[OS X TeX] Finder access to the system-wide local texmf directory

[Bruno Voisin]

I was under the impression that the TeXDist structure provided a  
direct access to the system-wide local texmf directory that was (i)  
distribution-independent and (ii) Finder-friendly (ie no path to  
input, no Terminal), through a symlink

	/Library/TeX/Local

pointing for the gwTeX and TeXLive 2007 distributions to, respectively,

	/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.local
	/usr/local/texlive/texmf-local

in the same way as the symlink

	/Library/TeX/Root

points for gwTeX and TeXLive to, respectively,

	/usr/local/gwTeX
	/usr/local/texlive/2007

Alas, after upgrading this morning to TeXLive 2007 this doesn't seem  
to be the case. As a result, you can indeed access the local texmf  
tree using normal navigation in the Finder for gwTeX (by going to / 
Library/TeX/Root and then inside it to texmf.local), but not for  
TeXLive (once in /Library/TeX/Root you would have to go one level up  
in the directory hierarchy, to ../, which the Finder doesn't normally  
allows). Then, in the latter case, to navigate to this local tree in  
the Finder you have either:

- Once in /Library/TeX/Root, to Cmd-Click the window title to go up  
one level to texlive then inside it to texmf-local.

- To use Cmd-Shift-G then enter directly the path /usr/local/texlive/ 
texmf-local.

The TeXDist structure does provide distribution-independent access to  
the local texmf tree, through the symlink

	/Library/TeX/Distributions/.DefaultTeX/Contents/TexmfLocal

but given this symlink contains a hidden directory you have again to  
resort to Cmd-Shift-G or to the Terminal in order to use it.

Did I just dream the whole thing, and did /Library/TeX/Local never  
exist in which case I would be making a confusion with /Library/TeX/ 
Distributions/.DefaultTeX/Contents/TexmfLocal?

Bruno Voisin

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