Lout Version 3 sneak preview now available

[Jeff Kingston]

This message is being sent to everyone on my private Lout mailing
list, and also to the public Lout mailing list.  If you would
prefer not to receive information about Lout, let me know and I
will delete your name from my private list.

A sneak preview release of Lout Version 3 is now available: file
"lout.sneak.tar.Z" in the "jeff" subdirectory of the home directory
of "ftp" to "ftp.cs.su.oz.au" with login name "anonymous" and any
non-empty password.

If you are looking for a reliable new version, you are better off
waiting for the real release in a couple of weeks.  You'll hear about
it the same way you heard about this one.  But if you have been
bugging me for new features you're morally obliged to get the sneak
preview and test them out.

Version 3 is a major step beyond Version 2.05.  It has support for
multilingual documents, plain text output, overhead transparencies,
and much more.  There is also a new, all-inclusive User's Guide (170
pages, covering all the standard packages).  I hope all this will be
some consolation for having to wait so much longer than I led some
of you to expect.

The release is incomplete in at least one known way:  at present
database lout/data/standard.ld containing words like Chapter, July,
etc. contains only Danish and English words (in fact, a few Danish
words are missing).  There are places for Finnish, French, German,
and Swedish translations but the places are currently filled with
question marks.  So please volunteer to translate these words very
soon so that the real release can include them.  There is also time
to add entire new European languages if you are quick about it.

As usual, any comments no matter how major or minor will be welcome,
and if received promptly stand a good chance of influencing the real
release.  Even if your installation has no problems at all, I very
much want to hear that.

Jeff Kingston
address@hidden