[texworks] [XeTeX] Overfull boxes return status of 0 in XeTeX

[Jonathan Kew]

On 13/3/16 10:46, Philip Taylor wrote:
>
>
> mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 13 Mar 2016, Philip Taylor wrote:
>>> that no error has occurred.  All I am asking is that XeTeX be given the
>>> option to inform TeXworks that an error has occurred when an overfull
>>> box has been generated.
>>
>> Why is this a XeTeX issue and not a TeXworks issue?
>
> It is both.  I raised it first on the TeXworks list and the current
> maintainer of TeXworks, Stefan Löffler, said :
>
>> 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.

I assume TeXworks will run an AfterTypeset script whether the tool it's 
run exits with zero or non-zero code (won't it?).

If that's the case (it's a long time since I looked at the code, so I 
don't guarantee it!), then ISTM that all you really need is to have a 
script that checks the log for any overfull box messages (or indeed any 
other warnings you're concerned about), and if present, makes the 
console visible.

Now, I don't know whether the console visibility in TW can actually be 
controlled by a script or not.... again, it's been too long, I'd have to 
go and check. But if it can't, then I would suggest *that* is the key 
feature to ask for.

Oh, there's another approach you could take, too (if the TW console 
visibility can't be controlled from script): instead of calling xetex 
(or pdftex or whatever) directly, call it through a "wrapper" script or 
batch file that will scan the log for warnings and then set its return 
code accordingly, rather than being dependent on what the core engine 
returned. Then the return code that TW sees will be whatever your 
(xe|pdf|lua)tex wrapper-and-log-scanner decides is appropriate.

JK