[OS X TeX] Keeping TeX installations synchronized between machines

[Alain Schremmer]

On Jan 4, 2010, at 9:27 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote:

>
> On Jan 4, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Chris Goedde wrote:
>
>> On Jan 4, 2010, at 5:17 PM, M. Tamer Özsu wrote:
>>
>>> I use Dropbox for this purpose. Works like a charm.
>>>
>>
>> Can you elaborate? What part(s) do you synchronize, and how? What  
>> do you do when you don't have internet access?
>>
>> The problem from my point of view is the way various things are  
>> scattered in different folders. I use rsync to synchronize my home  
>> and work desktops, which works great, but for TeX I have to  
>> specify a number of different places to synchronize.
>>
>> Maybe this would be a good request for the MacTeX people: Would it  
>> be possible to organize all the user-specific files for everything  
>> in MacTeX in one place, like ~/Library/MacTeX or ~/Documents/ 
>> MacTex? This would require some coordination with some developers,  
>> but I think it would be a great feature.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>
> Howdy,
>
> Somehow I don't thing ``requiring'' people to put there personal  
> work in certain directories will get a good reception. I you want  
> to do that go ahead and do that. There already are certain  
> directories supported by TeX Live that have a fixed structure but  
> user files are another thing altogether.

To an extent, I absolutely and totally agree: What kind of files we  
create, what we intend to do with them, etc would seem to dictate  
where we put them and that couldn't be the same for everybody.

But I had understood Goedde to mean files such as style sheets and  
fonts.

Indeed, more than once, I copied my "work folder" onto my laptop only  
to find later on that I had missed some style sheet or the other.  
Even though I keep everything that has to do with a given book, tex  
files and Co, but also intaglio and pdf files, all in one big folder,  
easy to backup and to move from one place to another. But style  
sheets are easy to forget.

I don't use special fonts but I can see forgetting to take the fonts  
too, particularly as my understanding is that they are well hidden.

So, I think that Goedde has a point.

Regards
--schremmer