[texworks] Why a Mac version of TeXworks (was: Wordcount)

[Stefan Löffler]

Hi,

I was not sure if I should reply to this message here in the word count
thread, as it is pretty off-topic. But then again my (principal)
contribution to this discussion will be short, anyway ;).

On 2009-08-01 13:34, thomas.floeren at mac.com wrote:
> So my question now:
>
> What is the purpose of the Mac edition of TeXworks?

In addition to all the very relevant and good points given by others,
here's my simple answer:
Because we can.

To elaborate a little bit: Tw aims at being cross platform. This has
many benefits as pointed out already. In addition, one thing that was
important for me was that people having different systems can share
experiences. I'm thinking along the lines of "Hey, do you know a good
LaTeX editor? Some that also works on my system?" But it also
facilitates moving between systems (I switched from Windows to Linux
about a year ago, for example). After all, there is no real reason to
target only one specific platform, unless you are a company making money
that way.
So, Mac is one of the major systems out there, and supporting Mac isn't
much more effort (granted, you need to set up a build system once, but
then all the code is the same on all platforms thanks to cross platform
libraries like Qt). So the real question would be: why not do it?

Of course, there are many *TeX systems in the Mac world, but I don't
think that's a reason not to try another one. If people like it and use
it, great, if they don't, so be it. Tw is not intended to replace
anything, it's just there as another option to choose from.

On a side note: Tw was, is, and hopefully always will be targeting users
new to the *TeX world (novice users). But IMO, this doesn't exclude more
advanced features, as long as they don't get in the way / overwhelm the
new user. But how this will be done in the future is not decided yet, AFAIK.

Regards,
Stefan