April 2015

From: Dr Christopher Mabb, Scientific Word Ltd.
To: Our Scientific Word/WorkPlace/Notebook Technical Typesetting list

1. Version 6.0 requirements:    We're finally able to give you the technical information you've been waiting for about version 6.0 of Scientific Word, Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Notebook. Thank you for your patience!
   System requirements for version 6.0 are not particularly demanding – I've been running a beta copy on my old Sony Vaio laptop (32-bit Vista SP2 with 2Gb RAM) – so we don’t anticipate any problems with most people's machines. Minimum operating systems are:
   • Windows XP or later, or
   • Intel Mac 32-bit OS/X v10.5 Leopard [up to OS 10.14 Mojave – not 64-bit OS 10.15 Catalina, OS 11 Big Sur or higher]
   with 40Mb memory. The zip file download for Scientific WorkPlace (the largest of the programs) is 150Mb and installation requires up to 1Gb of hard disk space.
   The Linux version will follow around 3 months after the initial release of the Windows and Mac versions. The manuals will again be available as PDFs.



2. Version 6.0 pricing:    As we mentioned last time (Item 1), all those entitled to the complimentary v6.0 upgrade will receive notification and download/installation instructions automatically. Otherwise, our version 6.0 pricing is available here; this will become our Licence Calculator page upon release of the new version, and the Ordering button will then be enabled.
   Please feel free to drop us a line if there's anything else – after such a long wait the big day is all the more imminently "Real Soon Now"!



3. Commutative diagrams:    An academic in the UK, using Scientific WorkPlace to write a book with a Japanese co-author, asked whether it was possible to produce Commutative diagrams. After a little investigation we replied that, though we've not had occasion to use the AMSCD package ourselves:

   ...you'll find it documented in the online Help – Search – AMSCD – AMSCD package – package documentation / the LaTeX AMS packages. This latter says (under AMSCD):

   AMSCD
   The amscd package defines a CD environment to produce simple rectangular commutative diagrams, such as this:
       
   The package provides single and double horizontal and vertical arrows, with or without labels. The package doesn't provide diagonal arrows. The notation is easier to use than standard LaTeX code and the results are more attractive. After you add the package to your document, create the diagram inside a CD environment defined in a TeX field in the body of your document. See the commutative diagram chapter in the amsmath User's Guide for more information.

   In the package documentation link, Commutative diagrams are covered in Section 8 (p20), which gives a short (half-page) summary of how to produce them, together with a worked example (though with an extraneous \ in VV{\End P}V ). The Scientific WorkPlace document attached will allow you to see this at work – presumably you can then write your own commutative diagrams from your knowledge of what you're wanting to express.

   Our sample document is here: click Typeset – PreviewPDF to see the effect, and then double-click the TeX Field to see the workings.
   Another example of the Unbeatable Expert Technical Support available to our users!



4. FlexLM:    One of our Annual Maintenance sites asked about the form of the hostname used in the client and server licence files of Floating licences:

   ...the CLIENTlicense.lic file does not include either the IP (www.xx.yyy.zz) or fully-qualified domain name (license.name.univ.ac.uk) of the license server; it only mentions the hostname (LICENSE) and the MAC address <snip>. How are the clients going to reach the license server for authorization? The MAC and hostname should not be enough to determine a network location in a network with multiple subnets...

   The FlexLM enduser guide, available on our website at https://www.sciword.co.uk/Licensing/flexuser/enduser.pdf, covers this in Appendix B "License File Format" on p114:

   The format of the SERVER line is:

   SERVER host hostid [port]

   where:

   host (is) The system host name or IP address

   – and we then realised that the PDF network installation instructions we've been sending out for years already make this point on p5. The fully qualified domain name form of the host name will also work.



5. Website migration:    The ISP we've been with since 1993 has had many different owners in that time: Scottish Telecom/Thus, Cable & Wireless, Vodafone. Most recently, the Demon web hosting has been transferred to IntY in partnership with Namesco (see http://help.demon.net/domain-hosting-transfer) resulting in a migration of server. We think everything is working correctly again, but please let us know if you discover any broken links (or any other problems with our pages).
   Thanks – we appreciate the help and support of the Scientific Word family... especially those (about 15 of you) who've been with us since 1993!



6. Maths is forever:    Only real mathematicians should click this link: anyone else will wonder why everybody's laughing! It's one of the TEDx talks – and very funny – asking the question "What is maths for?"
   The talk is in Spanish, with English subtitles, which seems to add to its charm. Well worth 10 minutes of your coffee break...