Re: is xdvi broken?
On Fri 19 Apr 2019 at 18:10:14 (-0500), rlharris@oplink.net wrote:
> On 2019.04.19 17:33, Étienne Mollier wrote:
> ...
> > It has this look and feel typical from monochrome X
> > graphical interfaces released in the 80's. Tasty ! :)
>
> At least for diagnosing this problem, I would be interested in an
> alternative to xdvi.
There are many. I see a2ps, advi, apsfilter, atril, dvi2ps, evince and
okular. Not all these are viewers: eg, dvips converts to a PostScript
file for other viewers to use, and I think evince runs a converter
itself automatically.
But it's interesting to see that you're (still) using a DVI workflow:
any particular reason for this? I suspect a majority are using one of
the direct-to-PDF workflows, like pdflatex or lualatex.
> > another desktop environment. LXDE may, or may not, be to your
> > taste. It is as light in weight as Xfce.
>
> I think my machine is sufficiently fast that "lightweight" is not a
> concern. I simply cannot find my way around the gnome desktop -- I
> wish to see launchers for everything all the time, and not just when I
> run the cursor over the correct portion of the screen. The gnome
> approach must appeal to the video gamer; but I use the computer for
> serious work. With Debian releases 7 and 8, I have been running xfce.
I can't help you there, as a DE non-user.
> > The program may become heavy on CPU due to necessary redraws
> > each time a window covers it.
>
> In the workspace I have Emacs, two instances of xdvi, xfce-4-terminal,
> and xfce-dictionary. I am working on a ten-page text-only document
> with LaTeX markup. I did not experience this problem with Debian 8.
How do you deliver this document? As a DVI, PS of PDF? Is it typical,
or are your other documents more dependent on particular methods of,
say, including graphics?
But looking at just emacs, xdvi, and xterm running in separate
windows, I can't see any difference in their behaviour from what I
remember in the dim and distant past. The one unusual (for me)
property of xdvi is that it rereads the input file whenever its window
is exposed, without needing a ^R keystroke. I have no idea whether
this might interact with certain sorts of window manager.
> > Are you running your Xfce desktop with or without the compositor ?
>
> I found the menu; ENABLE DISPLAY COMPOSITING was checked. I was
> unaware of the "tweaks" menu.
That's the sort of thing I can't interpret (as a DE non-user),
but it could be related to the previous paragraph. (That's just
a guess.)
Cheers,
David.
Reply to: