typesetting script calls and iTeXMac and wrappers (was Re: [OS X TeX] Page size? (Using TeXShop and XeTeX and plain))

[William F. Adams]

On Saturday, April 17, 2004, at 03:40  AM, Jérôme Laurens wrote:

> better idea: give the whole shell script command needed to typeset the 
> document in the first line, not just parameters.
> even better idea: also give the whole shell script command to make the 
> bibliography, in case we need something better than bibtex
> even better idea: also give the command to make the index, in case we 
> need something better than makeindex
>
> All this overriding the usual behaviour when present.

Good points.

> This is so better than the actual TeXShop UI and exactly what iTeXMac 
> implemented a long time ago.

I regret that I'm not more familiar w/ iTeXMac --- unfortunately, I 
found it to be somewhat overwhelming when I first tried it out. My 
mindset doesn't wrap around the UI properly or something, but it does 
work well for a lot of people, and I do try to remember to suggest it 
when I mention TeXshop and I do need to look into it again.

Perhaps there could be a ``simple UI mode'' for iTeXMac where it'd 
mimic TeXshop and one could turn on features as one needs them?

> But in fact, this is not such a good idea: adding meaningful TeX 
> comments to a document should be considered as a pollution and should 
> be avoided for portability reasons.
> The right answer to that problem is in the forthcoming TeX Wrapper 
> Structure,

Agreed. I was quite disappointed that things didn't work out better w/ 
the Wrapper bit.

<snip> the last bit which I think was unintentionally pejorative 'cause 
of the language barrier.

William

-- 
William Adams, publishing specialist
voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708
www.atlis.com

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