[OS X TeX] TeXShop and Cloud Computing

[Herbert Schulz]

On Oct 1, 2011, at 11:29 AM, Nitecki, Zbigniew H. wrote:

> I use Texshop on two different computers---a home laptop (MacBook Pro) and an office iMac, and have had some problems trying to use Folders Synchronizer to avoid carrying my laptop when I walk to my office.  The recent purchase of an iPad 2 prompted me to investigate using Tex Touch and Tex Timer to be able to work on tex files from the iPad while traveling, and in particular I have started using DropBox instead of synchronization to have access from different computers to a single set of files.  This seems to work a lot better than synchronizing.
> 
> Which brings me to my questions.
> 
> 1.I have several .sty files with a mass of custom macros that I use in all of my work.  On my laptop and on my iMac, these reside in my user ->Library->texmf->tex (or bibtex)->latex  folder.  I understand that these are now hidden in Lion;  if I use the search function (the magnifying glass on my tool bar) I can find about 15 different files with the correct name, but can't find the pathname to any of them.  Obviously there is only one I want to use, and that is the one which TeXShop calls up.  How do I find it?
> 

Howdy,

The ~/Library/ folder is hidden, by default, in Lion but you can certainly still get to it. The ``accepted'' method is to hold the Option key while you click Finder's Go Menu and you will see an entry to get to ~/Library/. The second is to remove the ``hidden'' bit so it becomes visible in the Finder again. To do that run the command

chflags nohidden ~/Library

and you'll see it in you HOME folder (and to hide it again use ``hidden'' instead of ``nohidden'').

> 2. Even more to the point, I want to put these files in DropBox so that again I have only one copy to modify when I need to.  Where do I put them in Drop Box so that TeXShop will find them when I \usepackage them?  (of course, TeXShop resides in two copies, one on my laptop and one on my iMac).
> And can that be designed so that these files get used when I am using TeXShop on a file that didn't come from Drop Box as well?


TeXShop doesn't do the ``finding'' but the best thing to do would be to put the files in a folder in your drop box and make a symbolic link (NOT the same as an alias) to that folder in ~/Library/texmf/tex/latex/.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)