sTeX: our Blockchain-Based LaTeX editor with real-time compiling

Modern UI, documents managed by Stellar, real-time compiler, vs code-like editor, autocompletion, and much more.

sTeX — Intorduction

After a fair bit of time spent using a variety of different LaTeX editors, which all excel in their own way, we realized that they have a few glaring issues and limitations, which unfortunately can hinder or slow progress on large papers, especially when working in a team.

We think it’s time for LaTeX users to be able to write, compile, and store their documents online: the core is designed to interact with the Stellar network to do this, all while the users see a modern and fast editor, packed with features that greatly improve usability, such as carefully designed auto-completion and a real-time compiler. Additionally, we felt as though collaboration felt somewhat clunky for some editors, so we implemented a way for other users to see changes in real-time.

It is also worth noting that users will not necessarily have to deal with actions that can disrupt their workflow (especially for users who aren’t familiar with Blockchain), such as dealing with Stellar wallets, transaction signing, etc. They will rather use sTeX as any other standard username/password authentication and authorization mechanism.

Business Model

While our core is entirely dependent on the Stellar Network, users won’t directly interact with the network. Our app works as most traditional SaaS, we have chosen to adopt such a model for the following reasons:

• Our target audience does not necessarily have experience with Blockchain, we want to make things as simple as possible for our customers and let them experience a familiar app.
• By being a custodial app, our users won’t have to sign transactions nor worry if those are legitimate txs or not. Our serverless backend will take care of that.

Development Roadmap

End of Q3, 2022 — BETA ready

• editor with auto-completion and real-time compiler.
• real-time collaboration.
• stellar documents manager: create, update and share the documents.
• documents navigator.
• user-specific templates.
• all three tiers up-and-running: free, enthusiast, and professional.
• publish documents as web pages.
• interactive docs to learn the basics of LaTeX.

End of Q4, 2022 — STABLE release

• BETA release fully tested.
• add user-specific custom auto-completion.
• personal papers portfolio website for our users.
• projects support.
• a feature request forum, where our users will propose features and changes in current features.

Deployment Roadmap

End of Q3, 2022

If we are able to gather funding, we will have already created Xycloo as a company and gotten legal assistance to launch and get revenue from our products, including sTeX. If this is achieved, the BETA version of the product will launch. The BETA stage does not mean that sTeX will have a waitlist and those enrolled will gain access to the app. Rather, the BETA stage of sTeX is a STABLE release without some of the above-described features and with a maximum number of users. That way we will be able to best monitor the app and improve performance while not having to deal with a hypothetically high number of active users.

End of Q4, 2022

By the end of 2022, we hope to be ready to launch sTeX’s STABLE release. This will however only be possible if the BETA stage proceeds as planned.

Support us by joining our waitlist, where you will receive important updates on our projects.