MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
References: <46C0AE5B.7010308@arcor.de>
Message-ID:  <18112.53634.669944.358049@morse.mittelbach-online.de>
Date:         Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:47:46 +0200
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
From: Frank Mittelbach <frank.mittelbach@LATEX-PROJECT.ORG>
Subject: Re: xinitials and graphicx, xcolor
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
In-Reply-To:  <46C0AE5B.7010308@arcor.de>
Precedence: list
Status: R

Stephan,

 > the attached example with xinitials works as long as neither graphicx
 > nor xcolor is used.  Loading any of those packages (and possibly others)
 > causes LaTeX to stop with an error, see below.  In slides from TUG99 I read:
 > 
 > > LATEX2e* is a collection of packages that run on top of LATEX2e

you have to read the 1999/2000 statement as "runs on top of the 2e kernel",
but the more you stray away from that (by adding additional packages/third
party or not) the more fragile the situation gets.

since the l3 experimental packages implement quite a number of totally new
concepts (in case of xinitial, the underlying galley handling) other 2e
packages not written with anything like that in mind are likely to fail
especially if the implement some of the ideas used in the experimental
package, but in a different manner. graphicx and xcolor are likely candidate
as they extend the 2e option handling via key/vals and so does the l3 code
(but differently).

Basially, the packages back then where meant to be proof of concepts for a
number of ideas with the intention to complement them with others and then
reimplement a larger fraction of the important package using the expl3
language to get to a sound basis of code that could effectively be used for
production jobs and which could be used for extensions in various directions.

unfortunately shortly afterwards my work on LaTeX came to an abrupt stop for
personal health reasons and when I returned to it the books TLC2, LB2 and LGC2
took all my time and that of several others. So it is only now that we are
gradually starting to work on this

 > I'm not really sure if that applies to xinitials.  If not, what's the
 > preferred way to put an image into the background and deal with colours,
 > while xinitials is loaded?

i'm not sure there is one right now, it would probably require reimplementing
graphicx and xcolor using the xpl3 language first.

frank