[OS X TeX] A couple of things about TeX Live 2012

[Herbert Schulz]

On Jun 5, 2012, at 10:30 AM, Frank STENGEL wrote:

> 
> Le 5 juin 2012 à 14:06, Herbert Schulz a écrit :
> 
>> Howdy,
>> 
>> There are a couple of things that have to do with TeX Live 2012 (installed by MacTeX-2012), which is coming out soon, that may make you change the way you do some things.
>> 
>> FIRST: shell-escape vs restricted-shell-escape
>> 
> 
> As long as the mechanism to extend the ``trusted'' list survives in the long term, good idea...
> 
> <snip>

Howdy,

It should remain stable. However, from year to year there might be changes in the default stable list and since that must be reproduced in the list in the texmf.cnf file the contents of that file may have to change too. However, if you then go back to, e.g., TL2012 for some reason it will still work and you'd have the extended list.

> 
> 
>> SECOND: Personal fonts must be installed in the texmf-local tree for updmap-sys to ``see'' the map files.
> 
> This is likely to become a major gripe. Correct me if I'm wrong ; basically one *has* to share fonts with every other user of the same machine or one has to perform extra actions if one wants to update one's system on a regular basis.
> 
> <rant and rave class="not directed at Herb ;-)">
> Furthermore, users like me, who had just got used to the current hoops one had to jump through, will have to learn a whole new set of arcane things... Font management in TeX was a pain, it is now a root canal with a hammer and a chisel.
> 
> While I understand the the emphasis on security, should it transform an already complex process into a rube goldberg machine? Isn't there something inherently flawed in the way TeX handles fonts and multiple user systems?
> </rant and rave>
> 
> <snip>
> 
>> Good Luck,
> 
> Indeed. Sorry for the blast of hot air, it's just frustration and it is more directed at the ever more complex font handling system. As a matter of fact, I have to thank people like Herb who try, as much as they can to make things easy and painless.
> 
> I'll go now and don my riot gear to prepare for the onslaught of flame. I did ask for it didn't I ;-)


Well, in fact the ``old'' behavior could lead to some strangeness for other users! The map fragments would be defined on the system level but only one user would actually have the fonts so other users attempting to use the fonts would find the fragments of the map files but not the fonts themselves. This makes the fonts actually usable by other users.

I really don't think this is any more difficult that it was before; if you knew how to install the fonts in your personal texmf tree you use the same folders but under the texmf-local tree. The one addition is to run

sudo mktexlsr

which many folks ran out of habit anyway. Oh... and the use of the updmap-local.cfg file ends up making it trivial to have TeX Live Utility (via tlmgr) keep everything up to date.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)