[OS X TeX] PS on TeX Switcher

[Claus Gerhardt]

I intend to offer a small TeXSwitcher application that would only  
change the symlink texprograms to a user defined tex source. The  
system wide tex path wouldn't be changed nor would a change in  
TeXShop's preferences be necessary.

The possible tex sources would be

tetex

texlive2005

and

texlive/year

Gerben's TeXLive wouldn't be available because of a conflict of its  
tex folder's name with TeXLive's (TUG) default install path.

Tetex will also work fine with the symlink, I already tested it.

Claus


On 24.11.2006, at 15:48, Charilaos Skiadas wrote:

> 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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