[tex-live] Re: Fwd: [OS X TeX] New TeX i-Package released

[Till Tantau]

On Dienstag, 26. Oktober 2004 22:14, Gerben Wierda wrote:
> The beamer class is not TL2004 ready:
>
> Begin forwarded message:
> > From: Maarten Sneep <maarten.sneep at xs4all.nl>
> > Date: 26 October 2004 22:00:24 GMT+02:00
> > To: "TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List" <MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>
> > Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] New TeX i-Package released
> > Reply-To: "TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List" <MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>
> >
> > On 26 okt 2004, at 18:37, Piet van Oostrum wrote:
> >> The last problem is very strange, and I haven't been able to diagnose
> >> it
> >> properly. I have a file that uses beamer, but through my own class.
> >> It runs
> >> properly with pdflatex, but not with latex. In the latter case it
> >> gives a
> >> strange undefined control sequence. I must investigate what causes
> >> tris.
> >>
> >> ! Undefined control sequence.
> >> \GenericError  ...
> >>                                                     #4  \errhelp
> >> \@err@     ...
> >> l.13 \maketitle
> >
> > How does Beamer test for pdflatex? if it uses an old construct like
> >
> > \ifx\pdfoutput\undefined
> >  ....
> > \else
> >  ....
> > \fi
> >
> > it will fail under latex, since both latex and pdflatex define this
> > macro (they just set it to different values).
> >
> > The proper way would be to use the ifpdf package.

Hi!

I got this email as a copy, so I'm a bit out-of-the-loop with respect to the 
context. The error *may* be caused by a bug in pgf 0.64 having to do with 
usage of the calc package and shadows. If the problem disappears when the 
calc package is not included, then the cvs version of pgf 0.64 will fix this 
problem.

Concerning pgf's pdfoutput test: Currently, pgf currently does:

\ifx\pdfoutput\@undefined \newcount\pdfoutput \fi
\ifx\pdfoutput\relax \newcount\pdfoutput \fi

Subsequently, \ifcase\pdfoutput is used to test whether pdflatex is used or 
not. 

Since several people have complained about this (some package seem to require 
\pdfoutput to be totally undefined if latex is used), in the next version I 
might switch to a "conservative" test for \pdfoutput. I'll have a look at 
ifpdf.

Hoping this helps,
Till

P.S.: Bugfixed versions of pgf (0.65) and beamer (3.10) are scheduled for end 
of text week.

-- 
Till Tantau <tantau at cs.tu-berlin.de>, http://tal.cs.tu-berlin.de/tantau