[TxMt] Announcing LaTeX Watch 2.0, with PDF support

[Charilaos Skiadas]

On Apr 5, 2007, at 9:21 AM, Robin Houston wrote:

> On 4/5/07, Charilaos Skiadas <skiadas at hanover.edu> wrote:
> Have you looked at PDFView? http://pdfview.sourceforge.net/
>
> Not yet, I'll have a look now. Should be easy to support it. Thanks  
> for pointing it out.

It's basically the viewer we are suggesting at the moment (once I  
update the help file that is). It has the advantages of TeXniscope  
along with some other ones of its own, and works on Intels much better.

> Is this TM_LATEX_WATCH_VIEWER variable really necessary?
> [...]
> Is there any way we can cut down on all those environment variables?
> The LaTeX bundle already uses more than it should.
>
> Since environment variables are not in limited supply, I take the  
> point to be that configuration should be as simple as possible. Of  
> course I agree, and it would be good to give some thought to the  
> best way of achieving this.

Yeah the point was to make it as simple for the end users as possible.

> I thought it might be useful to have the option of using a  
> different previewer for watching than for 'Typeset & View', but  
> perhaps no one would ever want to do that. At the very least, it  
> could be an undocumented option, and we could say that the  
> recommended way to change the viewer is to set TM_LATEX_VIEWER.

Yeah we could have it as an undocumented option.

> For instance there
> is already a TEX_PSTRICKS (hm, we should probably change that to
> TM_LATEX_PSTRICKS) which tells the LaTeX&View command to switch to
> going through ps. Perhaps you can use that instead of the
> TM_LATEX_WATCH_MODE?
>
> Because of the non-standard name, I didn't realise this was an  
> official configuration option. If it is, I agree that the name  
> should be changed!

Well it's semi-official ;)  Supporting pstricks and the dvi->ps->pdf  
route is relatively new and hasn't settled in much. So TEX_PSTRICKS  
was really at that point just an internal variable defined within the  
LaTeX&View command, not supposed to be settable by the user really.  
But we should probably rethink it a fair bit.

> I don't think TM_LATEX_PSTRICKS is a very good name either, since  
> it doesn't, fundamentally, have anything to do with PSTricks per se.
>
> Maybe TM_LATEX_POSTSCRIPT, or TM_LATEX_MODE=PS?

I wonder if it is necessary at all. Is that really different than  
setting the TS-program to "latex" instead of "pdflatex"?

I guess this is the question: Should the user have to specify  
anything else other than whether they want pdflatex or latex->dvi->ps- 
 >pdf ? Ideally one variable should do the trick, and even that  
should only be needed rarely. Question is what it is the user should  
be deciding on. (and by "user" here I mean the 99% of the users who  
just want to keep writing and not learn all about obcsure three/four- 
word variables starting with TM ).

> Another problem with this mechanism (apart from the name) is that  
> it's only over-rideable in one direction. If you have set  
> TEX_PSTRICKS, then it is not currently possible to use
>
> %!TEX TS-program = pdflatex
>
> to over-ride that setting.

Hm, that's a bug in the way we do these things currently I would say,  
the %!TEX directive should probably be taking precedence. Basically  
the whole setting sniffing method in the Typeset&View command needs a  
good cleanup. It has been patched so many times that it is somewhat  
inefficient/buggy atm.

> The size is considerable. Perhaps we can just add instructions for
> installing it on the help page,
>
> Installing it really is a pain, if you're not a programmer, because  
> it depends on a non-standard X library. Unless you do it via fink  
> or something. But then you have to install fink! Even then, fink  
> has a buggy version of gv.
>
> or just make the above binary available somewhere?
>
> That might be an idea. Is there anywhere suitable for it to go?

Yes I meant to make the binary available somewhere, and then link to  
it from the documentation. I was thinking of someone's webpage. I can  
put it on my blog somewhere, or you can host in on your homepage.

> What is the license on gv btw?
>
> GPL.

Then I am not sure we can actually include it in a bundle that ships  
with TM, or include it at all for that matter. Can we? (I am a bit  
clueless when it comes to licenses).

> Robin

Haris Skiadas
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Hanover College