[OS X TeX] TeXMaker 1.3 Universal Binary

[markus bongard]

gentle persons,

On 9 Mar 2006, at 07:14, Bruno Voisin wrote:
>
> Though I'm not sure Jung-Tsung's motivation was exactly the  
> following, I suspect so: given the Mac OS X Texmaker binary  
> available at the original Texmaker site <http://www.xm1math.net/ 
> texmaker/download.html> doesn't require the installation of any  
> framework, is it really necessary to install your Qt4.1 framework  
> for running your Texmaker universal binary; and, for somebody  
> running OS X 10.4 on a PPC Mac, is your Texmaker binary  
> significantly different from the one at Texmaker's site? Perhaps a  
> more recent version?

No. One of the two reasons why I created this, is that some friends  
were asking my about a universal binary version (which makes it of  
course completely different for anyone whio likes to use it on an  
Intel-Mac). The TeXmaker version for MacOSX on the developer site is  
working perfectly for PPC (and presumably very well in Rosetta on an  
Intel CPU).
The second reason is, that the TeXMaker on ATG uses a newer version  
of the Qt4-framework, which has several bugs fixed (which prevented  
at least some people I know to use it under MacOSX. Because there was  
only PPC "before" and the binary on the TeXMaker site, I never did a  
binary installer of TeXmaker 1.3 previously).

>
> Thus, I'm not willing to be faced now with similar problems on OS  
> X, due to kernel extensions, frameworks and the like. In other  
> words, I'm not willing to introduce any component modifying the  
> default OS X behaviour, if that can be avoided.

I agree  in the sense, that if something is installed on the system I  
use, it should be in a transparent, understandable way (AND I agree  
that kernel extensions (can be), hacks or "hooks" (both surely) are  
evil =8). But of course the TeXMaker version on the developer site  
WILL install the required Qt-framework. Well, it will bring it inside  
the application bundle and load it at runtime (as any non-bundled app  
would do with the framework). Of course you're completly right, and  
for example deinstallation appears as a a breeze with bundled apps,  
just move the application to the trash, done.
But this would mean for me, because every non-Apple framework based  
application (like e.g. Qt3 or Qt4 based apps) will come with the  
required components incorporated, that a quite redundant amount of  
files exists on my system, and: because I prefer dynamically linked  
applications, any bug fixes to the framework does not lead to a  
complete recompile and repacking of the affected applications. In  
most cases a simple update of the framework (within the .decimal- 
variants) let the user of a program take advantage of improved  
version *well, and of course new bugs =;)*.
At least for the Qt-frameworks the situation  to get rid of the  
components, is simple: just delete the Qt-folder; and, at least from  
my side, I try to provide all information about for example, what  
additional libraries are installed where, for the program-installers  
provided on ATG.

Apparently this reflects somewhat the two possible views one can have  
on the issue - the nice, "Mac-like" and the, maybe a little more ugly  
appearing, "*nix"-way of using MacOSX. Finally I think that the Qt- 
framework does not "modify" the MacOSX behaviour (nor does a library  
like gsl, or other scietific lib which come from a *nix background).  
Frameworks are the "real" MacOSX-way of doing it, aren't they?

cheers,

Markus Bongard


------------------------- Info --------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/