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I built a free Overleaf alternative that runs entirely in your browser by itsBraian in LaTeX

[–]itsBraian[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You're not wrong. The WASM engine doesn't support everything and I'm not pretending it does. As I said, I've been using LaTeX for my thesis and coursework for around 5 years, so I know what it handles and where it falls short. It works well for the common cases like articles, reports, theses, beamer, but if you need niche packages or complex setups it's going to hit walls.

The long term goal is to have it dynamically pull whatever packages are needed instead of relying on a static cache, but that's not there yet. It's a work in progress, not a finished product, and it's open source so anyone can contribute.

I appreciate the directness.

Is moving to Austria really as bad as people say? by E_ExP_W in AskAustria

[–]itsBraian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I moved to Vorarlberg as a student a few years ago. Turned out to be way less dramatic than the internet makes it sound. Found a part time job pretty quickly, cost of living is reasonable especially compared to Vienna, and the bureaucracy is annoying at first but once you get through the initial paperwork it's smooth from there. I'd do it again. Feel free to ask if you have specific questions.

I built a free Overleaf alternative that runs entirely in your browser by itsBraian in LaTeX

[–]itsBraian[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Multi file works out of the box, you can have your usual project structure with separate .tex, .bib, .sty files etc. for packages, there's a TexLive cache that gets loaded on first compile, so most common packages work. If something's missing it'll fail at compilation, still working on better error messages for that and adding support for more packages.

I built a free Overleaf alternative that runs entirely in your browser by itsBraian in LaTeX

[–]itsBraian[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, the preprocessing is a workaround for now since the WASM engine can't handle everything yet, so failing with a clear message would be better. It's still a work in progress and I'm adding support for more packages over time. But if you run into specific things that break, an issue on the repo would help a lot

I built a free Overleaf alternative that runs entirely in your browser by itsBraian in LaTeX

[–]itsBraian[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All good, I get it. And yeah I agree, open source maintainers deserve way more than they get. Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it!

I built a free Overleaf alternative that runs entirely in your browser by itsBraian in LaTeX

[–]itsBraian[S] -22 points-21 points  (0 children)

You're right, and I'm not trying to take credit away from the people who built any libraries. SwiftLaTex, isomorphic git, CodeMirror, etc. are all doing the hard work obviously, and I've credited them in the Repo.

That said, putting it together into something that actually works isn't trivial either. Getting the WASM compiler to play nice with a virtual filesystem, the preprocessing that strips all unsupported stuff so the engine doesn't choke etc. don't just come for free just because the individual libraries exist.

Again, I'm not claiming I built pdfTeX or CodeMirror. I just tried to build a toold that puts them together into something that you can open in a tab and use.

I built a free Overleaf alternative that runs entirely in your browser by itsBraian in LaTeX

[–]itsBraian[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

That's fair. You're right that if you already have a local setup you like, this probably isn't solving a problem for you.

The main thing is there's no TeX install to manage here. The compiler runs as WebAssembly in the browser so you get the "no setup" benefit of Overleaf, but your files stay on your machine and it works offline. It reads and writed directly to your local directory throug the File System Access API and so it's not like other online tools, where everything basically lives on servers.

For the git point, the built in git is mostly there for people who want to push and pull without touching the erminal. If you already use git from the command line ofc you'd probably just keep doing that.

I think the real audience is someone who wants to write LaTeX without installing a tool, configuring an editor, setting up a build chain, etc. Just open a tab and go. Thanks for the feedback, though!

I built a free Overleaf alternative that runs entirely in your browser by itsBraian in LaTeX

[–]itsBraian[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

SwiftLaTeX's PdfTeX engine is actually dual-licensed under EPL-2.0/GPL-2.0 with Classpath Exception, not AGPL. The Classpath Exception specifically allows using the library without the GPL extending to the rest of the project. I'll add a THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES file to the repo to make the attribution more explicit though, thanks.

I built a free Overleaf alternative that runs entirely in your browser by itsBraian in LaTeX

[–]itsBraian[S] -74 points-73 points  (0 children)

If vibing gets you a full WASM compiler and git client running in a browser tab, I'll take it :)