[OS X TeX] Re: PS on TeX Switcher
Charilaos Skiadas
skiadas at hanover.edu
Sat Nov 25 00:15:16 CET 2006
On Nov 24, 2006, at 2:46 PM, Richard Koch wrote:
> Charilaos,
>
> Thanks for these messages; it is interesting to see new issues like
> these arise.
>
> On Nov 24, 2006, at 11:01 AM, Charilaos Skiadas wrote:
>
>> That sounds reasonable, but why does this method need a mpkg and a
>> whole installer?
>
> Because I was lazy, and primarily because using Administrator
> privileges from a Cocoa
> program is hard. This hack provided a way around that problem.
> Emphasis on the
> lazy part.
Right, administrator privileges are indeed easier this way. I suppose
an applescript could easily execute shell scripts with administrator
privileges as well. But it works, that's all that matters!
>> I'm thinking of the possibility that some user might want various
>> versions of the TeXLive distro around
>
> Good point. But I think it is premature to design for this.
>
true ;)
>>
>> There is however the following important problem. GUI programs
>> don't get to use what happens in /etc/profile, since they don't
>> get to see the shell. /etc/profile only kicks in when a shell is
>> being used, namely in the Terminal. So all these changes to the
>> PATH variable don't help programs like TeXShop and TextMate to
>> determine where the correct TeX is to be found etc.
>
> I was hoping that the /usr/local/texprograms link would solve this
> problem. This solution works for all of the
> GUI programs I've tried, and it seems to me that it would work to
> find kpsewhich. One problem is that
> Gerben doesn't currently create this link, but on the other hand he
> doesn't destroy it, so if it is
> set once (by say TeX_Switcher) it will remain valid.
Right, so in that sense it would probably be a not bad idea if
TextMate prompts the user to set this link for them from /usr/local/
texprograms to their current tex install?
>> If on the other hand those installers, instead of taking care only
>> of /etc/profile, also took care of ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist,
>> setting an appropriate value for the PATH variable there, then the
>> settings in that file are indeed read by all GUI apps, and so
>> neither TextMate nor TeXShop would need to do any particular work,
>> they could just call all TeX tools without a need to be told what
>> explicit path to use.
>
> Gerben has explained several times on this list why he thinks changing
> environment.plist is a bad idea. This is an area where experts can
> disagree.
> I have to report that Gerben has convinced me; TeX_Switcher definitely
> won't change environment.plist.
Hadn't actually read those threads before, looking at them now. But
if I understand them correctly, is there really any harm done by
setting the PATH variable there to be:
/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/texprograms
along with setting /usr/local/texprograms to link to the appropriate
thing?
I agree with some of the points there, that individual applications
should set their own preferences. But in this case I don't thing we
are talking about the setting of one particular application. We are
talking about the settings of the TeX installation, which a number of
applications need to have access to. So we need to set the indicator
of the current TeX install in a way that all apps needing it can
access it. If this is not done in environment.plist, I suppose the
only other option is to agree to use something like /usr/local/
texprograms.
The alternative is really requiring the user to set this path in
every single app needing to use LaTeX, which I don't think is really
very efficient/robust.
I personally like the idea of just relying on /usr/local/texprograms,
and having TM prompt to set it for the user if it is not already set.
Don't know if there are any possible problems of that though.
>
> Dick
> koch at math.uoregon.edu
Haris
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