[texworks] Current status of Tw development

[Lars Madsen]

Stefan Löffler wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 2010-11-17 11:02, Bruno Voisin wrote:
>> Le 17 nov. 2010 à 10:45, Stefan Löffler a écrit :
>>
>>> Consequently, we should all move forward now and resume working on the
>>> next big goal for Tw: the 0.4 stable release. This means a lot of
>>> testing, and probably fixing some bugs. This also means that until the
>>> 0.4 release, you shouldn't expect any new major features. It's all about
>>> stability now, and rounding off scripting in its current state.
>> That's great news indeed!
>>
>> One thing which requires clarification too in this coming release is printing: AFAIK there's an unofficial patch adding printing for Windows which has been included in MikTeX, and since for many users TeX for Windows is MikTeX then printing has become a de facto feature of TeXworks.
>>
>> It would be great if the issue could be clarified in the forthcoming release, so that the Windows, Linux and Mac version of TeXworks become on par again, with either all or none offering printing, and if they do then with a consistent UI across platforms.
> 
> I am well aware of the patch, as I wrote it myself ;). The problem is
> that right now, printing doesn't work reliably on all platforms (I don't
> even know if it runs on Mac at all) and is certainly not up to usual
> standards. This problem is particularly pronounced on Windows, where,
> AFAIK, it depends on the kind of printer and/or printer driver you use
> whether the result is looking good and is produced in a reasonable time
> or is looking crappy (pixelized) and takes forever to print.
> 
> So, this patch exists, and if the MiKTeX developers choose to use it,
> this is up to them. But for the official code base, I don't think the
> patch is ready as the result can be unpredictable (for the average
> user), and depends on certain features and programs that may or may not
> be available on the user's system. From my current POV, printing will
> therefore not be part of the official 0.4 stable release, sorry.
> 
> -Stefan
> 
> PS: By the way, Tw's primary goal is not to replace other dedicated
> (free) pdf viewers out there. There are many excellent ones that have a
> much larger feature set than the Tw previewer. Its primary goal is to
> provide just that: a quick and easy previewer for the final document to
> facilitate the work.

and it is quite good at this, eventhough the stable realease is a bit 'old'

Might be an idea to just add an entry 'About printing' under 'File' 
explaining why TeXWorks cannot print the file.

Better to inform the user about a decision than to not provide anything.

BTW: Will it in newer installation be possible to make global changes to 
say a windows installation in a roaming environment (or what ever it is 
called). I just had a long chat with one of our Windows admins. Where I 
explained that it might be handy to add dictionaries to TeXWorks. But we 
had no idea where to add these globally (it might be possible on MikTeX, 
but I don't think it is possible in the TeXLive installation for Windows).



-- 

/daleif