[OS X TeX] TeXShop: Stability issues and window position

[Herbert Schulz]

On Nov 3, 2009, at 4:43 PM, Davide Cantoni wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I have been a faithful user of TeXShop since 2003, but I have been
> recently disappointed by the performance of the latest version. I am
> writing you to see if some of you share these concerns, or if I should
> rather blame them to some idiosyncrasies of my computer.
>
> - The most annoying issue is the tendency to crash very, very often.
> In fact, I have never had a single piece of Mac software that crashes
> with such a frequency; a frequency that I used to think was only
> likely to be found on Windows machines. TeXShop tends to crash with
> particular likelihood:
> 	- When doing some copy and paste job
> 	- When scrolling up and down, especially during copy/paste
> 	- When asking to "sync" the tex and the pdf windows
> 	- When doing a find/replace job
> 	- In general, when some particularly intensive task is required,
> maybe coupled or followed by another intensive task.
>
> - The other issue is the position of the windows on opening. I know
> there is an option on "Preferences > Source" which allows to choose
> the Source window position ("Remember last position on close"/"All
> windows start at fixed position") but whatever I choose is absolutely
> without consequences. Whether or not this works is an absolute matter
> of chance. Sometimes I manage to get it right as I want it (source
> window on the top left of the screen, parallel to but not overlapping
> with the preview window) but over time the source window tends to
> migrate rightwards, and overlap with the preview window.
>
> - Finally, there are some occasional bugs. Right now, the macro
> "Offsets > Quote" did not work, nothing would happen when I select it.
> Quitting and relaunching TeXShop helped this time. But, come on: this
> is not what you expect from a piece of Mac software. On top of that,
> if it's an old and well-tested software which I had been enjoying very
> much until recently, and not some beta version.
>
> Is anyone experiencing similar problems?
>
> Best,
>
> Davide

Howdy,

Must admit that I experience none of these crashing issues.

What OS version, TeXShop version and TeX distribution are you using?  
E.g., the default sync that recent versions of TeXShop use is syncTeX  
and versions of TeXshop previous to TeX Live 2008 can't provide that  
information so you experience more problems than necessary if you set  
up recent TeXShop versions correctly.

I have never experienced problems with fixed window positions. I'd  
like to know how folks are setting those positions. It might be that  
your preferences are messed up; try removing your TeXShop Preference  
File, ~/Library/Preferences/TeXShop.plist, and restarting TeXshop and  
resetting the default configuration.

I've experienced Macros not working and that is usually because of an  
OS Update and the Applescript has changed.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)