Re: What a pain!

[Tobias Burnus <burnus@gmx.de>]

Hi,

> >     David> Is there anyway to leave junk.pdf open in AR4, compile
> >     David> junk.tex to junk.pdf, then have the result displayed in
> >     David> AR4?
> > No. All versions of Reader under Windows behave this way. Linux
> > version is slightly better: there is no lock on the pdf file, so that
> > compiling works, but you still need to close and re-open to get at the
> > new file.
> Maybe this is due to page caching and loading of the reference table. It
> is interesting to see than dvi and ps viewers are better in this.

Well you can browse (under linux) without reloading the file, but only
until AR finds out that the references doesn't fit any more; then you
get an error message, a blank page (or a gray background, the file is 
nethertheless still open).

In Windows there is hook, so you get a WM_<file modified> message, when
a file had been change; under Linux/unix I don't know, but XDVI does
check the file, when the window regets the focus and if it reads from
the file; so all Adobe needs to do is a file date check mechanismus:

if (old_filedate isOlderThan new_filedate)
then old_filedate := new_filedate
     reload_references etc;
     redisplay

Tobias