Re: teTeX and TeX Live interoperability
On Thu, Nov 17, 2005 at 18:22 +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
> Ralf Stubner <ralf.stubner@physik.uni-erlangen.de> wrote:
>
> > I find the
> > configuration files for LaTeX packages really annoying (graphics.sty is
> > an exception IMO).
>
> What do you find annoying, and what is better with graphics.cfg?
I should have been more specific. I find it annoying when configuration
files are used by default to define default values (eg adr*.cfg) or to
define new commands and even load packages (eg efxmpl.cfg). IMO things
like this belong into the package itself. Also, configuration files
generaly reduce the portability of a document. I think it is better to
make such adjustments in the preamble of the document.
If a package wants to support config files (say for per project
configuration), it should not ship one. It happens to easily that one
uses a configuration file in the local directory but forgets to include
all the settings from the global one, hence those are lost. Stuff like
that is pretty ugly to debug. Global configuration files where
everything is commented out (eg jurabib.cfg) are acceptable IMO.
Another exception are things like graphics.cfg, color.cfg or hyperef.cfg
that have the code for detecting the TeX engine in their configuration
file. This makes sense since it is system dependent, what default option
should be used with standard latex ('dvips' with teTeX). But even here I
would prefer if only this setting would be done in the default config
files.
> Couldn't we collect all files that we think are possible configuration
> files in TEXMFDIST/tex/latex/cfg (not in config because the ini files
> which are already there should not be treated as configuration files)?
> We'd put a README file there, telling users how to handle them.
Sounds reasonable when combined with documentation about the existance
of this directory. I am not sure, though, if this would comply with the
policy manual (10.7 Configuration files). What files should be left in
/etc/texmf/?
cheerio
ralf
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