[OS X TeX] Re: TeXShop Feature Request

[cfrees at imapmail.org]

On Tue 1st Jun, 2010 at 00:04, Alain Schremmer seems to have written:

...
> 	b) the LaTeX-innocent end-user who is only interested in the contents 
> but is nevertheless needs a LaTeX installation to typeset the ancillaries, 
> homeworks, quizzes, exams.
>
...
> Case b) however is entirely different. As pointed out before,  these 
> LaTeX-innocent end-users do not want to write in LaTeX, in fact do not want 
> to have anything to do with LaTeX if they can help it. They only want to be 
> able to use something that happens to require a LaTeX installation---and, 
> hopefully, a GUI to preserve the end-user from getting LaTeX dirty.
>
> As it happens, so far, there are probably very few people in case b) but 
> getting a minimal, one-click installation would seem to be a necessary 
> condition for their numbers to increase.
>
> As such, though, BasicTeX would seem to be quite inappropriate as "[i]t 
> contains all of the standard tools needed to write TeX documents", which, in 
> this case, is exactly not the point. For instance, the end-user would 
> certainly not need "MetaFont, dvips, ConTeXt, MetaPost, and XeTeX".
>
> So, how about a MinimalTeX?

Why not try one of the online services in that case and avoid the need
to install anything? (Note that I haven't used these, so there may well
be a quite exhaustive answer to this question. :)

e.g. I found some reviews at
http://www.danielstender.com/granthinam/1995/

- cfr