[tex-live] TL'10 pretest trial

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 4 July 2010 Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) wrote:

 > but this part :
 > 
 > > Installing
 > >
 > > After downloading as above, you can run the script install-tl
 > > (Unix) or install-tl.bat (Windows) to perform the installation:
 > >
 > >     * install-tl location -gui text for text (command line) mode;
 > >       default on Unix.
 > >     * install-tl location -gui wizard for a maximally simplified
 > >       GUI installation asking only the minimal questions; default
 > >       on Windows.
 > >     * install-tl location -gui perltk for advanced/expert GUI
 > >       installation with the usual array of options; requires
 > >       Perl/Tk.
 > >
 > > In the case of the installer package, the pretest repository
 > > location to install from must be specified:
 > > install-tl -repository http://somehost/some/path ...
 > > The exact http://somehost/some/path urls to use are link targets
 > > on the texlive-pretest mirmon page.
 > 
 > is extraordinarily poor :
 > 
 > 2) Option-3 should read :
 > 
 > install-tl-advanced -location=<location> ! for advanced/expert GUI
 > installation

Hi Phil and Karl,
Phil, I just looked into the HTML sources.  Please note that the word
"location" is set in italics.  So it's clear that it's a placeholder.
Do your web browsers display the word "location" in italics?  I can
imagine some problems with <tt><i>foo</i></tt> if the default
typewriter font has no italics variant.  I'm using Latin Modern
Typewriter (at 8pt) and Firefox obviously doesn't find the italics
version.  It's using a slanted version instead and I assume that it's
fontconfig which provides it as a workaround.

I already have a modified version of pretest.html at

   http://tug.org/~kotucha/pretest.html

which is rendered much better by Firefox and avoids problems
concerning font selection in other web browsers too.  It simply uses a
Roman italic font instead of an italic typewriter font.

Karl, I could send you a patch, but I think it's much less effort for
you if you simply replace your file by mine on the TUG server.  You
can run

  diff /home/httpd/html/texlive/pretest.html /home/kotucha/pretest.html

in order to see what I changed.

| <ul>
| <li><tt>install-tl <i>location</i> -gui text</tt> for text (command
|      line) mode; default on Unix.
| <li><tt>install-tl <i>location</i> -gui wizard</tt> for a maximally
|     simplified GUI installation asking only the minimal questions;
|     default on Windows.
| <li><tt>install-tl <i>location</i> -gui perltk</tt> for advanced/expert
|     GUI installation with the usual array of options; requires <a
|     href="distro.html#perltk">Perl/Tk</a>.
| </ul>
| 
| <p>In the case of the installer package, the pretest repository
| <i>location</i> to install from must be specified:<br>
| 
| <tt>install-tl&nbsp;-repository&nbsp;http://somehost/some/path&nbsp;...</tt>
| <br>
| The exact <tt>http://somehost/some/path</tt> urls to use are link
| targets on the <a href="mirmon/">texlive-pretest mirmon page</a>.
| 
| 
| <p>But in the case of mirroring, no <i>location</i> should be specified
| at all.  The installer will automatically find its files in the current
| directory.
| 
| <p>For information on all of the installer options, run
| <tt>install-tl&nbsp;--help</tt>, or see the <a
| href="doc/install-tl.html">install-tl documentation page</a>.


 > 3) The text "In the case of the installer package" conveys nothing.
 > 
 > 4) The text "The exact http://somehost/some/path urls to use are
 > link targets on the texlive-pretest mirmon page"
 > 
 > is far too opaque : "are link targets" is only too easily missed,

Sure, but I think that it's correct though.  The more one writes, the
more people can/will miss.  If one writes too much, it's unlikely that
people read it at all.  Thus I prefer to keep explanations short and
precise.

 > and as the real "targets" appear nowhere in plain text on the
 > referenced page (why not ?),

Because the author of mirmon decided so.  It's probably done this way
in order to save space, and I must admit that I dislike horizontal
scrollbars in web pages too.

 > it takes some time to realise one has to dereference a link to find
 > a real value for "-location".

Because you missed the phrase "are link targets".  Even then, I'm sure
that you don't expect the pretest stuff in the root directory of a
mirror.  That would mean that they don't provide anything else.  The
first thing I would try then is to click on the link.

Phil, I often waste a lot of time too because I'm missing obvious
things.  Don't worry, it just indicates that we're getting older.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha			              Phone: +49-511-3373112
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