[texhax] ... TeXLive, but without two technical problems ...

[Pierre MacKay]

On 02/28/2015 02:16 PM, Uwe Lueck wrote:
> 2015-02-15 William F Hammond wrote to: "Yves Perret" <yves.perret at megamail.org>
> on: [texhax] ... TeXLive, but without two technical problems ...
>>> despite that technical imperfection with the driver «xdvi», I value
>>> really the Texlive distribution in the SUN-Solaris environment.
Reasons for using xdvi. (which I could hardly live without):
         The option to toggle back and forth between simple page 
sequence and TeX pages.
          The immediately available steps of magnification
          Even more, the movable magnifier windows.  (I use these if I 
need to check whether I can
                 use \hfuzz, for example, because they provide a clean 
vertical line that I can position
                 precisely, and also to check whether an abnormal 
non-Unicode accent has
                 been reasonably well placed. and for many other things)
         The way my version allows me to see the previous version of a 
given page before I make it refresh
         That is just what comes to mind right now. There are plenty 
more reasons.
         Using xdvi means I have to go through DVI -> PostScript, which 
allows me to use raw
         PostScript adjustments on the rare occasions when that is 
necessary.

There are a few minor disappointments, all of which I can live with:
         The "open file" menu box is clunky, probably because it 
originally tried to do too much.
         The PostScript display options are weak, but that is partly 
owing to their dependence on
                 GhostScript, which is where all the error messages 
appear from.
         The print option is clunky, but that may be affected by my 
antediluvian printer, which needs
                 an antediluvian driver.  (Just about every application 
print button I use, interfaces with
         my printer driver in a different way.)

Even the thought of being forced t go directly to PDF gives me cold 
chills. PDFforge gives me a little
         control, but not nearly enough.


Pierre MacKay