[tex-live] Hints about checking for win32 compatibility for fragmaster perl script

[Agustin Martin]

2011/2/7 T T <t34www at googlemail.com>:
> On 4 February 2011 17:40, Agustin Martin <agustin6martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 04, 2011 at 01:58:09AM +0100, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
>>> On 3 February 2011 Agustin Martin wrote:
>>>  > Since texlive bundles the script with some stuff in a binary file,
>>>  > I wonder if the above will (work|be enough) and if there are more
>>>  > win32 (info about other operating system is also welcome)
>>>  > incompatibilities I should worry about.
>
> FYI, miktex ships ghostscript under name 'mgs.exe'.  Dunno, if you
> want to bother about this or you expect miktex users to install gs
> separately (they have to install perl anyway), but just so you know.

Thanks for the info.

Currently, fragmaster can be directly used under TeX live only because
TeX live provides a wrapper for it. Otherwise user would need to
install perl and ghostscript explicitly, or at least some sort of
personal wrappers.

For miktex, something similar can be done by user, besides installing
a real perl. A gswin32c wrapper to mgs.exe may help. Suggestions for
robust and portable gs selection code are of course welcome.

There is another potential problem under miktex, fragmaster uses
epstopdf (indeed borrowed gs selection code from it) perl script.
However, miktex seems to ship a different epstopdf written by
Christian Schenk in C++. Hope they are syntax compatible.

I think I will add a README.win32 file explaining how to try a
modified fragmaster under TeX live and what can be done to play with
miktex. Something like:

------------- 8< ---------------Cut here --------------------------------
Some notes about using fragmaster under usual win32 distributions
=================================================================

TeX live:
=========

fragmaster is already part of TeX live and should, if fragmaster
package is installed, run out-of-the-box.

If your fragmaster version is outdated, try first to update it
from the network using TeX live package manager.

In case that does not help, you can replace fragmaster.pl shipped
with TeX live (%texlive% below means e.g. C:\texlive\2009).
*Never* replace "%texlive%\bin\win32\fragmaster.exe, that is just
a binary wrapper to actual script. Real script is installed under
"%texlive%\texmf-dist\scripts\fragmaster\fragmaster.pl". Make a
backup copy of shipped script and put your replacement there.
New invocations to fragmaster should run new script.

miktex:
=======

You will need to install perl to use fragmaster under miktex.

Also, miktex ships win32 ghostscript under a non-standard name
mgs.exe, while fragmaster expects standard gswin32c.exe for win32.

You can either install another ghostscript with standard name
or use some sort of win32 wrapper, something like

-- 8< ----- gswin32c.bat -------------------
path_to_miktex_gs\mgs.exe %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
-- 8< --------------------------------------

Call fragmaster as "perl fragmaster.pl"
------------- 8< ---------------Cut here --------------------------------
-- 
Agustin