Eric Forgeot

textallion, a simple word processor

1. Manual

TEXTALLION [tɛkstaljɔ̃] n.m. — (2009  ; from text, and unknown suffix -llion, probably animal origin or meaning the 1st person plural. Can be written as textallion or TeXtallion.)

Word processor system using txt2tags wiki markup, allowing you edit your document's plain text source in whatever editor you prefer, allowing you to to stay focused on your writing at the keyboard rather than clicking around in a GUI. Textallion produces attractively formatted output files, including PDF, HTML and/or ePUB.

Citation:

« I send you a .t2t file as attachment, never tell me again you don't own the right piece of software to open it! »

William Grumbold, librarian

1.1. Background

The textallion project was created because of our desire for beautifully formatted LaTeX output, combined with our love for the simplicity of txt2tags.

LaTeX is perfect for writing complex scientific works, but it can be frustrating to use if you just want to quickly start writing normal prose with it, and its syntax can be intrusive and complex.

The goal of textallion is to use txt2tags as a preprocessor, keeping the document source in its non-distracting markup syntax, while wlso being able to easily export out to LaTeX, html and ePUB. While txt2tags on its own can already export to LaTeX, there is little control of the output.

Textallion enables you to publish on traditional paper and PDF (pdf example), web page (as with this current page, or this one using the slidy presentation format), or ebook (ePUB example), from a single plain text source file (source for all the previous documents).

By default, textallion will have all that is needed for writing simple and nice-looking texts, from articles through to books, including novels:

Bold, italic, underligned, striked letters, colored text, page numbering, top header with title and separating line, bullet lists and numbered lists, image includes, support for footnotes, table of content.

It also includes a CYOA (choose-your-own-adventure) creation system.

Note: This project was originally named "txt2tex".

1.2. Getting TeXtallion

The latest version can be found there: http://code.google.com/p/textallion/downloads/list

There is also a mirror located there.

Older versions can be retrieved from http://anamnese.online.fr/site2/textallion/

1.2.1. Optional packages

You can automate your document processing with 'GNU make' adapting the included example makefile, and enable further postscript processing with tools such as pstopdf, psutils (pdfnup, psbook) and pdfjam.

1.3. Prerequisites

TeXtallion has been tested on these operating systems:

1.3.1. Linux

LaTeX and python 2 must be installed on your computer. Most distributions, if not all, have this by default.

For example Archlinux, Mandriva and Debian have TeXlive

Running the textallion_install.sh script from a root shell will copy everything needed into /usr/share/textallion/, or your folder of choice.

1.3.2. Windows

Python must be installed on your computer. Choose version 2.x (for example python 2.7) because textallion is not compatible with Python 3.

unzip the textallion archive, for example into C:\temp\textallion. You can select another folder, but we assume that location in the following examples.

Use the LaTeX project MiKTeX to create your pdf files ; just choose the "basic" version of MiKTeX, and textallion will download any missing packages automatically when they are first needed. GNU make is available for Windows the GnuWin32 project, as are the various postscript manipulation tools mentioned above. Just download the setup program and install it, making sure the path to GnuWin's "bin" folder (by default C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin) is added to your Windows PATH (system properties > environment variables). Creating ePUBs is handled by Calibre.

1.3.3. *BSD

Basically the same as Linux, except you have to type gmake instead of make, as the makefile is using GNU make.

Texlive is not officially supported by FreeBSD, please use teTeX instead.

1.3.4. Mac OS X

Mac compatibility is not yet tested ; feel free to try the BSD instructions and the macports system, and report the results back to us.

1.4. Files

The files textallion.t2t and textallion.sty are the source template and the LaTeX style files ; normally, you shouldn't have to modify thm. To get started with a new document, create a plain text file with the Text2tags file extension of .t2t, e.g. my_file.t2t, and copy the header from the sample_en.t2t into it up to the line:

Then copy sample.sty to a new file with the same name (my_file.sty) and modify it as you like. The sample.css file is for the html target output, and is also used in the creation of ePUB format e-books.

The next step is to write your content in the source text file, modifying its overall formatting (margins, header, etc.) by editing the style file. You can easily alter the size of paper, the size and name of the font, the size of the displayed text, thereby setting implicitly defined margins. The syntax, which is quite easy to use, is described below.

1.5. Document Processing

On Windows, have a look at textallion.bat in the contrib directory. You may need to modify the paths in this script, which starts out assuming textallion was installed in C:\temp\textallion\

Also update these paths to match your system's installation of the prerequisite packages:

C:\Python26\python.exe

C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\

C:\Program Files\Calibre2

On Linux, you can use the textallion.sh script to process your document ; modify the makefile, starting with the line DOCUMENT = sample_en to match your document name and target output format.

make html to generate an html page.

make slidy to generate an html presentation.

make pdf to generate a LaTeX document and then a pdf file. If the compilation goes well, you won't see any errors, and the output will end with "entering extended mode".

make pdfsmall for making a document with 2 pages in one using pdfjam - linking is disabled in the output, good for hard copy printing only.

make booklet for making a recto-verso leaflet via psutils, links will also be disabled and the column alignment seems to need some adjustment.

make epub to create an ePUB format e-book file from the html file, using the free program calibre. You can also use Sigil for reformatting your ePUB document.

make clean to clean the folder of temporary files.

make cleanall to clean the folder of temporary files, and erase all the generated .tex and .pdf files ; prompts for confirmation first.

make configuration-update when updating your textallion package. This uses a diff tool such as meld, to compare the configuration files of your project (makefile, css & sty) with the updated source files and help you update them if necessary.

make website to create a "master index" page for making your html, pdf and ePUB files output files available on line, including generating a qr-code for scanning the URL into a phone.

make all for making html and pdf, and cleaning temporary files. If you are working on multiple documents at the same time, you can also type export TEXTALLIONDOC=your_document_name && make pdf (without the .t2t at the end of your_document_name) and the program will use this environment variable so you don't have to modify the makefile.

1.6. Markup Syntax

The general systax is the one of txt2tags, and we added our own.

1.6.1. Txt2tags Markup

A short reminder of the syntax:

**bold** : bold

//italic// : italic

__underline__ : underline

--strike-- : strike

+ title + (different levels)

- list

+ numbered list

``code``

[image.jpg]

[link to a website http://www.homepage.com] : link to a website

| table |

1.6.2. Additions

Extra symbols

We added those symbols. They are made with 4 signs between braces (curly brackets):

A typographical initial cap is made with the symbol {*~~~} before the first letter of the word.

A small vertical space between two sections is made with *-*- or {*-*-}

A bigger paragraph is made with {-@- } - this adds a little leaf

*

Another version with {-/@-} :

*

The end of a section with 3 stars is made with {** *}

You can also have those symbols (centered and on a new line) :

Description
symbol
code

first quarter moon

*

{ )) }

full moon

*

{ () }

last quarter moon

*

{ (( }

sun

*

{(  )}

You may also enter these symbols directly into the source if you wish, but they might be too tiny to read in some plain text editors. You can't enter unicode symbols if you want to publish to pdf because this LaTeX version doesn't use unicode, unless you adjust the preprocessor in your document - remember almost anything is possible using txt2tags! Some ePUB readers also can't read those symbols, so they are replaced by stars * during the ePUB export. They do show up properly in html output.

For getting a m-dash (French conversation for examples), you can type three -, or just enter a real m-dash character —.

Footnotes

Footnotes are enabled by wrap the note text in °° - see the example below and the source code of this document for further examples. You can access this symbol on qwerty keyboards with alt gr + 0 on Linux and alt+248 on windows.

It's also possible to create footnotes with this symbol: { °° }.* (In keeping with the other standard markup in textallion.)

The LaTeX version will use numbered footnotes, while the html version will use a star (*) to indicate the footnote.

It's also possible to add a number between brackets for the html export with something like this:

  This is a text with an associated footnote°°This is the note.(1)°°.

which will convert into:

This is a text with an associated footnote¹ (This is the note.).

Linebreaks and non-breaking space

Txt2tags by default won't break a line unless you have two blank lines in between. Textallion also offers a syntax alternative of adding a space at the beginning of a line you want to break. You can also force a line break with {//..}, or the simplified version //... If you want to copy and paste texts from the internet or another source, you may find it tedious to keep inserting the special line break marks (*-*-). Just enable this command:

  %!postproc: "$" '{//..}'

in the header of your document ; but be aware this can cause side affects, so use it with care, checking the results. For poetry or prose with pre-defined line breaks, the best method is to start a line with a single space, to signify a line break. In case there is more than a single space, textallion will also indent the paragraph.

If you wish to add a non-breaking space in your text, you can use the ¯ symbol.

Page Break

You can get a page break with {/…}.

Exponent

We use ^^ or { ^^ } to surround the part to be used as exponent. For example 2^^nd^^ or 24^^5^^.

Image size

You can specify the image size between brackets:

for example: [path_to/my_image.png][24]

(10)

(20)

(30)

The number represents millimeters for LaTeX output, and % of the page width in html - I couldn't do better at the moment.

1.6.3. Table of Contents and Index

A TOC is generated automatically by txt2tags. Use the %%toc command anywhere in your document to place it. Otherwise, by default, it will be at the beginning of your content area.

Use of an Index is optional. To activate it, uncomment the \usepackage{makeidx} and \makeindex into your .sty file. Use the command %%index where you want to place this index.

Index entries are made with {^} surrounding the word to be indexed. To use an alternative name for the indexed word, you can write for example {^}apple{^fruit}.

1.6.4. Links

If you prefer writing [description URL] for your links rather than the txt2tags syntax: [description URL], it will automatically be converted by textallion.

Homepage of txt2tags

1.6.5. Adding sounds and musics

Especially useful for the CYOA module (see below), it's possible to add music with this syntax: [musique.ogg], which will add a HTML5 player in the browser. Only the free and open format ogg/vorbis is supported, because contrary to mp3, it is directly compatible in most browsers: Firefox, Chrome, Opera.

Music example:

You can do the same for ogg/theora or webm videos, using the .ogv or .webm extension instead: [video.ogv]

Video example: (downloaded from an external website):

Download the file (your browser doesn't support this html5 video format)

1.6.6. Text size

You can increase the text size by beginning with { ++ } and ending with {/++ }.

You can decrease the text size by beginning with { -- } and ending with {/-- }.

1.6.7. Italic or bold area

TODO Native txt2tags syntax cannot format a block of several paragraphs italic or bold. This will be implemented with { // } and {/// }.

Also with bolding blocks of text: { ** } and {/** }.

1.6.8. Epigraphs

Epigraphs (quotations beginning a chapter) are written using {  ~~} at the beginning of the sentence, and {/ ~~} at the end. You can add the author at the end.

This way:

{  ~~} The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.
{/ ~~}Edith Södergran

deviendra :

The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.

Edith Södergran

1.6.9. Colors

You can color text by using @@COLOR@@name of the color@@Text to colorize@@/COLOR@@.

The basic color names are :

black blue brown cyan darkgray gray green lightgray lime magenta olive orange pink purple red teal violet white yellow

You can also use those colors, which are compatible with LaTeX and HTML (svg colors) :

AliceBlue AntiqueWhite Aqua Aquamarine Azure Beige Bisque Black BlanchedAlmond Blue BlueViolet Brown BurlyWood CadetBlue Chartreuse Chocolate Coral CornflowerBlue Cornsilk Crimson Cyan DarkBlue DarkCyan DarkGoldenrod DarkGray DarkGreen DarkGrey DarkKhaki DarkMagenta DarkOliveGreen DarkOrange DarkOrchid DarkRed DarkSalmon DarkSeaGreen DarkSlateBlue DarkSlateGray DarkSlateGrey DarkTurquoise DarkViolet DeepPink DeepSkyBlue DimGray DimGrey DodgerBlue FireBrick FloralWhite ForestGreen Fuchsia Gainsboro GhostWhite Gold Goldenrod Gray Green GreenYellow Grey Honeydew HotPink IndianRed Indigo Ivory Khaki Lavender LavenderBlush LawnGreen LemonChiffon LightBlue LightCoral LightCyan LightGoldenrod LightGoldenrodYellow LightGray LightGreen LightGrey LightPink LightSalmon LightSeaGreen LightSkyBlue LightSlateBlue LightSlateGray LightSlateGrey LightSteelBlue LightYellow Lime LimeGreen Linen Magenta Maroon MediumAquamarine MediumBlue MediumOrchid MediumPurple MediumSeaGreen MediumSlateBlue MediumSpringGreen MediumTurquoise MediumVioletRed MidnightBlue MintCream MistyRose Moccasin NavajoWhite Navy NavyBlue OldLace Olive OliveDrab Orange OrangeRed Orchid PaleGoldenrod PaleGreen PaleTurquoise PaleVioletRed PapayaWhip PeachPuff Peru Pink Plum PowderBlue Purple Red RosyBrown RoyalBlue SaddleBrown Salmon SandyBrown SeaGreen Seashell Sienna Silver SkyBlue SlateBlue SlateGray SlateGrey Snow SpringGreen SteelBlue Tan Teal Thistle Tomato Turquoise Violet VioletRed Wheat White WhiteSmoke Yellow YellowGreen

You can also specify the color with html code instead of the name, such as #6D7D2E, which will display: Here is my nice text in green. LaTeX won't be able to display this color, it will be replaced by gray.

1.6.10. Centering text

You can center some text (LaTex only) with a leading |

centered text

or by surrounding a paragraph with {->--} and {-<--}:

A nice haiku
Well centered poetic text
It is what we're looking for

or with @@begin((center))** et @@end((center))**

A nice haiku
A complicated method
It's only for TeX lovers

1.6.11. Columns

You can use the {|n|} symbol for setting text in n columns, n being a value between 0 and 4. You can close the area with the same syntax but with n=0 or n=1.

1.6.12. Tables

Tables are supported by txt2tags. But because in the LaTeX (pdf) export, tables won't be displayed when they reach the end of a page, we use the longtable package instead of tabular. If you don't like this, add this in the header of your document:

  %!postproc(tex): 'longtable' 'tabular'``.

In the case your tables has so many columns that it will print outside the width of the page, use this trick to wrap long texts, for example if your table has 4 columns:

  %!postproc(tex): '\{\|l\|l\|l\|l\|\}' {|p{3cm}|p{3cm}|p{3cm}|p{3cm}|}

(we must escape the { and | symbols when using *proc in txt2tags)

If your document has only one table, it will be ok. You can also customise the width of each column. If it has more tables and you wish to use different widths, you can use a second trick:

add extra spaces at the beginning of one of the colum, like this:

  | left | left | left |   right |

so this table will be unique to the document and you can use this now:

  %!postproc(tex): '\{\|l\|l\|l\|r\|\}' {|p{2cm}|p{3cm}|p{5cm}|p{3cm}|}

Reminder: tables are aligned like this:

only one single space around the pipes:

  | left align | left align | left align |

right align is done with one or more extra space before the text:

  | left align |    right align | left align |

center align is done with more than one space around the text, with the same quantity of space for both side:

  | Lorem ipsum dolor | sit amet, consectetur | adipiscing elit. Donec a diam lectus. |
  | left align |    right align |  center align  |

Lorem ipsum dolor | sit amet, consectetur | adipiscing elit. Donec a diam lectus.
left align | right align | center align

To center your tables, start the line with a blank space:

   | Lorem ipsum dolor | sit amet, consectetur | adipiscing elit. Donec a diam lectus. |
   | left align |    right align |  center align  |

Lorem ipsum dolor | sit amet, consectetur | adipiscing elit. Donec a diam lectus.
left align | right align | center align

1.6.13. LaTeX code

You can add any arbitrary LaTeX code by replacing the "\" with @@ and the "{" and "}" with (( and )). If you want to include your LaTeX codes in the html output, surround them with the txt2tags syntax for verbatim (three ```) or the new tagged format (three '''). If you prefer to exclude these codes from the html output, just indicate the end of the code with two stars **.

The source code of this document will gave you more examples on how to add more latex options in your text. For example this mathematic formula won't appear in the html version:

The verbatim version:

  \begin{displaymath}
  \frac{a}{b} + \sqrt[n]{abcd}
  \end{displaymath}

A simple box:

@@Ovalbox((Example of text in the box))

This last example will appear odd (on purpose) in the html version because there is no ** at the end of this special command.

*

Footnote examples:

We can include footnotes this way (version with replacing code)

Beware, these footnotes won't appear in the html version

It's better to use this simpler form for keeping notes in the html version* (This note will be kept in the html version of the document)

LaTeX equations

Use { $$ } on both sides ; works for PDF export only. For html, you can copy and paste the code via http://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php

inline : \delta = 3 \times \sum X_i^2, ainsi que 4 - \sqrt X

block : \delta = 3 \times \sum X_i^2

1.6.14. Example unix code

If you need to include some letters already found in the txt2tags code (such as the pipe |), you can prevent their execution by surrounding them with double quote ("")

find . -print | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -9 > ../initrd.gz

1.7. XeTeX rendering

Use make xetex instead of make pdf. It allows to use unicode characters in the source, for example:

Russian : волк

Greek : λύκος (not all languages are available) Xetex adds also ligatures with some fonts such as Linux Libertine:

roman : fi fl ffl fj sp st ct sl ss fs ff

italic : fi fl ffl fj sp st ct sl ss fs ff It supports (Text Figures): 1234567890

⚠ The xetex template doesn't have a cover.

1.8. Letters module

Not available yet for the English Language (but should be fairly easy to adapt to other languages)

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Letters

1.9. Gamebooks module

See the documentation in the textallion_cyoa_en file

2. Sample texts

see examples.html for a few texts examples.

3. Useful resources

Quick reference guide in pdf (or in html).

http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

http://www.epubread.com/ : firefox extension for reading ePUB

http://www.fbreader.org/ : ePUB reader

Some good text editors which support txt2tags syntax:

http://kate-editor.org/

http://www.geany.org/

http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

http://projects.gnome.org/gedit/

3.1. Similar products

Ulysses : http://www.the-soulmen.com/ulysses/

Scrivener : http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

La poule ou l'oeuf (logiciel libre) : http://pouleouoeuf.org/

Celtx (logiciel libre) : http://www.celtx.com

Mom (logiciel libre) : http://www.schaffter.ca/mom/mom-01.html

http://nestededitor.sourceforge.net/(libre)

ePUB creation : sigil, Writer2ePub, writer2xhtml

html :

pdf : openoffice, LaTeX, Lout, writer2latex]

cyoa : renpy, Undum, ChoiceScript, Inform, http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/, http://homepage.mac.com/siyanlis/Xhoromag/Advelh.htm, http://felix.plesoianu.ro/pub/ramus3.html

4. License and credits

All textallion code and hacks are released under the BSD license

  Copyright (c) 2008-2012, Eric Forgeot.
  All rights reserved.

  Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
  modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
      * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
        notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
      * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
        notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
        documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
      * Neither the name of the <organization> nor the
        names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
        derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

  THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
  ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
  WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
  DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE FOR ANY
  DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
  (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES ;
  LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS ; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
  ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
  (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
  SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

All personal artwork and documentation, if applicable, are licensed under the CC-BY-SA license.

You can contact me about Textallion:

on the discussion-list: http://groups.google.com/group/textallion-discuss

on the bug-tracker: http://code.google.com/p/textallion/issues/list

using this form there: http://anamnese.online.fr/site2/index.php?id=contact

Textallion uses txt2tags as a backend. Txt2tags is covered by the GNU GPL.

Credit is due to:

Aurelio Jargas and the txt2tags team,

Kovid Goyal for Calibre

nycosweb on Linuxfr for the new name inspiration

Christophe Chailloleau-Leclerc for the help with the adventurebook perl script

Hans Henderson for the help with some translations

all contributors to TeX, LaTeX, the W3C standards etc.

"Tout ce que vous avez toujours voulu savoir sur LaTeX sans jamais oser le demander" par Vincent Lozano (édition framabook / In Libro Veritas)

http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/FAQ-LaTeX/6.7.html

Html footnote effect taken from http://andreas.web-graphics.com/footnotes

Qr-Code generator from http://blog.strangeblackhole.com/Un-QR-Code-sur-mon-blog-avec.html

Inno Setup for the windows installer

http://www.auntiepixelante.com/twine/ for the help with the twine syntax

http://www.mcdemarco.net/ for the twee patch

5. Changelog

The release filenames are in the form: textallion_year-month-day_artistname.zip. If some additions are made during the same month, there won't be a full release with a new artist's name, but the update's filename will show a new date, for example: textallion_2010-08-13_chasseriau.zip and then textallion_2010-08-15_chasseriau.zip

september 2013:

Léonide Bourges release:

CYOA: fixed bold, monospace and image syntax in twee.

CYOA: fixed many things in the twee (twine) export so it will work with named chapters

CYOA: adding new syntax to allow named chapters: [#name] and simpler numbered chapters: [#number] instead of [number #number]

28 july 2013:

Suzanne Valadon release:

New syntax for a boxed area.

CYOA: updated twee.

HTML: small tweak to the CSS.

PDF: added microtype feature in LaTeX.

PDF: fixed French guillemets in the Lettre template

PDF: fixed the TOC in French even for English documents

PDF: fixed the headnote which was only displaying "TABLE OF CONTENT" everywhere

SHELL: with pdfjam we can remove extra page in the letter template ("make lettre-1page")

22 nov 2012:

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes release:

CYOA: fixed twee, added undum and choicescript. Separated doc for CYOA.

SHELL (textallion.sh): submenu for new cyoa systems

improved exponent. Added subscript.

27 june 2012:

Félicien Rops release:

EPUB: updated CSS, and various adjustement to visually match the pdf version

HTML/EPUB: added htsplit (not used yet)

HTML: nicer output with smaller toc and colored h2 and h3

PDF: fixed table break by page (using tabular), added instructions to use text wrap in columns.

SHELL (textallion.sh): submenu for new document: general doc, letter or cyoa

fixed centered tables with blank space before pipe.

20 apr 2012:

Odilon Redon release:

EPUB: added variable for epub info

PDF: fixed various TeX errors

PDF: added "lettre" template for writing letters in French

PDF: improved general heading appearance (centered, bigger fonts)

CYOA: updated Ramus output.

English docs were improved, and various other corrections.

24 july 2011:

Cléo de Mérode release:

CYOA: Added inform 7 support

Added sound and video using HTML5 (ogg vorbis/theora)

Corrected quickref document

11 june 2011:

Georges Seurat release:

CYOA: improved the renpy output (images, end of game)

CYOA: added Ramus HTML rendering (http://felix.plesoianu.ro//index.php/page:Software:Ramus)

.desktop file (for unix desktops)

27 mai 2011:

Paul Signac release:

CYOA: Now textallion can use txt2cyoa for generating HTML, PDF and EPUB gamebooks.

CYOA: fade in js effect when displaying new chapter.

CYOA : tweecode, hyena and renpy export

New logo

31 mar 2011:

Édouard Vuillard release:

Now use templates.

Added a SVG sample cover (can generate a personalised png cover with imagemagick)

PDF: Fixed wrapping images within paragraphs, using the fp latex package.

PDF: now the metadata are defined into the t2t document, not the style.sty file.

PDF: adding xetex backend (make xetex).

PDF: Now the "book" document class is default, with Part, Chapter, Section.

Created a windows installer using Inno Setup.

Updated most LaTeX variables, because underscore was not recognised by LaTeX.

Updated textallion.sh, now can handle updates, installation etc.

27 feb 2011:

Charles-François Daubigny release:

Double brackets option for links.

LaTeX equations.

Index symbol.

Corrected the line break markup.

Corrected CSS for a better rendering.

Corrected table of content for EPUB output.

Updated doc.

Moved txt2tags to a contrib section

Use of webfonts.

Auto generation of a homepage with links to the html, pdf, epub and qr-code.

make configuration-update to diff between the latest textallion install and your makefile, css and sty project files.

Improved initialisation script (textallion.sh).

30 dec 2010:

Alexandre-Hyacinthe Dunouy release:

New symbols for adding italic and bold area

New symbol for adding page break

Real footnotes effect for html (css3)

Epigraph style

French guillemets symbols

French doc improved

Code markup

Line break

A script for creating a new skeleton project.

30 nov 2010:

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres release:

Updated to latest txt2tags 2.6 (and "2.7" devel)

New target: slidy, from txt2tags upstream, for making html presentations (using js)

New reorganisation of the folders

Now the CSS file are included by default, to be more easily portable (this behavior can be changed in the makefile if needed)

New symbols for changing the size of the text (only 3 alternatives, normal, bigger, smaller)

13 oct 2010:

Gustave Moreau release:

Added columns options

Added a quick reference cheatsheet

Fixed some bugs (sub-lists)

21 aug 2010:

Théodore Chassériau release:

Corrected line break (added noindent) for LaTeX, when using a space at the beginning of a line.

Added non-breaking space symbol

Added page break for new section (heading 1) in LaTeX

Reorganised samples documents (a new document with all examples was separated from the manual)

User may use some unicode symbols directly into the source code (instead of the symbolised version)

Non supported symbols in the epub version are replaced by stars

Can use the environment variable TEXTALLIONDOC in the makefile

Corrected the initial letters for the CSS

Separated changelog and license info into external documents.

08 jul 2010:

Marcellin Desboutin release:

Changed the symbol representations to a more consistent one (4 signs between braces), with less possibility for a clash with existing texts.

Fixed page numbering in pdf so it won't be displayed on the first page cover.

25 apr 2010:

Théodore Géricault release:

Better display for the epub version (fixed alignment and margins)

20 mar 2010:

Douanier Rousseau release:

Support for colors in html and LaTeX

23 feb 2010:

Daumier release:

Update of the makefile for use with the latest Calibre

Support for image size information

Simplification and improvement of the style for the html css

Use of a code name for the releases (French/European painters or artists from the 19ème century)

24 dec 2009:

Beginning of a support for packaged version in a system-wide installation (/usr/share/textallion)

A few bugfixes and additions.

20 nov 2009:

Project renamed from "txt2tex" to "Le TeXTallion",

Thanks to nycosweb, ffx and the linuxfr readers for the inspirations.

15 nov 2009:

Better support for centered text for writing poetry.

Fix for allowing to create a table of content in the pdf output.

28 jun 2009:

now the core engine and the samples are separated so it looks more like a real project.

Added epub output in the makefile.

06 jan 2009: a few bugfixes

24 dec 2008: initial release

6. Todo and known bugs

6.1. Syntax, backend and docs

use of [description www.link.com]

Syntax for creating references, to be inserted into an index at the end

pb indents

a graphical GUI for conversion (a simple tk interface?), and a graphical GUI for edition (based on RedNotebook or SciTE for example?). Or a Qt Gui with some kparts using the kate syntax. Something based on http://qapote.tuxfamily.org/ or http://latexila.sourceforge.net/

When using UTF-8, ensure it's not using UTF-8 with BOM, otherwise the first bytes of the document may get extra characters and it will modify the title, adding something not interpretable with LaTeX, with this kind of error for example: "Unicode char \u8: not set up for use with LaTeX.".

English doc is lagging behind the French one.

Lettrine + French apostrophe

Lettrine + capital accented letters (À)

script textallion.sh: update config (makefile)

create an updater for the windows version

create desktop icon (start a term if it's launched from the menu)

rename the "images" folder to "media" (now there is music in it)

add syntax: turn to, go to, (turn to ###) etc

special syntax for warning {<!>} and information {<i>}

6.2. HTML

Use templates for html

Using an embeded free font, like Gentium Basic?

hidden menu adding link to read the text in

https://www.readability.com/bookmarklets

or http://www.tidyread.com/widget.html ?

Find more ideas from

http://epubzengarden.com/

http://librairie.immateriel.fr/ (example)

and from http://typekit.com/ ?

support for http://labs.cavorite.com/presentacular

In midori and android browser the webfont is not displaying aldine leaves and such. (ok in other webkit engines such as chromium)

footnotes not yet in the slidy version

In webkit, when clicking a footnote it will scroll down a bit.

Wrapping + text modification (for ex. reduce size) are not working

Wrapping is not working on the Android browser (looks like fixed width)

Slidy menu are too big

6.3. PDF (LaTeX and XeTeX)

Use templates for LaTeX

More templates, for different languages.

Fix the TOC in French even for English documents

Improving templates for LaTeX, especially the xetex version

Monospaced content in xetex

It's not possible to include a .sty file from internet (latex limitation?)

When using a depth of 4 in the TOC, the title doesn't display (textallion.sty).

Use book style by default in the future.

differentiate odd and even pages.

beamer is broken (doesn't work as expected, needs rework)

long links don't reflow to a new line

can't use both lettrine & wrap image

section headnote are in UPPERCASE and it's ugly (see markright)

note : if you want to separate chapters on different pages, use "book". If you want to write a memo with every parts alltogether to save space, use "article". Important: article won't support "chapters", so they will be ignored and break the hierarchy you could have made. Use the replacements proposed at the beginning of new documents. ++ EPUB ++

Extra unwanted entries in TOC, such as footnotes and linked documents

Epub files looks bad with FBReader desktop edition (but ok in Calibre)

decorations are not centered as expected

6.4. Windows

6.5. txt2cyoa

Clean and simplify the js code for fading

Renpy output

renpy: check use of " === , - and big space

undum output?

Add sound support

Ramus: works for numbered chapter, but not for named ones (will work with named ++ chapter ++ with the [#name] or [description|#name] syntax, not with ++ 5 ++[name])

Ramus: Dice will scroll up

Ramus: footnotes don't work.