[metapost] "input mp-tool" and "input metafun" do not work

[Nicola]

In article <EBABF461-8902-4AEA-99FC-6F88F4A937B6 at me.com>,
 Franck Pastor <franck.pastor at me.com> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> In the Metafun manual, it is said that its is enough to input the "mp-tool" 
> file, or to enter "input metafun;"  to use most of the metafun macros with 
> the plain format of MetaPost. It does not work with the Metapost or Metafun 
> version included in TeXLive 2012 (I use MacTeX 2012, with Mac OS X 6.8).
> 
> Each time I include the line
> 
> input mp-tool;
> 
> in a MetaPost file, it triggers this error message:
> 
> ! I can't open file `mp-tool'.
> l.4 input mp-tool
>                  ;
> Please type another input file name:  file name: 
> 
> Note that this bug has already been reported here: 
> http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/68750/metapost-mptopdf-complains-cant-o
> pen-file-mp-tool?rq=1
> 
> The solution is apparently to enter "input mp-tool.mpii" instead of "input 
> mp-tool", but as far as I know it is not documented anywhere.
> 
> There is something weirder: If I try "input metafun" instead of "input 
> mp-tool", as the Metafun manual also suggests, I obtain this strange error 
> message:
> 
> ! Redundant equation.
> <to be read again> 
>                    ;
> l.305 mm=2.83464;      pt=0.99626;
>                                           dd=1.06601;      bp:=1;
> ? 
> 
> If anyone can explain me what it meansŠ

This seems to me like plain.mp is included twice...

I have not followed the recent developments in ConTeXt, but... I think I 
can suggest a workaround for your problem. Since you're using TeXShop, I 
recommend that you download the most recent version of my MetaPost 
engines (I'm not sure what version TeXShop ships with currently) at

http://users.dimi.uniud.it/~nicola.vitacolonna/home/content/metapost-engi
nes-texshop

To update the engines, just drop the *.engine files in 
~/Library/TeXShop/Engines.

Then, instead of ³input metafun;² use the following directive:

% !MPOST mem = metafun

The directive must appear before the first non-comment line in the file 
and you must compile with ³nv-metapost², not ³MetaPost².
That should be enough to use MetaFun. Note that the preview (which is 
called <source name>.pdf) will lack some features, like transparency, 
but the compilation process will in fact produce PDF files with all the 
bell-and-whistles (which will be called <source name>-0.pdf and so on). 
If you want to see MetaFun special features in the preview, you must use 
the nv-metafun engine instead (in which case the above directive is not 
needed).

In command-line terms, the above directive replaces

    mpost file.mp

with

    mpost -mem=metafun file.mp

A detailed documentation can be found in the README.pdf that comes with 
my engines. The archive also contains several examples.

Hope this helps,
Nicola