(Yes, I'm still around --- and hope to be until December.) Concerning the recent discussion of diagrams in LaTeX: I hope that any solution that is eventually adopted is not limited to LaTeX, but can become the standard for users of plain TeX as well as of AMS(La)TeX. Moreover, the syntax should be flexible enough to allow the design of various kinds of diagrams, *and* allow customization: i.e., if I want a square like f A -------------> B | | | | g | | h | | V V C -------------> D k I want to be able to *define* a macro \square with (maybe) 8 parameters that can be called like \square AfBghCkD on top of whatever underlying syntax is provided. Moreover, I want to be able to chose the direction of the arrows (and maybe even the type of arrow) when specifying its label. E.g., \square AfB{\dl g}{\dl h}CkD should reverse the arrows g and h. Even if the new standard comes with certain pre-defined diagrams, it should be easily extensible with user-defined ones. There is another issue: 2-cells! Just look at the ever-growing importance of 2-categorical ideas. It would be highly desirable to have support for pasting 2-cells. After some experiments trying to add these (or trying to write a \cube macro) I very soon ran out of macro parameters (for a cube you need 20, while TeX only allows you 9). One can get around this limitation, but the end user should not have to bother with this. What we need is a 2 level syntax. The base level should take care of the proper placement of objects and arrow labels, while the second level should give the user easy access to a standard repertoire of diagrams that can be extended if necessary. cheers, J"urgen - J"urgen Koslowski | If I don't see you no more in this world Department of Mathematics | I meet you in the next world Kansas State University | and don't be late! koslowj@math.ksu.edu | Jimi Hendrix (Voodoo Chile) ==============================================================================