[Mac OS X TeX] put files in bundles?

[Maarten Sneep]

On 23-Nov-01 Bruno Voisin wrote:
# > #  I wonder if it would be a good option (for TeXShop) to save all the
# > #  files generated on a typesetting-run into a MacOS X bundle, so one
# > #  would see only one single "file" in the Finder with the .tex .pdf
# > #  .aux .log etc. files inside.
# > #  So moving and renaming of this entire bunch would be very simple and
# > #  TeX associated documents would be very nice organized.
#  
#  On the other hand I suspect teTeX would have difficulties to cope with 
#  this, since TeX and its associated programs (BibTeX, MakeIndex, dvips, 
#  pdfTeX, ...) expect to find and read files with specific extensions. Or 
#  even just LaTeX, which needs an .aux file and may use .toc, .bbl, 
#  .ind, ... files.

As far as unix tools are concerned: a bundle is just a directory, so there are
no technical obstacles.

# > Two remarks:
# > 1) although bundles are really direcories, and as such platform 
# > independent, when sending such a "file" via e-mail, one would still need to
# > make an archive (tar for example).
# > 2) How would you handle a tree with several files, the user cannot 
# > create his/her own tree, so that needs to be handled by the program
# > as well. But the user would need to type in the path in the source
# > when including the file.
# >
# > In short, I think this would be very messy.
#  
#  Is it really necessary to go to such complexities, isn't it possible to 
#  have only TeX-generated files bundled together, not the whole directory 
#  structure created by the user to typeset a book with figures etc.?

With which file would you include the other files then? Maybe you can put all
tex related files in a bundle (main-tex-file.texnical, anyone) I think it is
unwise to create a bundle from one of the .tex files, since no other editor
would understand what they meant. Also most users want to have their resulting
(pdf) file ready to send through e-mail, so that's no option either.

#  By the way, how does Project Builder deal with projects? Does it create 
#  bundles? (I'm no developer myself, so that's really a candid question.)

Project builder creates a normal directory for your project, in which you can
have a build (normal) directory where the object files are generated along with
the final build product. The project files themselves are bundles, with several
files describing the options and the included files.

#  By the way, too, since Project Builder is on the Developer Tools CD 
#  which came freely with my Mac OS X packages (10.0 then 10.1), is it 
#  possible to use it as an external editor for TeXShop (probably an 
#  overkill, but...). 

You'd need to create jam files to tell ProjectBuilder how to handle tex files.
I guess it can be done, but it takes a lot of work.

The current version doesn't support plugins (not publicly) so syntax colours
are out.

#  Is it possible to define TeX-specific features for 
#  it, like a TeX menu? (I'm thinking especially of the first 
#  implementations of OzTeX and DirectTeX, which both suggested MPW Shell 
#  as an external editor of choice.) 

CMacTeX does this as well (it has all the tools to work directly in the shell).
Project builder should be simpler: it uses command-line tools to do it's job,
and a call to pdflatex is about as complicated as calling cc... (actually
pdflatex is simpler, far less options to include)

Maarten Sneep

>>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A prune isn't really a vegetable... Cabbage is a vegetable
>>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Maarten Sneep
Atomic- and Laser Physics group
vrije Universiteit, amsterdam
The Netherlands

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