[OS X TeX] Re: typesetting engines in TeXShop

[Stephen Anderson]

On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 Tom Koornwinder wrote:

> In TeXShop Help -> Advanced Help -> Additional Typesetting Engines
> it is written:
>
>> These XeTeX features form a special case of a new general method for
>> adding typesetting engines to TeXShop. There is now a folder in
>> ~/Library/TeXShop named Engines; the files in this folder are shell
>> scripts which call typesetting programs. When TeXShop first starts, it
>> examines this folder and adds the script names of files it contains to
>> the pull-down typesetting menu. Choosing one of these items and
>> pushing the Typeset button calls the script. Users can write their own
>> scripts and add them to the Engines folder. Each such script must have
>> a name without spaces, and extension ".engine", and have the
>> executable bit set.
>
> This is nice, but [...]

I agree that this is nice, but this facility seems to be limited to the 
case where you have the source file open for editing.  Much as I 
appreciate the work that has gone into the TeXShop editor, I use 
TeXShop only as a previewer, because I can't get along without the 
facilities of emacs, AUC-TeX, ref-TeX, etc. and I do my editing in 
emacs.  But there seem to be no way to get TeX-Shop to present 
Xe(La)TeX as a menu option for compiling an externally edited file 
except to invoke a "personal script" - which limits you to one such 
personal script.  It also seems to be the case that putting the magic 
incantation

%&program=xelatex

at the top of a file doesn't stop TeXShop from running vanilla LaTeX on 
it, unless the file is open for editing.

I'm probably missing something obvious (in which case I'll be grateful 
to someone who points out how I can in fact get the desired behavior), 
but why should the availability of alternate typesetting engines be 
limited in the way it seems to be?
-- 
Steve Anderson

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