I think it would be useful to put "all" the latex
commands/references/symbols into a wiki that lets you build ontologies and
have metadata. In particular, I think something like Semantic Mediawiki
would be useful. Here's why:

* You can create templates and forms to easily add and edit references
* All of the templates and forms will store the data with appropriate
metadata.
* You can display the information on the wiki easily using inline queries
* You can then query the wiki using a SPARQL like syntax and get the results
back in many different formats (CSV, RDF, JSON, etc).
* You can easily build groups of symbols/functions and extend the data
structures at a level in which you don't need to be a programmer and almost
anyone can help to maintain it.

I'm in the process of putting together a set of templates, forms, and
metadata constructs to organize the comprehensive latex symbol list in this
fashion as we are using latex in our FlexBook system at
http://flexbooks.ck12.org. As I make progress on this work I'll update this
list so that the bullet points can be better understood with a real example
to look at.

-Josh

On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Karl Berry <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>    I just would like to add <http://www.miwie.org/tex-refs/> to the
> sources
>    already mentioned. Unfortunately, Michael Wiedmann seems to have stopped
>    working on his "References for TeX and Friends". The source is written
>    in DocBook/XML, and I think it's still the most recent source available
>    for a project like this, apart from the much older LaTeX online help.
>
> As far as I could tell, the miwie stuff was basically a docbook
> translation of the unofficial latex reference manual in texinfo,
> originally written for 2.09 and updated by various people over the
> years, most recently me -- http://home.gna.org/latexrefman.
>
> This is the project I had in mind when I asked my question.  I made
> quite a few updates to it over the last couple years, so I think it is
> "newer" than miwie; I added many 2.09 commands but had no luck finding
> any 2e list.  Hence my question.  I did not have any precise
> "specification" in mind.
>
> Of course the "latexrefman" is purely unofficial, but of course if the
> latex group itself has the wherewithal to maintain something along those
> lines, then that would be vastly preferable :).
>
> Thanks to everyone for the info about the command index and all else.
>



-- 
<http://joshuagay.org>