[texworks] Call for Help: Testing for the upcoming release

[Stefan Löffler]

Hi,

first of all: thanks for testing!

On 12.03.2016 04:55, Philip Taylor wrote:
> 0) [new, NEW, IMPORTANT] The preview no longer remembers the page and
> view visible across compilations; it now opens at logical page 1 after a
> re-compilation whereas it used to re-open at the previously selected
> page and view.  This is a major regression.

Indeed, this should not happen. I thought this was fixed. Anyway, I will
investigate. I create an issue on GitHub for this
(https://github.com/TeXworks/texworks/issues/718)
Could you tell me how you compile your documents (is it a one-step
process like running "pdflatex", a script that performs several actions,
...; could any part of that process potentially leave the pdf in a
broken state (such that if it were reloaded at that time, the page and
view would not exist - in which case Tw will default back to the
beginning of the document).

> 1) Two-page view allows only the option "two-page continuous" -- if one
> has selected 2-page view with "Fit to page", then although spreads are
> normally displayed as desired, taking a hyperlink from the T-o-C to an
> arbitrary page results in the spread being displaced vertically upwards
> on the screen, and a small part of the following spread being visible
> below.

Please note that links in PDFs can specify a particular view to jump to
(e.g., zoomed in on a particular part of a graphic or whatever). In many
cases, they will actually specify the point where the real heading is
(which could be in the middle of a page) and Tw will therefore jump to
that location and will therefore scroll in such a way that the actual
anchor point (headline) is in the top left corner (if possible), in
compliance with the PDF standard.

> Could "two-page view" be unbundled from "continuous" so that
> taking a hyperlink to an arbitrary page will result in the target spread
> still being correctly positioned on the screen (all visible, no other
> spread visible) ?

In principle it could. However, that would require some more coding (to
implement a new page layout mechanism) and bring with it new
user-visible options (that need to be translated before the release). So
I'm afraid this is not going to happen for this release but after.
GitHub issue: https://github.com/TeXworks/texworks/issues/719.

> 2) With the advent of 2-page view, a new default magnification is needed
> : "Fit to spread"

I agree  with the same time limitation as above.
That said, I wonder how many people would actually use "Fit to spread"
in the end... Maybe it would be more logical to have "Fit to Width" work
as "Fit to spread" on two-page non-continuous mode. Then there would at
least be the workaround "switch to two-page non-continuous" > "Fit to
width" > "switch to two-page continuous".

> 3) When opening a file from an existing TeXworks window, could TeXworks
> open the new file with the same size and placement as the one from which
> it has been opened.  My normal workspace layout is :
>
>  o Master TeX file top left
>  o Current XML file bottom left
>  o PDF preview right.
>
> If I open the next XML file in sequence from the previous one, instead
> of adopting the sizing and positioning data of the current one, it opens
> to full height, and I then have to re-size it in  order to restore the
> visibility of the master TeX document.   It would be nice if it adopted
> the geometry of the window from which it was opened.

This is a very interesting idea... I created an issue on GitHub
(https://github.com/TeXworks/texworks/issues/717) to keep track of it.

> 4) [new] "Actual size" (for my test case, at least : A6) does not
> display at actual size on screen; there would seem to need to be
> configuration parameter that one can vary in order to get "Actual size"
> to be correct; presumably once set, such a parameter would then continue
> to have the desired effect regardless of \pdfpagewidth/height
> until/unless the monitor size and/or screen resolution were changed.

There is such a parameter :). It's under Edit > Preferences... > Preview
> Screen resolution. Unfortunately, there is no easy-to-use calibration
tool, yet, though, but you can use external tools (or a ruler and a
calculator ;)) to determine the appropriate value.

> 5) [new] "Shift-magnify" re-positions the displayed content that appears
> to bear no relationship to the position of the cursor at the time that
> "shift-magnify" was used; it would be more intuitive (and more useful)
> if "shift-magnify" ensure that the previous cursor position remained
> visible and (ideally) centered the newly zoomed page around the previous
> cursor position.

Agreed - GitHub issue https://github.com/TeXworks/texworks/issues/721.

> 6) [new] A test file yields (in the log) :
>
> Overfull \hbox (0.58942pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 20--20
> []\bodyfont brian.smith0000 at btinternet.com[]  |
>
> With "Hide console window" set to either "Automatic" or "On success",
> this error message disappears; could TeXworks detect the presence of
> overfull box messages in the log and treat them as errors ?

Whether the console is closed depends solely on the exit status code of
the process that is doing the typesetting. It has nothing to do with the
actual log output (or what scripts etc. do with it). If TeX exits with
status code 0, the typeset run is considered a success, otherwise it's a
failure.

HTH,
Stefan