(X)Fig is a menu driven tool that allows you to
draw objects on the screen of an X workstation. transfig
is a set of tools which translate the code fig produces to
other graphics languages including PostScript and the LaTeX picture
environment. They are available in graphics/xfig and
graphics/transfig
Fig is supported by Micah Beck (beck@cs.cornell.edu) and
transfig is maintained by Brian Smith (bvsmith@lbl.gov).
Another tool for fig conversion is fig2mf which
generates METAFONT code from fig input. It is available in
graphics/fig2mf
TeXCAD is a program for the PC which enables the user to draw diagrams
on screen using a mouse or arrow keys, with an on-screen menu of available
picture-elements. Its output is code for the LaTeX picture environment.
Optionally, it can be set to include lines at all angles using
the emTeX driver-family
\specials.
TeXCAD is part of the emTeX distribution.
A Unix port of the program exists, graphics/xtexcad/xtexcad-2.4.tar.gz
For Unix, ispell is probably the program of choice. Browse
support/ispell for a version, but beware of any with a number
4.x - such versions represent a divergent version of the source
which lacks many useful facilities of the 3.x series.
For MS-DOS, there are several programs. amspell can be called from within an editor (available as
support/amspell). jspell is an extended version of
ispell (available as support/jspell).
For the Macintosh, Excalibur is the program of choice. It
will run in native mode on both sorts of Macintosh, and is available as
systems/mac/support/excalibur/Excalibur-2.6-sit.hqx (there are other dictionaries in the same
directory).
For VMS, a spell checker can be found in support/vmspell
VorTeX (available in support/vortex) is a package of programs
written at the University of
California at Berkeley, and was described by Michael A. Harrison in
``News from the VorTeX project'' in TUGboat 10(1),
pp. 11-14, 1989. It includes several nice previewers and some
emacs modes for TeX and BibTeX. The VorTeX
distribution is not maintained, and now looks distinctly long in the
tooth (it was never upgraded to TeX version 3).
VorTeX needed a separate workstation to run TeX in the background; modern PCs for the home can provide more processor power (than was available to VorTeX) in a single box. This fact has been recognised by Blue Sky Research in their `Lightning Textures' (which runs on a Macintosh in a somewhat similar way) and by TCI Software Research in `Scientific Word' (see commercial vendors), and is also the basis of many of the other environments mentioned in `editors and shells'.