[OS X TeX] New Macros, new Engines, new TeXShop versions, and all that

[David Messerschmitt]

On Feb 21, 2010, at 8:18 AM, Richard Koch wrote:

> Folks,
> 
> I have been listening to the discussion about regenerating TeXShop/Macros for new releases. 
> I don't want to reach into users personal Macros (or personal Templates or whatever)
> and add new items. That's because in the reverse situation I don't want anybody mucking with
> my personal stuff. 
> 

<snip>

Thanks for your ongoing efforts to improve TexShop! I was thinking how this could be more transparent on upgrade too.

Your suggestion is OK, but I would suggest the following alternative design philosophy: Make upgrade _completely_ transparent for naive or lazy users who are happy with the packaged distribution, and place the burden of manual changes only on users who desire something different from the packaged distribution.

Here is a scheme that would achieve this (perhaps not carefully enough thought out):

Two folders -- default macros and user macros. The default macro folder would be automatically upgraded. By convention, the user macro folder could include three types of files: (a) additions, (b) replacements (same name), and (c) removals (signaled by some agreed convention like the same name with the word "remove" prepended). Texshop at startup would determine which macros or versions of macros were desired. In this scheme you would be blindly adding new default macros with each upgrade, but this seems benign -- the burden would be on the unusual user not wanting that macro to add a new file to remove it.


-dave

David Messerschmitt
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
University of Californa at Berkeley