Re: TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

[h h extern <pragma@wxs.nl>]

Gerben Wierda wrote:

> On Apr 29, 2005, at 15:03, Ville Voipio wrote (on the ConTeX list, but 
> this also is interesting for all gwTeX users):
> 
>> I have spent some very interesting time trying to install the TeXlive 
>> fonts by using texfont type-tmf.dat. What happened was that a lot of 
>> complaints about "unknown subpath ../afm/public/urw" were given even 
>> though the path should have been there. This is a known problem, has 
>> been on several mailing lists, as well.
>>
>> After a lot of thinking it became clear that texfont was really unable 
>> to find any font files. By browsing through the texfont.pl, the reason 
>> became evident: In gwTeX the root variables are:
>>
>>    TEXMFMAIN = /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf
>>    TEXMFTE = /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex
>>
>> The problem here is that all the TeXlive fonts (and almost everthing 
>> else) is really in the TEXMFTE tree.
>>
>> My quick'n'dirty was to make new file type-tmf-gwtex.dat by replacing 
>> all occurrences of TEXMFMAIN by TEXMFTE. Running that one in batch 
>> mode works fine.
>>
>> Problem solved -- this time. But the solution is not a beautiful one. 
>> Could someone suggest something cleaner? Or has this been solved 
>> already (I tried googling after the answer without success)?
> 
> 
> TEXMFMAIN in TL is now reserved for only the stuff that is directly 
> related to the binaries (like the pool files or anything that needs to 
> stay in sync - grammar wise - with the binaries and scripts). In TeX 
> Live the 'foundation' now lives in .../texmf-dist (TEXMFDIST) and not in 
> ../texmf
> 
> In gwTeX, there are a few foundation trees: TEXMFTE for the teTeX tree 
> and TEXMFGW for my additions
> 
> I think it is a simplification by texfont that it has a hardwired 
> location. TeX is not set up that way. Probably the correct solution is 
> for texfont itself to act in a more dynamic way, e.g. by trying to 
> locate with kpsewhich some elements that are supposed to be there 
> already and take th eresult of that search as the settin for what it now 
> assumes to be hardwired.
> 
> In the meantime: your fix is correct.

generated fonts metrics are put in a given path:

if (defined($ENV{TEXMFLOCAL})) {
     $installpath = "TEXMFLOCAL" ;
}

if (defined($ENV{TEXMFFONTS})) {
     $installpath = "TEXMFFONTS" ;
}

if ($installpath eq "") {
     $installpath = "TEXMFLOCAL" ; # redundant
}

and later on

my $fontroot        = "" ; #/usr/people/gwhite/texmf-fonts"

&GetOptions
     "fontroot=s"   => \$fontroot,

and

if ($fontroot eq "")
   { if ($dosish)
       { $fontroot = `kpsewhich -expand-path=\$$installpath` }
     else
       { $fontroot = `kpsewhich -expand-path=\\\$$installpath` }
     chomp $fontroot }

etc etc

I've added texmfdist to the search trees list

my $trees           = 'TEXMFFONTS,TEXMFLOCAL,TEXMFEXTRA,TEXMFMAIN,TEXMFDIST' ;

(not that i use dist: the first thing i do here when i get tex live is merging 
the main/dist/doc/extra trees)

btw, it's interesting that when i asked for a texmffonts entry long ago the 
argument against was 'we don't want too many trees' but nowadays we have so many 
trees that i no longer feel trouble by my own amount:

texmf
texmf-extra
texmf-local
texmf-fonts
texmf-projects
texmf-mswin
texmf-macosx
texmf-linux

etc -)

normally i try to use kpse to locate and report paths, but this is kind of slow 
and the kpsewhich interface is not frozen [which is why in more recent scripts i 
use a wrapper system around kpse, so in the end such problems may disappear]

Hans

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