[OS X TeX] Problem with cocoAspell in Tiger

[Claus Gerhardt]

My experiences with Tiger are quite the opposite and I wouldn't like  
to miss it. My general impression is that the System software (memory  
management, repairing permissions, copying, etc.,....), Safari,  
Preview and of course TeXShop are running much smoother and faster -  
in the case of Preview and TS this is certainly due to PDFKit.  
Running pdflatex, including the displaying of the pdf file, or  
Flashmode, e.g., is much faster.

Since I am no expert I can only speculate what could have caused  
Bruno's opposite impression, but it might be due to the different  
CPUs: Maybe one will need a G5, or even one with 2 CPUs, to take  
advantage of Tiger.

Let me also add, since Bruno mentioned his PowerBook and many members  
of this list also seem to be proud owners of a PowerBook, that a  
PowerBook is certainly a nice computer, but it is not supposed to be  
a substitute for a real workstation, it is only meant to be a mobile  
solution.

Claus

On Jun 2, 2005, at 1:35, Bruno Voisin wrote:



> Today I've attempted for the first time to use cocoAspell  
> seriously, on OS X 10.4.1. The selected dictionary was UK English  
> with -ize terminations and Continental accents, and HTML and TeX  
> filtering on.
>
> Alas: as I was entering text in a TeXShop editing window, the fans  
> of my PowerBook started spinning continuously, and I realized in  
> Activity Monitor that cocoAspell was using between 80 and 90 % of  
> the CPU. Quitting TeXShop normally didn't work: the editing window  
> closed OK, but then the preview window didn't and the pointer  
> turned into the multicolor spinning icon, and the app froze and I  
> had to force-quit. I terminated cocoAspell afterwards in Activity  
> Monitor. But then in Mail every keystroke in an editing window  
> repeated the same behaviour, and I finally had to select the OS X  
> English dictionary instead.
>
> More generally I must say I'm really unimpressed by Tiger and I  
> fairly regret having installed it:
>
> - Now that I have started reading and writing email in Tiger, I can  
> no longer transfer my mailboxes to another Mac still in Jaguar or  
> Tiger, should I need to work on that Mac for a few days (as will  
> happen in a couple of weeks when my PowerBook will be back to  
> AppleCare for AirPort card diagnostic and replacement). Or that  
> will mean some conversion process that I don't have time to perform.
>
> - There are just too many freezes (the multicolor spinning icon  
> again) too often and for no reason; actually, that's generally no  
> real freezes but some background process taking lots of time to  
> complete (up to 5 or 10 minutes say, on a 1GHz 1MB PowerBook).  
> Also, some editing operations are often taking lots of time for no  
> reason; for example, pasting a small piece of plain text (two or  
> three words) in a Mail editing window (I've set up plain text as  
> the default) can take up to 30 seconds. I suppose this is all  
> linked with SpotLight.
>
> - Similarly display of the content of the TeXShop preview window is  
> often very slow. That happens especially with XeTeX output, and at  
> specific places: for example when reaching an equation in Lucida  
> inside an Optima text flow.
>
> - And bugs bugs bugs all over the place. Like plain text messages  
> or fragments being displayed or pasted suddenly as RTF in Mail. Or  
> the vertical scrollbar being displayed incorrectly on some  
> occasions in Safari (two of this long blue thing -- don't know how  
> it's called in English, maybe cursor -- displayed together and  
> partly overlapping each other)  . Or the vertical scrollbar  
> becoming unresponsive on other occasions. And that's just the few  
> examples that come immediately to mind.
>
> Rant mode off for now,
>
> Bruno Voisin
> --------------------- Info ---------------------
> Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
>           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>
>
>
>
>
>



--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>