[OS X TeX] Remarks about TeX on Leopard

[Richard Koch]

Folks,

There are two small glitches in in Leopard when using TeX installed by  
i-Installer or MacTeX. The first is that the script simpdftex, used to  
typeset in TeX and Ghostscript mode, doesn't run in Terminal. In beta  
versions of Leopard, this script also failed when called from a front  
end, a much more serious problem.

The second glitch is that the man command in Terminal cannot find TeX  
man pages. This glitch is caused because Leopard contains a much  
simpler and more elegant method to add entries to PATH and MANPATH,  
and the old method of extending MANPATH no longer works.

I have put a small install package named LeopardTeXFix on my web page

	www.uoregon.edu/~koch

This package fixes both problems. The package only runs on Leopard,  
and is only useful if you installed from i-Installer or MacTeX.
The web page also contains a detailed explanation of the bugs, in case  
you'd prefer to fix them by hand.

----------------------------

Earlier today, a few users complained that in TeXShop 2.14, changing  
the default source font in Preferences only changes the font in the  
main view, but doesn't change the font in the split view. This problem  
has nothing to do with Leopard and is fixed in

	www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop.zip

Unless this problem concerns you, there is no reason to obtain this  
copy. I hope to fix a number of minor bugs in version 2.15, available  
next week.

-----------------------------

For a long time, users have pointed out that TeXShop leaks memory when  
a file is typeset. After typesetting many times, it may be necessary  
to quit and restart the program.

This leakage is deliberate. When Tiger was introduced, I discovered  
that the program became sluggish after typesetting a large file.  
Experiments showed that the sluggishness occurred when the system  
released the old pdf data from memory. So I added code which kept the  
old pdf data rather than disposing it, and the sluggishness vanished.  
See

	TeXShop Help --> How do I configure TeXShop --> Hidden Preference Items

for details. TeXShop has a hidden preference to turn this "fix" off:

	defaults write TeXShop ReleaseDocumentClasses 2

Recently, a few users reported that this command fixes the memory  
leakage without introducing sluggishness on Leopard. Thus I recommend  
that users type this command in Terminal (but ONLY if they are running  
Leopard!).    Please let me know of any problems this creates. If the  
command is issued again with a "1" rather than a "2", you'll return to  
the current behavior.

Dick Koch
koch at math.uoregon.edu

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