[texworks] New version 302/303

[T T]

On 06/06/2009, Alain Delmotte <esperanto at swing.be> wrote:
> Ok the new build 306 is available on my site.

Thanks.

> But making a test: there is an error *both* with and without any
> information for the path in the typesetting preference.
> I mean in 303, when there was something for the path, it worked, without
> not; now it's not working at all.

Bummer. Unfortunately I have to confirm that. This makes rev.306
unusable on Windows.

>> setDefaultPaths doesn't care whether tex (or anything else) is
>> actually present in the predefined paths; it just returns the list of
>> paths, it's the typeset() function that will look for tools.

Right, setDefaultPaths doesn't look for tex but it removes nonexistent
dirs from the list. If none of the predefined defaults exists, then
the returned list will be empty.

>>> If the return value is @Invalid() as for
>>> binaryPaths, then we have the same problem.
>>
>> setDefaultPaths shouldn't ever be returning an empty list, though even
>> if it does, an empty list ought to be harmless.

Are you sure? From my tests it looks like the problem occurs *only* if
binaryPaths is an empty list. Perhaps this @Invalid() in .ini file
indicates an empty value, but I would expect something like @Empty()
rather than @Invalid(). Could you check what gets written to
texworks.ini on Linux when you clear the search list in preferences?
If it is something different then maybe we are onto something.

>>> Note that the original PATH is repeated twice in the one passed to the
>>> spawned process, which should not happen, because of the condition
>>> (see above):
>>>
>>>     if (!binPaths.contains(s))  binPaths.append(s);
>>>
>>> So something is not right here.
>>
>> Rev 303 did not include that condition, it unconditionally added the
>> PATH in typeset(). This was revised in r.306. So this part, at least,
>> is not a mystery.

Right, my mistake. But it seems that those changes made things worse. But why?

Hmmm, I think I will have to finally bite the bullet and get some
build system of the ground. I just don't have the time to chase up all
those dependencies... Any chances of providing a build system bundling
everything necessary to build TW? That would certainly encourage more
people to play with it, especially on Windows.

Cheers,

Tomek

PS. For previous revisions defaultbinpaths works if coma is used as
the path separator instead of semicolon. That's the consequence of
using `toStringList' method to convert it.