[OS X TeX] Various TeX programs on Mac

[Jérôme Laurens]

Le 7 mai 04, à 06:56, Will Robertson a écrit :

>
> Okay, so the matter of impartiality has come up. I must admit I have 
> only used Gerben's distribution on Mac OS X and MikTeX on Windows, and 
> for editing I've used TeXShop and iTeXMac a lot, tried out Alpha and 
> I'm meaning to get into Emacs.
>
> Joe's comments imply that we should give all new users the option of 
> every possible program and let them make up their own mind. It is very 
> true that TeXShop is advertised a lot more (on this list) than any of 
> the other programs and many comments appear to be biased towards it.
>
> Can anyone with experience with every TeX distribution and editor give 
> their opinion of how new users should be advised? If OzTeX et al. are 
> indeed so easy to use, why has everyone latched onto i-Installer & 
> TeXShop?
>
> I suppose it all comes down to a single question from me: Does anyone 
> think I'm being unfair by writing a webpage that says ``If you want to 
> use TeX on Mac, the easiest way is to get TeXShop''?
>
>

I am afraid there is no unique answer to that question.
Of course there is the law of the big number: so many people say this 
is true that it must be true...

Here are my suggestions for TeX beginners only.

1 - use a self contained app as suggested by Ralph Poëllath in [OS X 
TeX] TexShop w/ minimal LaTeX installation for dummies?
2 - only include pdf related stuff
3 - only include latex related stuff
4 - no subtleties
5 - simple and clear

This means
1 - some technical work with the texmf tree, cleanning unwanted stuff
2 - write a new app, with the minimal user interface, something like 
TextEdit + a View menu à la preview.app, a TeX menu, pdf windows, 
terminal windows.
In the TeX menu, there should only be
- a typeset menu item
- items for standard examples (using the included poor man distribution 
only), for sectionning, fonts, maths, graphics, all in different read 
only tex files.
- some templates

Maybe one button in the text editor window to typeset...

I think it won't take me long to elaborate this simple but fully 
useable front end, reusing the code I have (including syntax coloring 
and pdfsync)

For point 1, it would not take long.

--A+JL
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