14, 1998 at 10:18:24PM +0100, Hans Aberg wrote:

> >I don't understand the question.
> >Since TeX does not understand graphics in any format while pdfTeX does,
> >there is obviously a modification, as indeed is clear from pdftex.ch

> Depending wether the way of TeX parsing is changed, or if it merely
> compiles to PDF instead of DVI.

By TeX I mean the program defined by Knuth's tex.web .
To use it in any other sense will simply cause confusion.

> >However, my main point was that since pdftex is a single monolithic program,
> >every additional graphics format -- PDF, PS, TIFF, etc --
> >must involve further modification to pdfTeX itself.
>
> This is however a core question: So does PDF not itself allow inclusion of
> other formats like say GIF, JPEG?

I don't think it allows GIFs in any sense;
it does allow suitably wrapped JPEG (DCTEncoding).
However, you would still need to modify pdfTeX to create
the PDF object encapsulating a JPEG
(as I am sure Thanh will do in time, if he hasn't already).

> >> But will an extended DVI suffice as a new byte-code for WWW publishing?

I don't know what that means;
I take it that any format in the world can be sent over the "Web".
Whether a particular program (browser) can display it
is simply up to the program.
There is nothing special about browsers, as far as I can see.
xdvi is a program that can display remote DVIs;
if enough people used it like this it would be called a browser.

> >I take more or less the opposite view to that generally expressed here.
> >In my view, it is up to browsers to accept
> >generally accepted formats like PDF or DVI --
> >it's not up to the outside world
> >to try to convert information into the format expected by the browser.
>
> If you want it that way, you still need a WWW byte-code that allows the
> inclusion of such formats. So you are back to the same problem.

I don't know what a "WWW byte-code" is,
and so I don't understand the rest of your posting.

Browsers already "understand" DVI,
in the sense that you can set them to run a particular program
when they meet a file called foo.dvi .
They could be a bit more graceful about it;
and I expect they soon will be.

The idea that we have to write in HTML -- or any *ML --
because Microsoft and Netscape say so
I find bizarre in the extreme;
it's like saying we must wear brown shoes if we want to go abroad.

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
tel: +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland