[OS X TeX] TeX auto-scripts (was: Nobody knows)

[Joachim Kock]

Maarten wrote:

>This is nice. In my script there are many options, and you just initiate what
>you need. How hard are your scripts tied to Alpha?

Rather hard, since they rely on an open editing window, a special purpose
tex console (also an Alpha window), and several global variables that I
would not know how to make work in a command-line script...  (I confess
I have never imagined there could be a world outside Alpha.)  For example,
if once you do not take the suggested next action of bibtex'ing, then in
subsequent tex runs the script remembers your decision and does not suggest
it again (unless a new missing bibitem shows up).  Remebering things like
this is much easier to do when there is a running environment (Alpha)
where you can keep the state of the variables intact than in a command-line
script where you would have to write to disk...

>Could they be used from the command-line? (perhaps using some other script
>to provide the input) I cannot read tcl, and have no real intention of learning yasl.

The core of the scripts are some long regular expressions that I guess
would work in most scripting languages --- that regexp syntax seems to
be rather standardised these days...

Joachim.
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