[OS X TeX] TeXShop's %& ugly bug
Maarten Sneep
maarten.sneep at xs4all.nl
Fri Sep 10 10:52:46 CEST 2004
On 10 sep 2004, at 9:34, Jérôme Laurens wrote:
> I once asked the list for the best way to add this kind of meta data
> to the TeX source file.
> I find intrusive this kind of policy and wanted to take advise from
> real users before deliberately polluting the source.
>
> No one answered except Gerben Wierda who cleverly pointed out that the
> syntax of the meta data should in no way interfere with other existing
> stuff.
> This is why iTeXMac defined its own syntax and replaced the %& prefix
> by the %!iTeXMac.
I'd like to add that there should be no real reason to reinvent the
wheel: emacs has added meta-data information to tex and other
file-types for years. The important ones (master-file and
character-encoding) are all there, and I think adding some application
specific ones would not be horribly hard.
Addopting their scheme buys you tight integration with another widely
used application, and eases interchange with other users in
collaborative environments (why someone would use emacs is beyond me, I
guess it is good at making coffee ;)
But indeed: %& is reserved for use by tex itself, although the advent
of pdftex has made the construct harder to use, unless you do
everything with pdfetex (I believe it can act like any of the formats
in common use, though I'm not sure context is on the list).
Maarten
--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
& FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>
More information about the macostex-archives
mailing list