[tex-live] Some remarks about dviout

[Siep Kroonenberg]

On Fri, May 01, 2009 at 07:40:26PM +0200, Denis Bitouzé wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> here are some remarks, from a GNU/Linux user point of view :), about
> dviout viewer on a Windows XP box, as provided by TeXLive 2008...
> 
> 1. Very terrifying README. I didn't read it ;)
> 
> 2. No trouble to start the programm from the Windows menu but for a
> long time, impossible to launch it from Texmaker IDE: all the commands:
> 
> dviout %.dvi
> 
> or
> 
> dviout.exe %.dvi
> 
> or
> 
> "C:\Program Files\texlive\2008\tlpkg\dviout\dviout.exe" %.dvi
> 
> or
> 
> "C:\Program Files\texlive\2008\bin\win32\dviout.vbs" %.dvi
> 
> or
> 
> "C:\Program Files\texlive\2008\bin\win32\dviout.vbs" %.dvi
> 
> lead to "could not start the command". Finally, I succeed by copying
> the command line used in the menu:
> 
> C:\WINDOWS\system32\wscript.exe "C:\Program
> Files\texlive\2008"\bin\win32\dviout.vbs %.dvi
> 
> This could be helpfull for other IDE or editors.
> 
> 3. Dviout isn't portable in the sense that hyperref package cannot be
> used as usual: hypertex option should be passed to the package,
> otherwise dviout will crash!
> 
> 4. Original computer modern fonts look better than lmodern one's! When
> viewing a dvi file with lmodern, it looks as if these fonts were not
> correctly installed. But with bookman package for instance, no
> trouble.
> 
> I don't know if it is possible, but it could be helpful for beginners
> if dviout had a better integration in TeXLive...
> -- 
> Denis

As to points 1 and 3: we just `integrated' dviout as-is. You may try
to contact the author directly about this. tlpkg/dviout/install.txt
contains an email address. But keep in mind that the software hasn't
been updated for several years.

As to point 2: choosing vbscript for a wrapper does indeed have the
problem that wscript has to be called explicitly in some situations.
If we have time and think of something better we may replace it with
something else.

-- 
Siep Kroonenberg