[OS X TeX] TeXShop Report

[Richard Koch]

Folks,

I apologize for the flurry of TeXShop messages; over labor day I'll 
work hard to eliminate
bugs so we can get back to the main purpose of the list. Maybe a brief 
progress report will
be helpful.

Bruno Voisin tried to return to the old Find panel and couldn't. It 
turns out that this
preference only works in English, for mysterious reasons. The problem is
now fixed here and will be in version 1.35c when I put it on the web.

Several people reported that they could not convert eps files to pdf 
format when the names
of folders in the path leading to the eps file contained spaces. This 
is fixed and will
be in 1.35c. TeXShop converts dvi, ps, and eps files to pdf; in 1.35c 
the path leading
to any of these can contain a space, and the folder containing the file 
can be
read only.

Several folks have reported pdfsync problems. These are difficult to 
debug without
an example because, of course, my examples here work when I release the 
program.
Last night Themis Matsoukas and Jean-Claude DE SOZA sent helpful 
examples
which disclosed bugs in the source -> preview synching. I have most 
fixed now
and recommend waiting until 1.35c to report further problems.

Finally, Bruno Voisin wrote about the increasing complexity of the 
program and difficulty
installing upgrades. Both concern me. This is really two issues:

a) Increasing complexity and redundancy: This is a matter for 1.36, not 
the bug
fixes in 1.35x. One area of complexity is the Macro menu. Our original
intent was that users would construct their own macros using the 
default macros as
examples, and then eliminate the defaults. Quite naturally, instead 
most users think of the
defaults as part of the program. One possible solution is to simplify 
the default menu
to a few items, and then provide easy access to the full set of 
examples in the Macro
Editor. Other suggestions are welcome.

The new "User Defined Typesetting Engines" makes the "Personal Script" 
feature
redundant. I decided not to remove it in 1.35 until the new feature was 
thoroughly
tested.

b) Installation: Bruno pointed out that the TeXShop Folder's role is 
unclear. I
usually tell users that they can throw this folder away. Next week I 
may experiment
with providing it as an optional download (translation: only 1% of 
users notice it)
and making texshop.dmg contain only the program.

Aside from this, installation may require changing ~/Library/texmf and
~/Library/TeXShop. Several people are applying pressure to have these 
steps
done by an installer. I'm listening. Here are my doubts:

Both ~/Library/texmf and ~/Library/TeXShop are for user modifications, 
the first
to teTeX and the second to TeXShop. As a user, I don't want anybody
messing with my modifications --- certainly not an installer that I 
don't completely understand.
Upgrading ~/Library/texmf is a temporary matter until pdfsync is stable 
and
its authors and Gerben add it Gerben's teTeX distribution. Old user 
entries in
~/Library/TeXShop work fine with 1.35, so there isn't any urgent need 
to upgrade.
The (mild) problem is that TeXShop's default files for new users 
changed in
1.35, and old users might like to know about that. But the installation 
instructions
on the current page make too big a deal about upgrading these entries.

Here's an example. Until 1.35, TeXShop came with three short templates. 
Members
of TUG complained to me that these templates contained sloppy TeX code.
Eventually Will Robertson wrote modern templates which are in 1.35. The
question becomes "how should old users be notified of the change?" Those
who wrote their own Templates won't want to do anything. Others may want
to switch, and others may be satisfied with the original templates. It 
isn't clear to me
that an installer would be able to handle the
various situations without asking questions which a naive user wouldn't
know how to answer.

Dick

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