[texworks] Document Version-ing and synctex Previewing

[Paul A Norman]

Good points.

May be Tw could foster a  "TeX Toolset Suite" concept - which would
make things easier for Administrators to see what works together
safely.

I'm not too fussed ...
... I just like the idea of not reinventing the wheel if there is one
to go on the wagon, all set up already!   (So I'm presenting from that
basis here) ...

Saves primary developer time for even more important or core Tw Road Map needs.

Perhaps a Tw Scripting effort  into this (below) would give Tw menu
items (and with the planned road map, buttons and so on) without the
User needing to possibly do anything more than download and set up
Bazaar - within the gambit of a TeXworks recommended "TeX Toolset
Suite" concept.

For example JabRef has a port which applications like Tw can "talk" to
it on, and easily sets up to paste LaTeX into TeXworks already I
think.

Flying a Kite here ... Maybe likewise it would be cool of other
applications could "talk" to Tw on a port, and invoke recommended
scripts, or pass their short cut key combos in.

Back to versioning...

Scripts attached to menus and buttons or even a Tw Script User
Interface ( http://twscript.paulanorman.com/docs/html/TexWorksQtScripting.htm?DialogueScripts.html
),  would make the whole Bazaar versioning thing seem seemless to
Users if they did not want to be hands on. Preconfigure a Tw
repository under <Tw>/config perhaps?

And/Or -
   "Our cross-platform GUI application is powerful enough that experts
can spend most of their time in it, while being simple enough for
casual users to feel comfortable."

I looked into the Bazaar dependencies issue as I also think  that
there really is a point about users not wanting to get involved with
it more than necessary.

Apparently for the following distributions everything needed is
bundled in - no python etc worries for Users.

Windows,  Red Hat,  FreeBSD,
Ubuntu,  openSUSE,  Solaris,
Debian, Mandriva,  AIX,
Fedora, Gentoo,  HP-UX,
Mac OS X,  Slackware,  PC-BSD,
gNewSense GNU/Linux, Trisquel, GNU/Linux,
Exherbo, and even N800 Bzr 1.1 debs

If in the extremely unlikely event it is actually necessary, might
even still  be faster and less time to fashion a Tw
collection/distribution of it, or at least direct links to the
necessary area.

I am not uncomfortable with people getting Administrator clearance for
necessary tools, especially if say Tw was profiling a  "TeX Toolset
Suite" concept,  Administrators could quickly see what was wanted.

I think that something like the text diffing application at
http://winmerge.org/  I mentioned before is a great help. Also Qt
based for their cross platform development. And perhaps JabRef
http://jabref.sourceforge.net/

May be it is necessary to directly integrate these sorts of tools into
the TeXworks code base as has been done with Poppler previewing ...

- However I do think it would be good not to have to, make Tw code
maintainence  much easier if capable OpenSource projects could be
relied on to maintain their aspects of a "TeX Toolset Suite" which Tw
could foster and interrelate with perhaps?

"Version Control for Everyone

"We take great pride in making Bazaar easy to learn, easy to use and
suitable for everyone, not just elite hackers. For example:

"Our cross-platform GUI application is powerful enough that experts
can spend most of their time in it, while being simple enough for
casual users to feel comfortable.

"In the command line tool, online help is provided for every command.

http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/migration/en/why-switch-to-bazaar.html

Paul

On 22 June 2011 15:12, Charlie Sharpsteen <chuck at sharpsteen.net> wrote:
> 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
>