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  2. /Discussion
  3. /Compositor 0.3 for Windows
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  3. /Compositor 0.3 for Windows
Last activity 2 months agoPosted Sep 24, 2025 at 11:38 AM EDT

Compositor 0.3 for Windows

serhack_
27 points
8 comments

Mood

calm

Sentiment

mixed

Category

other

Key topics

Latex Editing
Windows App
Productivity Tools
Debate intensity20/100

The Compositor app, a WYSIWYG LaTeX editor originally for Mac, has been ported to Windows, sparking discussion about its usefulness and potential Linux port.

Snapshot generated from the HN discussion

Discussion Activity

Moderate engagement

First comment

3d

Peak period

8

Day 4

Avg / period

8

Key moments

  1. 01Story posted

    Sep 24, 2025 at 11:38 AM EDT

    2 months ago

    Step 01
  2. 02First comment

    Sep 27, 2025 at 2:51 PM EDT

    3d after posting

    Step 02
  3. 03Peak activity

    8 comments in Day 4

    Hottest window of the conversation

    Step 03
  4. 04Latest activity

    Sep 27, 2025 at 8:16 PM EDT

    2 months ago

    Step 04

Generating AI Summary...

Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns

Discussion (8 comments)
Showing 8 comments
typpilol
2 months ago
2 replies
What's the point of this?
freedomben
2 months ago
My guess is the point is personal exploration and edification, which is also the best reason I can think of to hack on stuff
tripplyons
2 months ago
I'm sure there are some people who would prefer a graphical interface like this.
jasperry
2 months ago
2 replies
This is not in fact a compositing window manager for Windows, but rather a port of a Mac app for WYSIWYG LaTeX editing. It looks like a very useful application. Just wish they prioritized porting it to Linux instead.
hagbard_c
2 months ago
Mac and (to a lesser extent) Windows users pay for software while Linux users as a rule want free (as in 'beer' as well as 'freedom') software. This is a product, not a project, the intention seems to be to start charging for the product when it reaches 'version 2.0'.

If you want to do something resembling 'WYSIWYG´ LaTeX editing on Linux there's LyX [1] which I've been using for decades starting with the Xforms version. LyX is not really 'WYSIWYG' as that is not really what LaTeX is meant for. Here's an excerpt from the project site which describes the difference:

LyX presents the user with the familiar face of a WYSIWYG word processor. However, users familiar with Microsoft Word or WordPerfect may be perplexed by certain basic LyX behaviour. For example, repeatedly hitting the space bar has no effect! This is by design: LyX puts in the proper spacing for you, intelligently.

Think of LyX as the first WYSIWYM word processor: What You See Is What You Mean. All the common formatting intelligence of LaTeX is presented to the user through visual controls, like a table-of-contents window acting as an outline browser, "live" reference links (to figure and table captions, sections, pages and literature citations), automatic multilevel section and list numbering, and more. You tell LyX how to treat particular words and lines in your document: e.g., this is standard text, this is a Section title, this is a footnote, this is a caption beneath an inserted graphic. As you click your selections, the WYSIWYM interface gives you clean, straightforward "visual clues" (actually, very WYSIWYG-like).

[1] https://www.lyx.org/WhatIsLyX

Affric
2 months ago
I would be very interested to try it on Linux.

Looks like I might like the UI.

storus
2 months ago
I use it to do my grad school stuff. One gripe is that on macOS cmd+R doesn't correctly refresh documents with images that are not rendered. One has to reopen the doc to get images rendered correctly. Anyway, formulas, text and tables do update so it's mostly fine. I wanted to buy it but Karl doesn't accept money anywhere.
fithisux
2 months ago
Very interesting work.
View full discussion on Hacker News
ID: 45361865Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 4:47:35 PM

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