[Textures] Lion

Thu Mar 6 12:47:17 EST 2014

Le 6 mars 2014 à 16:30, Lawrence Paulson <lp15 at cam.ac.uk> a écrit :

> On 6 Mar 2014, at 15:19, Paul Cizmas <cizmas at mac.com> wrote:
> 
>>> On 06/03/2014, at 05:32, Paul Cizmas wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Following the "to get modified Textures to work.txt" file from Textures 2.2.0b19, I tried to put symbolic links in (user)/Library/Application Support/Textures/Metrics and in (user)/Library/Application Support/Textures/Inputs.
>> 
>> I then changed to LaTeX in the Typeset menu.  It appears to be working except that I cannot see the text.  I added \newpage in my simple test case, it generates two pages, but no text.  I even saved to pdf, and I only get pages with no text.
>> 
>> What else should I change?
> 
> I have never known any native OS X version of Textures to work. My experience is similar to yours: typeset a document and you get a file of blank pages with funny little marks in places, but no actual text.

Hi,

Textures does work on OS X, but you need to install additional pieces not in Textures220b19.zip:

- The Inputs.zip archive that used to be provided at the Blue Sky web site, on the "Textures 2.2.0b preliminary release" technical news page. You can indeed use a symlink (or alias) to /Library/TeX/Root/texmf-dist/tex (same as /usr/local/texlive/2013/texmf-dist/tex, but year-independent). You'll need the original archive though if you want the Textures-specific files like option_keys, pics.tex, CrayolaColors, etc.

The latest version of the Blue Sky web site is at the WayBack machine, mostly

http://web.archive.org/web/20121023154339/http://www.bluesky.com/news/news.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20121014163446/http://www.bluesky.com/news/220a.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20121013232707/http://www.bluesky.com/news/220b.html

But all the links inside, including to Inputs.zip, appear to be dead. Instead:

http://servbox.legi.grenoble-inp.fr/file.php?h=R8186d185ba50ca5a23105fe8a780d14c

- For the fonts, you need the Computer Modern folder that was included in the Textures220b.dmg disk image from Blue Sky (not Textures220b19.zip from DropBox). The following link will be valid for a month:

http://servbox.legi.grenoble-inp.fr/file.php?h=R767e7e259dc322c813cce21b796697f0

- In addition you also need the Snow Leopard font suitcase update, namely

CM/PS Core Screen Fonts
CM/PS Basic Screen Fonts A, B, and C

They are attached.

All that said, I must admit that I'm getting more and more disillusioned with Textures by the day. Here's in essence what I wrote off-list to another Textures fan a few weeks ago:

"
Textures is lacking several things that are mandatory for present-day TeX:

- Hyperlink support (ie hyperref support), especially in PDF output: this isn't and will never be part of Textures, since Textures relies on OS X's printing to PDF, which doesn't preserve hyperlinks. For the same reason, iWork couldn't create hyperlinked PDF files in its first versions, and this was only added later (probably by embedding additional code around printing to PDF); and that's also why Office for Mac loses hyperlinks when exporting to PDF.

- Support for OpenType fonts, the de-facto current standard.

- Support for OS X's advanced functionalities, like Versions.

- And so forth.

- More generally, more and more LaTeX packages tend to consider recent functionalities added by XeTeX or LuaTeX as granted, and build on them. Which of course rules Textures out.

So I'm increasingly thinking that Textures is not where the future of TeX lies, and that time spent on it may very well be wasted.
"

(To Gary: I know, I can't say I hadn't been warned!)

On the other hand, in addition to the open-source TeXShop which provides very similar functionality and user interface to Textures (except for Flash Mode), there are now new commercial implementations which are released and worth looking at.

Of note in particular is Texpad <https://www.texpadapp.com>, available for both OS X and iOS and offering an auto-typesetting mode quite similar to Flash Mode. I haven't tried it myself yet, but on the private MacTeX list (the group of people preparing MacTeX every year) Dick Koch, the developer of TeXShop and MacTeX great architect, had all but nice things to say about Texpad.

Good luck with your installation,

Bruno

PS Other than that, you can also look for files (like specific metrics suitcases) on the copy of the old Blue Sky FTP server, pre-OS X, that is kept on CTAN at <http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/mac/textures>.

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