[OS X TeX] Re: MacOSX-TeX Digest #1380 - 05/22/05

[Roberto Avanzi]

On 22 May 2005 12:03:18 +0200, "Bruno Voisin" <bvoisin at mac.com> wrote:

> Le 22 mai 05 à 11:22, Roberto Avanzi a écrit :
>
>> (II) After writing defaults write TeXShop UseOldHeadingCommands NO
>>      everything worked
>
> Do you really mean
>
>      defaults write TeXShop UseOldHeadingCommands NO
>
> and not
>
>      defaults write TeXShop UseOldHeadingCommands YES
>

ehr, yes I used YES

Funny, though, that they now the files open always correctly
regardless fo the value of the UseOldHeadingCommands switch !!


>>> This also means that the XeTeX samples should be changed at some
>>> point, to reflect TeXShop's new syntax.
>>
>> I guess supporting both would be incompatible, right?
>
> Personally I think backwards-compatibility is always desirable, and
> that it would be better for TeXShop, while still describing the new
> syntax in the doc, to provide compatibility with the old syntax by
> setting the default value of UseOldHeadingCommands to YES.

let us write to Richard Koch :-)

>
> A second alternative solution: have TeXShop, when opening a file
> using the old syntax, (1) detect this syntax and interpret the file
> content properly, (2) display a dialog telling an old syntax has been
> detected, that conversion is necessary and asking for permission to
> do so, (3) in case the answer is yes change the required lines to the
> new syntax and finally (4) make sure that when the file will be saved
> the proper encoding will be used.
>

This would be nice. But why not keeping support for old syntax
anyway?  LaTeX2e has a compatibility mode for LaTeX 2.09, and
the approach can be viewed as a source of inspiration :-)


Roberto

--
_/_/ Dr. Roberto Avanzi, Junior Professor
/_/ Faculty of Mathematics and HGI
_/ Ruhr University Bochum
/ I used to play Zork on a Vax running VMS.

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