[OS X TeX] Installing packages not available as iInstaller-Packages

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 27 févr. 07 à 19:14, Axel E. Retif a écrit :

> The advantage of installing in ~/Library/texmf/tex/latex/, as Herb  
> Schulz suggested, is that if you have more than one current  
> distribution (as I do: gwTeX-2003-2005, gwTeX and TeXLive-2007),  
> you just install in one place and any active distro will see your  
> packages.

I once suggested <http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/2007- 
January/027996.html> that it would be nice to adjust the TeXDist  
structure so as to have one single real folder /Library/TeX/Local,  
inside which an admin user could put local additions to the existing  
texmf trees, and then turn the various local texmf trees from each  
distribution, as defined by the variable TEXMFLOCAL from texmf.cnf,  
namely:

- For TeXLive, /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local

- For gwTeX, /usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.pkgs

into symlinks to that /Library/TeX/Local. Alas, that message of mine  
was too long and too convoluted as usual, and I doubt it read much.

Advantages would be that you could manipulate this local texmf folder  
directly from the Finder (create subfolders, move files, copy files,  
etc.), without having to resort to the command line. And that you  
could maintain a single local texmf tree (i) for all distributions  
installed on a given Mac and (ii) for all the users of this Mac.

Gerben's answer <http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/2007- 
January/028015.html> seemed to suggest that this is indeed possible  
and does not even require symlinks. Instead, a simple edition of the  
texmf.cnf of each distribution would do the trick. Namely, edit the  
lines:

- For TeXLive, in /usr/local/texlive/2007/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf,

	TEXMFLOCAL=$SELFAUTOPARENT/../texmf-local

- For gwTeX, in /usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.cnf,

	TEXMFLOCAL = $SELFAUTOPARENT/texmf.local

to simply:

	TEXMFLOCAL=/Library/TeX/Local

Alas, I did not attempt that modification, as (i) I wasn't sure to  
have properly understood what Gerben meant and (ii) I was afraid to  
break the TeXDist structure by doing so.

In any case, the above couldn't work for teTeX, given the local  
directory for it is /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local which is not  
only TEXMFLOCAL but also VARTEXMF, implying that, with a unique / 
Library/TeX/Local, teTeX would not only read its content but also put  
the generated files such as psfonts.map and *fmt files inside it,  
which would break gwTeX and TeXLive.

Bruno





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