CTAN Update: LaTeX Kernel

[CTAN Announcements]

The LaTeX Team submitted an update to the

              LaTeX Kernel

consisting of the following packages:

              latex-base
              latex-doc
              cyrillic
              graphics
        and   tools .

Version:  2015-01-01
License:  lppl1.3

Announcement text:
----------------------------------------------------------------------

 LaTeX2e Release 2015/01/01
 ==========================

 This release of the LaTeX kernel and associated core tools
 features a number of improvements. A short summary is given
 below: full details of this release are given in the latest
 edition of LaTeX2e News (Issue 22).

 New approach to kernel modifications
 ------------------------------------

 This release features a new method for incorporating changes
 into the kernel, balancing the need to provide stability with a
 requirement to fix issues and address changes taking place in
 the LaTeX landscape. The new `latexrelease` package mechanism
 means that fixes are now added directly to the kernel, with the
 possibly for the user to deactivate them

     \RequirePackage[2014/05/01]{latexrelease}

 This mechanism is also available to package authors, who should
 consult the news for more details.

 To facilitate ease-of-use of this new approach, the release
 date for the kernel has been set to a suitable memorable value.

 Extended allocation routine and additional float storage
 --------------------------------------------------------

 The register allocation system has been modified to recognise
 the existence of e-TeX, XeTeX and LuaTeX and make more registers
 available _via_ `\newcount`, _etc._, without the user needing to
 load the `etex package.

 With e-TeX available (the case for all TeX system releases for
 some years) a new method is made available to extend the pool
 used for float storage. This can be activated using the new
 `\extrafloats` command, which requires an argument to specify
 how many additional float slots to provide.

 Unicode engine support
 ----------------------

 The engines XeTeX and LuaTeX both natively work with Unicode
 input and have some (subtle) functionality differences from
 pdfTeX. This has led to the additional of a range of patches
 being applied in the process of building the LaTeX2e format with
 these engines. In this release, the kernel sources are updated
 such that these patches should no longer be required.

 Most notably, the new file `unicode-letters.def` now provides a
 full set of Unicode-based assignments for `\catcode`, `\uccode`
 and so on. This means that with with Unicode engines the assumed
 font encoding is Unicode rather than `T1`.

 TeX system builders have already been appraised of these changes
 and suggested `.ini` files have been circulated by the team. To
 aid in the use of this work as widely as possible,
 `unicode-letters.def` is designed to be usable with formats
 other than LaTeX2e and act as a drop-in replacement for
 `unicode-letters.tex` for both XeTeX and LuaTeX.

 Building for release
 --------------------

 The team have moved to a new script system for creating
 releases, [l3build](http://ctan.org/pkg/l3build). For users, the
 two key benefits of this move are that we now provide
 hyperlinked PDF documentation and TDS-style zip files for the
 entire release.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

These packages are located at
   http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/base/
   http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/doc/
   http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/required/cyrillic/
   http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/required/graphics/
   http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/required/tools/

More information is at
   http://www.ctan.org/pkg/latex-base
   http://www.ctan.org/pkg/latex-doc
   http://www.ctan.org/pkg/cyrillic
   http://www.ctan.org/pkg/graphics
   http://www.ctan.org/pkg/tools

We are supported by the TeX Users Group http://www.tug.org .
Please join a users group; see http://www.tug.org/usergroups.html .

------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Thanks for the upload.

     For the CTAN Team
    Petra Rübe-Pugliese