[texworks] Linux Application Bundle of TeXworks released

[Stefan Löffler]

Hi Laurence,

Laurence Field schrieb:
> I'd love to have people's feedback, both on this build of TeXworks and
> on the concept of Application Bundles more generally for Linux.  I've
> make the user interface a main aim of the Application Bundles project,
> so let me know of any complaints or suggestions.
>   

I think this is an intriguing idea that could very well make Linux
accessible to the wide range of "normal" users (i.e. those who don't
want to build everything themselves ;)). Distributing binaries on Linux
has always been a pain, but this seems to have the potential to be a
worthwhile solution.

I just tried your Tw build on Ubuntu 9.04 and it worked out of the box.
Now I'll have to dig up my old live cds and try on different virgin
versions ;).

Regarding the subpixel rendering patch to poppler: unfortunately, it
doesn't look particularly good on the example document I tried. See the
attached screenshot for a comparison between the unpatched build (left)
and your version (right). The characters seem a bit bolder (which was
what you intended, if I understood you correctly), but they also look a
bit larger. My main concern, however, is the boxes produced by hyperref.
While they appear as thin, well-spaced boxes on the left, they have
thick lines and too little spacing on the right. But this is just my
personal taste.

> Another benefit of the Application Bundle approach is that one binary
> is downloadable and supportable on all recent Linux distributions,
> rather than having to package TeXworks separately for each version of
> each distribution.
>   

This is indeed a great option. However, I'd like to maintain the
classical packages as an alternative for the time being, as this
facilitates installing Tw by conventional means (i.e. via the usual
package manager, etc.)

Regards
Stefan
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