Message-ID:  <99083116141070@man.ac.uk>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Date:         Tue, 31 Aug 1999 16:14:10 +0100
From: Phillip Helbig <helbig@MAN.AC.UK>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject:      Re: Standard journal macros
Status: R

Hi J"org,


> Phillip Helbig schrieb:
>
> > What are the prospects for coming up with some standard journal macros,
> > including a BibTeX-style front matter handler, embracing the physical
> > and social sciences and also getting all publishers and editors to
> > encourage their use as well as distribute proper BibTeX files.
>
> We (i. e. Jens Kloecker, Michael Piotrowski, Frank Holzwarth and JKn)
> want to develop a standard _scientific article_ class in a BOF session
> at EuroTeX99 to be hold in Heidelberg from September 20--24.

> J"org Knappen
> Electronic Technologies
> Springer-Verlag Heidelberg

Nice to see someone from Springer involved (how long have you been
there?) (and using VMS at that:).  It is becoming obvious even in the UK
now that A&A has really overtaken MNRAS in terms of `sensible modernity'
in the publishing arena; hopefully this trend will continue at Springer
and other journals will follow suit in a very compatible manner.

> We want to emphasize the idea of a document class as a markup
> language. The rendering of the article will of course follow
> different styles for each publisher (and even vary from journal
> to journal with the same publisher). In fact, front matter and
> bibliography are our two main targets in the design of this class.

> We hope to come up with a new class usable with different publishers.

This is looking really concrete!  Great!

What are your thoughts on using straight BibTeX 1.0?  How strictly will
the front-matter stuff adhere to a BibTeX-like scheme?  (Didn't David
Carlisle once do some stuff in this area)?

It seems it would be a good idea to air some more detailed sketches
about what you have in mind, primarily in terms of goals but also in
terms of implementation.


--
Phillip Helbig                          Email ......... p.helbig@jb.man.ac.uk
Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories   Tel. ... +44 1477 571 321 (ext. 2635)
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UK-Cheshire SK11 9DL                    Web ... http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~pjh/

************************ currently working at *******************************

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