[XeTeX] doc/samples available via i-Installer

[Jonathan Kew]

On 13 Mar 2005, at 7:26 am, suzume at mx82.tiki.ne.jp wrote:

>>> My personal choices would be /Library/Documentation/XeTeX/ for 
>>> XeTeX-doc, and /Library/Application Support/XeTeX/ for 
>>> XeTeX-samples, but still there would be the problem of how to draw 
>>> the user's attention to these folders,
>>
>> ....but this still concerns me as it seems a bit obscure for the 
>> average (or beginning) user. I'd be interested to hear what others 
>> think about this; any opinions?
>
> The XeTeX package installation process could mention something like 
> file location (from a "readme" file within the package)

Well... the Readme did, IIRC, mention the availability of the sample 
files on the XeTeX web site. But several people commented that it would 
be helpful to provide them via i-Installer (partly, I suspect, because 
things mentioned in the Readme are easily overlooked).

>  and launching XeTeX from the command line with a -help parameter 
> could display a few text lines (preferably at the end of the text, 
> before "mail bug reports to nrsi at sil.org." with something like:
>
> -----------
> Documentation is located in ~/Library/wherever
> Sample files are located in ~/Library/wherever
> -----------
>
> I don't think people who use TeX or XeTeX should be considered 
> "beginning" users in terms of computer use, especially since XeTeX is 
> a command line application. So maybe cli users are beginners when you 
> consider the Aqua side of OSX, but otherwise they should be able to 
> understand such basic information.

I'm thinking of the kind of users who start from the TeXShop page, and 
install the TeX i-Package as instructed there, but have essentially no 
knowledge of command lines and file hierarchies. As far as they're 
concerned, there's TeXShop, and there are their own documents. They're 
not going to run "xetex -help" because they don't run things from the 
command line.

What I'd like to do, I think, would be to make the i-Package for 
documentation and samples *always* prompt the user to choose a 
destination folder. Currently, there's a default location set by the 
package, and my guess is that few i-Installer users even realize that 
it's possible to click a button and change it. I'd like the i-Package 
to be able to specify that clicking the "Install" button always brings 
up the "change install location" sheet before proceeding.

If I can find time, I'll try to find out whether i-Installer can be 
made to do this--or if Gerben is listening, perhaps he can comment and 
save me the trouble!

Or is it a lousy idea in the first place?

JK