[tex-live] map file / new path settings

[Hans Hagen]

At 21:28 24/01/2004, you wrote:
> > no, it's more that i (wildly) guess that users put their tex file in a
> > local place or tree, while tex related font files are placed in the 
> tree by
> > programs; so i expect less problems with tex files than with the lesser
> > known files (that are magically produced by utilities and so)
>
>On the other hand, much more people add texinput related stuff to their
>TeX system than font related stuff; I don't think that you can make a
>point here.

the main tree? if so, then it would be interesting to know how updating 
takes place, e.g. do people copy old things first, or just run an update 
script or ... maybe the user groups that distribute tex live should 
consider a survey (could be interesting anyway, to have a kind of feedback 
of the average user with regards to what they see as difficult; for 
instance, George W made a remark about users who freeze their perception to 
thesis-time; personally i'm curious to know how many members really update 
their systems)

> > but how many fonts do you have in your tree system that are not part of
> > tetex?
>
>Why does that matter? Or, do you want to say that I don't know what I am
>talking about?

i know that you know what you are talking about; i'm more thinking of 
organizations that have things like a house-style (with fonts etc), or 
multiple trees for different projects; for those situations [i.e. the 
systems beyond control of the main organization tex guru] there may be 
problems; i have no idea how this is normally organized, e.g. one main tree 
on a central server, with small personal trees on users system; what i do 
know is that i run into people who have big troubles to convince sysadms to 
update, and i'm not sure if sysadms (who are not tex users themselves) will 
deal with changes;

so, what i'm saying is that 'we' (the people on this list) may not be the 
best examples of the average user;

This brings me to a possible way out: can the tex live installation scripts 
provide a solution here? Say that after the installation the scripts 
(installers) report tex/map/enc files that are in odd places and suggests 
to move them?

>Anyway:
>
>$ find /software/pay/fonts/ -name \*.pfb | wc
>    2794    2794  109365

-)

> > i used them as an illustration of a change in the distribiution that broke
> > things; it also demonstrates that (and i fall into that trap more often
> > than i want) something that works here not need to work there (in that
> > respect it is already a miricle that te/fp/*tex work the way they do)
>
>There are already systems out that follow the new directory scheme
>introduced by tds 1.0, e.g. vtex. The idea of the tds is that all
>distributions should follow. The sooner we make clear where the files
>need to be put, the less trouble we will have.

as said, i agree with that, i'm not concerned about that part

> > >macro level, but for me, this is no solution. I always suggest that my
> > >users (be it teTeX or TeX Live) make their ps fonts known to updmap. That
> >
> > which has the danger of getting conflicts in the file since the current
> > naming scheme permits the same name for fonts (esp slanted and caps) which
>
>Well, that argument shows me that you don't know what updmap is
>doing. That tool knows that pdftex has a problem and removes the psname
>from those entries (which have ExtendFont / SlantFont; I don't know of
>any problem with caps).

sure, but i was more thinking of:

font xyzo (oblique variant of xyz) with slant 1.67  (in a map file)

font xyzo (oblique variant of xyz) with slant 1.78  (in another map file)

in that case one needs to control map file loading

so: same name, different metrics (so, there i have to use the map file 
specific to a project/slant); this is not so much a updmap problem as well 
a limitation in the font name scheme (pseudo caps can also come in 
different sizes); this is one of the reasons why pdftex now can load map 
files (after page 1) and overload previously loaded entries; just in case 
one has a project specific file with the same names but different metrics 
(of course all font files then are probably in some special place)

anyhow, this is rather off topic

>Oh, I don't even have a problem if you direct those questions directly to me.

i know that you're always very helpful, which is one reason why i want to 
predict/prevent problems and thereby overloading; if the installer ("do you 
want to upgrade your tree") can handle that ..  (hm, maybe i'll write a 
script for that)

Hans