[texworks] dvi -> dvips -> ps2pdf

[Paul A Norman]

Yes thanks Phil,

I was being deliberately generalised, it is hard to know where to draw
the line in this area, and you have hit exactly the area I was trying
to get at while not being specific on the detail of the thing(s) that
was being talked about.

There are definitely things that will "help lower the entry barrier" -
but as I am for ever finding for myself, if I don't have a sense of
what is actually going on in some of these processes, I can not
understand why something has  not worked out as expected, or how I
could enhance things for future better results.

And to that end I never hesitate to ask the most basic questions
myself to make sure or confirm that I do have a bit of a grasp of
things.

Perhaps if someone is only going to do one thesis or one simple
publication and possibly is on *TeX because they have been directed to
use it, then we should do all we can for that person to breeze in, use
Tw and be able to breeze out happily with their nicely formatted
document in hand - hamburger a la Mac Donald's style, instant no fuss
service.

Beyond that we need to move people to looking at gourmet burger making
techniques themselves, or we will be forever cooking for them :)

Keeping the entry barrier low, while developing and enjoying
"Extensible simplicity"!

Its a case by case, proposal by proposal, balancing act, or the
interface can beceom overloaded, even the default fillings for the
Typesetting Drop down box could become easily bloated beyond easy
casual and sensible recognition of what is in there.

In this specific discussion, if C++ developer load was ever lighter
for a moment (ha ha -- actually in fact could it be scriptable?), it
might be nice to explore whether typesetting 'processing tools' (Tw
Preferences Tab-Typesetting) could be savable/loadable as separate
units which could be wickied or done as an issue or something, and be
identifiable and downloadable as individual txt files to be loaded in.

Things like the following for example could be a named txt file,
transferable to other users,  and so loadable.

Name: XeLaTeX+MakeIndex+BibTeX
Program: texify.exe
--pdf
--engine=xetex
--tex-option=-synctex=1
$fullname

First two lines, prefixed as above, then third line and above are all arguments

Then individual recipes :) could be shared around.  Would help,
especially with more exotic hamburger tastes.

paul




On 15 July 2011 20:16, Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd)
<P.Taylor at rhul.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> Herbert Schulz wrote:
>
>> On Jul 14, 2011, at 5:40 PM, Paul A Norman wrote:
>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On balance ...
>>>
>>> Once a person is starting to grow in confidence with Tw  and *TeX in
>>> general, it really is just the "next steps" to learn what specific
>>> things you need to do to get specific or needed results, no more
>>> complicated than your grandmother  competently following a complex
>>> recipe and making a fantastic result.
>>>
>>> Or do we just want to be a "Mac Donalds" (TM) give me instant
>>> hamburger (results) for no effort at all culture?
>>>
>>> I know I want to always be growing away from that mentality! And
>>> learning how to make and enjoy consuming gourmet hamburgers!
>>>
>>> If we can coax Tw into helping people put there effort into useful
>>> techniques, starting with 'lowering the entry level' while helping us
>>> all transition to even better results - with better automation and
>>> tools sets,  - way to go!
>>>
>>> Paul
>
>> Howdy,
>
>> I'm not quite sure what you are referring to but typesetting, running
>> bibtex, running makeindex, then multiple typesetting runs until all
>> (cross-)references are resolved is interesting the first few times you do it
>> and then it just  becomes tedious. Even worse when you don't do enough final
>> runs and you end up with (cross-)references that point to the wrong page
>> because you didn't typeset often enough for a full resolution.
>
>> Good Luck,
>> Herb Schulz
>> (herbs at wideopenwest dot com)
>
> I am not convinced that Paul was arguing against the benefits
> of a procedural approach to a recurring need to "typeset, run
> bibtex, run makeindex, then multiple typesetting runs until
> all (cross-)references are resolved"; rather, I would argue,
> he was probably advocating that the procedure should be user-
> developed rather than canned, because the benefits of truly
> /understanding/ why n1, n2, n3, ..., nm passes of each phase
> are required cannot be overlooked.  In other words "give a
> man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed
> him for life".
>
> ** Phil.
>