[OS X TeX] PS on TeX Switcher

[Charilaos Skiadas]

On Nov 23, 2006, at 5:11 PM, Richard Koch wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Let me clear up some minor confusion on TeX Switcher.
>
> This program is a "hack." It uses Apple's installer framework,
> and might confuse you into believing that it is installing a switcher.
> Actually it is doing the switch, and isn't installing anything.
> The switch only does two things:
>
> 	a) reset the /usr/local/texprograms link to point to the chosen
> 	binary

I must say I haven't followed all these threads extremely closely,  
but this raised three questions for me:
1) I would have thought that all this could be done with a simple  
shell script, possibly wrapped around in an applescript to get root  
permissions. What does having it as a mpkg offer? Double-clicking an  
mpkg is in my eyes as simple as double-clicking an Applescript app or  
a shell script, though that of course would end up opening a terminal  
window, which might intimidate some users, though I'm sure they could  
handle it with some warning.
2) If I understand correctly, there is one such file coming along  
with every distribution, and it is doing the switch to that  
distribution? Wouldn't it be much better for the user, for there to  
be a simple program that offers a list of all distributions in the  
user's system, and allowing the user to pick which one should be the  
default one? I suppose the difficulty would be in locating all the  
distributions, and this is actually something I would like to do for  
TextMate to allow the user to customize things properly. Is there  
some heuristic for this?
3) I hadn't really heard of /usr/local/texprograms before, and it is  
not set up in my system, which admittedly follows a relatively old  
tetex install. Is this something that was added to the MacTeX  
distros, or is it also there in recent i-installer TeX packages? Is  
it reasonable to assume that from now on /usr/local/texprograms will  
point to the latex executables the user will want to be using? If  
TextMate was to help the user set up path issues, in an old install  
like mine, would it be reasonable for it to link /usr/local/ 
texprograms to the user's preferred TeX install?

>
> Dick
> koch at math.uoregon.edu

Haris


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