context w/ fptex?

context w/ fptex?

[Thomas Porter]

Since  Ispend most of my time at work in front of a WIN98 box as opposed to my
beloved Linux box at home, I thought I would investigate some of the win32 TeX
offerings.  I got miktex, but it did not seem to come with support for context
right out of the box, so I decided to try fptex, since it is based on tetex and
web2c.  fptex installed just fine, with gs and winedit, but when I tried to run
texexec, it could not find it.

I searched the install dir's and did not find a texexec.pl, so  Iloaded the
cont-tmf.zip into the texmf tree.  I have active state perl installed, but when
I tried to run texexec.pl, it did not like the line used to invoke kpsewhich,
like this:

$IniPath = `$kpsewhich --format="other text files" -progname=context
texexec.ini` ;

Evidently, it did not interpolate the $kpsewhich variable, but tried to execute
"$kpsewhich" directly.  At any rate, I took the '$' off and it ran OK.  

So then I tried 'perl c:\tex\texmf\context\preltk\texexec.pl --make en' and got
errors related to paths in texmf.cnf.  Fixed those and finally ran into errors
with pool sizes.  Tweaked texmf.cnf to look more like my Linux one as far as
context-related pool, hash, string, etc sizes went, and reran.  Finally got
errors on memory being exceeded like so:

(c:/TEX/texmf/tex/context/base/font-cmr.tex
Runaway argument?
{\unexpanded \setvalue {12ptrm
! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=263001].
<argument> ...b}}} {\unexpanded \setvalue {12ptrmb
                                                  sb}{\doloadfont {12pt}{rm}...

Anyone else running context with fptex 2.4.2?  Any suggestions for a better
win32 tex to go with?  Any pointers to how to make context work with miktex, if
I go back that way?

This would be pretty neat to get to work under win98.  I admire the people who
have worked so hard to get TeX to work under DOS/WIN in spite of all its
limitations.

Thanks in advance

-- 
Tom Porter                                       txporter@mindspring.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 
'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will 
the right answers come out?'  I am not able rightly to apprehend the 
kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

Re: context w/ fptex?

[Hans Hagen]

Thomas Porter wrote:

> $IniPath = `$kpsewhich --format="other text files" -progname=context
> texexec.ini` ;
> 
> Evidently, it did not interpolate the $kpsewhich variable, but tried to execute
> "$kpsewhich" directly.  At any rate, I took the '$' off and it ran OK.

Hm. When I look at the code, it looks like texexec cannot find it's ini
file. Did you copy texexec.rme to texexec.ini and checked its content? 

> So then I tried 'perl c:\tex\texmf\context\preltk\texexec.pl --make en' and got
> errors related to paths in texmf.cnf.  Fixed those and finally ran into errors
> with pool sizes.  Tweaked texmf.cnf to look more like my Linux one as far as
> context-related pool, hash, string, etc sizes went, and reran.  Finally got
> errors on memory being exceeded like so:

When set up ok, texexec will pass the appropriate switch
progname=context to pdftex, which will make sure it can identify the
right mem values in texmf.cnf 

> (c:/TEX/texmf/tex/context/base/font-cmr.tex
> Runaway argument?
> {\unexpanded \setvalue {12ptrm
> ! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=263001].
> <argument> ...b}}} {\unexpanded \setvalue {12ptrmb
>                                                   sb}{\doloadfont {12pt}{rm}...
> 
> Anyone else running context with fptex 2.4.2?  Any suggestions for a better
> win32 tex to go with?  Any pointers to how to make context work with miktex, if
> I go back that way?

I will send you the latest, updated fptex make utility (there was a bug
in previous ones) in a separate mail. Untested, but reported ok by
Stazek. 

There is a new installation manual, which explains installing texexec; a
dedicated miktex section will be added in a few days (Walter Kehowski
had a smooth installation). 

> This would be pretty neat to get to work under win98.  I admire the people who
> have worked so hard to get TeX to work under DOS/WIN in spite of all its
> limitations.

(btw, I run fptex binaries, not the whole system, in a somewhat unusual
texmf tree)

Hans

-----------------------------------------------------------------
                                          Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
              Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
      tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: context w/ fptex?

[Thomas Porter]

Hans,

Thanks for the reply.  I did have a texexec.ini in the proper location. 

A little more research on my part found the trouble:  If I was in the home
directory for texexec.pl when I tried to build a format, I had no need to use a
FQPN for texexec.  This means that there were no '/' or '\' characters in the
program name perl was looking at in order to set the $pathslash variable, so it
defaulted to the UNIX style $pathslash '/' and the $IniPath = `$kpsewhich ....`
line failed since $kpsewhich contained 'C:/TEX/BIN/WIN32/kpsewhich' as opposed
to 'C:\TEX\BIN\WIN32\kpsewhich'

I also fixed the momory pool size problem, so now I am context'ing away under WIN98.

Thanks for the help and patience.

-- 
Tom Porter                                       txporter@mindspring.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 
'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will 
the right answers come out?'  I am not able rightly to apprehend the 
kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."