[tex-live] texdoc can't find texmf.cnf

[Jonathan Kew]

On 23 Jun 2008, at 2:11 am, Arthur Reutenauer wrote:

>   By the way, Jonathan, I noticed you used open for DVI files, but I
> don't think it would really work for most people: users would have to
> not only get the X server running, but also to make the association  
> from
> DVI files to xdvi (or some other DVI viewer program), which seems  
> rather
> unlikely to me; I have the impression xdvi would serve more users.  Of
> course, it still means you need to have xdvi in your path and to  
> launch
> X11.app, but I feel you would get a better hit rate with the latter  
> than
> with open.

I thought a little about this, but I believe "open" is the better  
default for naïve users. While the OS does not have any standard  
viewer for .dvi files (open will report that the system doesn't know  
how to view them -- I forget the exact wording), TeXShop does support  
them (by converting to PDF on the fly). The user doesn't have to do  
anything to configure this; the fact that TeXShop is present on the  
system, and claims support for viewing DVI, is sufficient.

There are likely to be many who do not have X11 installed, let alone  
configured to use xdvi, whereas many (most?) Mac TeX users -- all  
those who install the MacTeX package, for a start -- will have  
TeXShop.app installed (even if they normally use a different  
environment).

I think those who install TL manually and don't have TeXShop (or  
TeXniscope or another "Mac-hosted" viewer that provides DVI support),  
and/or specifically prefer to use xdvi or similar, can be considered  
the more advanced, technically-inclined users who may be expected to  
do some extra configuration. Those who simply double-click the MacTeX  
installer should have an out-of-the-box experience that "just works",  
as near as we can manage it. IMO, using "open" gives the best chance  
of that.

JK