TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

[Ville Voipio]

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)?

- Ville

Re: [NTG-context] TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

[Gerben Wierda]

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.

G

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Re: TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

[h h extern]

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

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

Re: TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

[Ville Voipio]

> generated fonts metrics are put in a given path:

And this is not the problem.

I have to apologise for the bad wording of my previous message. I am not 
saying there would be anything wrong with the Perl script. The only 
slight annoyance there is the error message, which states:

   "unknown subpath ../fonts/afm/$vendor/$collection"

At least to my eye this seems to refer to the parent directory (..), 
whereas it really doesn't. It just says that 
something/something/fonts/afm/$vendor/$collection is missing. Full path 
in that message would've gotten me to the goal a bit faster.

The problem is really in the font installation script (type-tmf.dat). 
There the root (i.e. the source tree for the fonts) is explicitly given 
as TEXMFMAIN. And this does not work in gwTeX, because if something is 
given, it has to be TEXMFTE.

As a summary:

- texfont.pl is fine
- gwTeX is fine
- type-tmf.dat is not fine, but I really don't know how to reliably fix 
it (yes, patching is simple, but then it does not work in other distros)

---

But am I doing something stupid (again)?

I think I have some kind of understanding of the ConTeXt font 
mechanisms. However, I am still a bit confused about this mess. So, what 
is the easy, standard, newbie way to install the TeX Live font 
collection to be used with ConTeXt? Is it still using the type-tmf.dat 
batch file?

- Ville

Re: TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

[Gerben Wierda]

> The problem is really in the font installation script (type-tmf.dat).
> There the root (i.e. the source tree for the fonts) is explicitly given
> as TEXMFMAIN. And this does not work in gwTeX, because if something is
> given, it has to be TEXMFTE.

Just for my understanding. Does texfont.pl only read in TEXMFMAIN or does
it also write (can it be a search path or does it require for TEXMFMAIN to
be just one directory)?

G

Re: TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

[Adam Lindsay]

Gerben Wierda said this at Mon, 2 May 2005 17:10:03 +0200:

>> The problem is really in the font installation script (type-tmf.dat).
>> There the root (i.e. the source tree for the fonts) is explicitly given
>> as TEXMFMAIN. And this does not work in gwTeX, because if something is
>> given, it has to be TEXMFTE.
>
>Just for my understanding. Does texfont.pl only read in TEXMFMAIN or does
>it also write (can it be a search path or does it require for TEXMFMAIN to
>be just one directory)?

My understanding is that you can enter a comma-separated list of trees.
The default is "TEXMFFONTS,TEXMFLOCAL,TEXMFEXTRA,TEXMFMAIN".

That suggests to me that the --ro=TEXMFMAIN defaults in the type-tmf.dat
file probably should go away, as 1) they get in the way of over-rides at
the CLI, and 2) it's covered by the current default, anyway.

adam


% texfont --help                    
TeXFont 2.2.1 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 2000-2004

   --fontroot=path  : texmf destination font root 
            (default: /usr/local/tetex/share/texmf.local)
   --rootlist=paths : texmf source roots 
            (default: TEXMFFONTS,TEXMFLOCAL,TEXMFEXTRA,TEXMFMAIN)

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Adam T. Lindsay, Computing Dept.     atl@comp.lancs.ac.uk
 Lancaster University, InfoLab21        +44(0)1524/510.514
 Lancaster, LA1 4WA, UK             Fax:+44(0)1524/510.492
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Re: TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

[h h extern]

Gerben Wierda wrote:

>> 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.

one can specify the fontroot on the commandline

in most cases texfont is is used for installing fonts not in a tex tree (or in a 
local tree); given unpredictable changes in patterns and fonts, i'll probably 
put a context font metrics zip on the website anyway and include patterns in the 
main zip; moreover, the new fonts by the polish font gurus [lm, antykwa, kurier, 
iwona, etc] already come with context friendly metrics and names

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.com
                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------

RE: TEXMFMAIN problem in gwTeX (font installation)

[Ville Voipio]

> Just for my understanding. Does texfont.pl only
> read in TEXMFMAIN or does it also write (can it
> be a search path or does it require for TEXMFMAIN
> to be just one directory)?

texfont.pl checks several places. By a very quick look
at the sources, it looks for the following:

  TEXMFMAIN
  TEXMFLOCAL
  TEXMFEXTRA
  TEXMFFONTS

It does not look for TEXMFTE, but by specifying the
switch --rootlist, it can be given a list of trees,
which it then browses through.

Ok, it might be useful to add a few here, such as
TEXMFTE (for us gwTeX users), but maybe that's an
endless road. But the real problem is really in a
font installation script which explicitly overrides
the default settings and gives a wrong tree.

---

The problem is easy to pinpoint into type-tfm.dat.
Unfortunately, just removing the explicit definitions
does not seem to solve the problem. The non-standard
root seems to be difficult to be told to the system.

For encodings, texfont.pl can be force-fed a value
which is passed to all scripts in a batch file (using
a special --en=? switch). However, no such mechanism
exists for other parameters (such as the --ro).

Tweaking the TEXMFFONTS to point to TEXMFTE is one
possibility, but then the fonts will also be installed
into TEXMFFONTS instead of TEXMFLOCAL.

Ideally, it would be nice to be able to tell the
script that the source fonts are in TEXMFWHATEVER
and they are going into TEXMFSOMETHINGELSE. I haven't
been able to figure out how to achieve that without
tailoring the batch file.

- Ville