[tex-live] [Fwd: Re: TeXLive Perl + latexmk (windows)]

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Ulrike,

On Mi, 14 Apr 2010, Ulrike Fischer wrote:
> wrong with the windows version. But nevertheless is doesn't feel
> like a windows application. By simply looking at the documentation I


How do you know without trying it?

> 1. The installation descriptions at
> (http://www.tug.org/texlive/acquire-netinstall.html) starts with
> "After unpacking the archive, move to the resulting install-tl-*
> subdirectory". This is simply not the windows wording. 

It *is* not a Windows program, but a multi-arch distribution ...

Of course, if you start from an expectation that TeX Live is
just another Windows program ok ...

> 2. The description in the main documentation is a bit better as it
> contains the word "double-click":
> "If you are using the net installer, or the DVD installer failed to
> start automatically, double-click install-tl.bat"
> But the naming of the install script is wrong. It should be
> setup-texlive.exe or something like this. 

Sorry, *WHO* cares for the name of the install program? I have seen
many different names already, and install-tl.bat does NOT seem
worse than others.

That is the weakest argument I heard in the last years.

> 3. The package manager in miktex is mpm.exe, and the configuration
> tool is mo.exe. The main tool in TeX Live is tlmgr. Now look at this
> two captions from the miktex and the tex live documentation:
> 
> Figure 4.1. MiKTeX Options: General Settings
> Figure 9: tlmgr in GUI mode. 
> 
> A windows documentation avoids to confront a user with "technical"
> looking names like tlmgr. If you look at discussion of miktex users
> you will seldom find one which use "mpm" or "mo". Everyone writes
> "miktex options" or "miktex settings". 

So we do often write
	TeX Live Manager
.... 

You are suggesting things that are plain simply documenation conventions,
that has nothing to do with "feeling lieka win app"

> 4. Later on in the documenation there are some screenshots of the
> gui of tlmgr and while there look quite neat, there certainly don't
> look like normal windows dialogs. 

What please is a "normal windows dialog"?

Do you mean the window decorations?
Do you mean the wording?
Do you mean the order of the Ok/Cancel buttons?

Look at eg Avast Antivirus programs main window ... or Norton or
any other program? They all do NOTlook like "normal" windows 
programs to me.

I would say you are judging on the fact that TeX Live does not look
like MikTeX. That is true. But that is not what we are discussing.

Best wishes

Norbert
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norbert Preining            preining@{jaist.ac.jp, logic.at, debian.org}
JAIST, Japan            TU Wien, Austria           Debian TeX Task Force
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