[OS X TeX] epstopdf can't find Ghostscript

[Gerben Wierda]

On May 31, 2005, at 23:25, Peter Dyballa wrote:

>
> Am 31.05.2005 um 22:50 schrieb Gerben Wierda:
>
>> The environment.plist file is a leftover from NEXTSTEP and because it 
>> influences all apps it may have unwanted and unexpected effects (in 
>> fact it can break i-Installer if the contents are broken)
>
> Can you be a bit more specific on this? Which settings have this 
> impact? PATH only?

PATH is an important one for any tool that uses subprocesses. Muck 
around with it and suddenly apps may get different versions or none at 
all. I have had my share of help requests for i-installer doing funny 
things as a result of this.

>> The correct way is to have the GUI *application* (and not a global 
>> setting for all GUI applications) set the right PATH before executing 
>> commands.
>
> You mean that at login-time the correct values for PATH or path should 
> be set? And this should work because any process created by a GUI app 
> should have then too the right settings?

No, what I mean is that if a GUI app requires non-default setting for 
its working (and that generally means running subprocesses) it should 
keep its own PATH setting. TeXShop does this in its Preferences (in the 
Engine tab).

The Apple Frameworks for running subprocesses have the possibility to 
pass environment variables to that subprocess. Hence, TeXShop passes an 
updated environment to the subprocess including a PATH containing  and 
/usr/local/bin and /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current 
(or whatever you set in preferences)

It is OK to have some sort of a default. It is not OK that 
i-Installer's PATH changes because some other Foo.app needs a different 
path.

I am probably giving up on this. If I produce a next version of 
i-Installer it will completely set its own environmen, just to be 
protected against stuff coming from environmen.plist

G

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