[texworks] Document Version-ing and synctex Previewing

[Charlie Sharpsteen]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 6:26 PM, Paul A Norman <paul.a.norman at gmail.com>wrote:

> Thanks Charlie,
>
> Some good helpful advice.
>
> I am thinking that as many of these systems accept command line
> instructions it may be possible to do it outside TeXworks proper
> perhaps through Tw scripting leaving people free to use whatever
> versioning system they are already familiar and comfortable with.
>

This sounds like a great idea---better integration with version control
systems would be a nice feature for TeXworks. However, I still think it
could be beneficial to bake some sort of versioning system into TeXworks its
self to provide functionality similar to what Word offers with a couple of
menu items. This is due to two categories of past experiences that have been
all to common for me when working on TeX documents in a team setting:

  - After arguing with the rest of your team and convincing them to install
MikTeX/TeXLive/MacTeX/etc and give TeX a shot instead of doing the project
in MS Word, everyone is already straining to learn a new system. The mere
suggestion that collaboration be handled by downloading,  installing,
setting up and learning another tool (or multiple pieces of software for
things like Mercurial that require Python to be installed) causes people to
look at you like you just suggested that the team build a rocket ship and
fly to the moon to gather cheese.

  - If the team spends a lot of time in a corporate or academic environment,
they are likely working on machines that are locked down and managed by the
local IT Gestapo. Getting additional software installed or configured
properly to run off of every team member's USB stick can be a nightmare.

Scripting support for external tools would be great for power users as it
lets them have things exactly the way the like it.  However, I think we
could do something better for the newcomers who are already trying to wrap
their head around TeX and just want some menu item or button that will
"track changes" without having to install anything additional.

-Charlie


Perhaps scripts being provided to ease interaction with some of the
> more popular repository set ups could be a useful way forward?
>
> I think the point you make about making sure that whatever set-up
> someone chooses to go with does allow export to one or more of the
> other main systems is worth focussing on.
>
> For now I'll probably look at possibilities with  Bazaar when I get some
> time.
>
> Paul ...
> From
> http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/migration/en/why-switch-to-bazaar.html
>
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