[tex-live] TL2004: Technical problems and testing

[Petr Olsak]

On Fri, 7 May 2004, Gerben Wierda wrote:

> On May 7, 2004, at 00:29, Martin Schröder wrote:
>
> > - Search paths: The search paths for encoding files, map files
> >   ...
>
> I agree with Thomas that I do not like this. And let me add:
> - not doing a real change remove all pressure on people to change.
> - most users use a standard tree, the ones who have extra stuff are
> generally somewhat knowledgeable. This is certainly true on Mac OS X
> where I have users who start out with TeX because it produces beautiful
> output but who have trouble understanding what a program is, an editor,
> a file format, etc. This is becoming a serious problem. I have noticed
> that more complete newbies contact me these days.
>
> Shouldn't it be possible to write a script that translates an old-style
> tree to a new-style tree?

This is a nice idea. For example to add this functionality to texhash
script. If texhash (or mktexlsr or...) is invoked and if the map etc.
files are in the old places then warning will be printed and files
will moved to new places automatically.

For example, user follows the old documentation or use old install-script.
He/she installs files to old places. Then he/she runs texhash and
corrections are made automatically, moreover, the warning is printed.

Petr Olsak