Re: texmfstart newbie

["Mojca Miklavec" <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com>]

On 6/27/06, David Arnold wrote:
> OK,
>
> I've updated to the latest context via Gerben's i-installer on my mac
> osx 10.4.6.
>
> I have no idea what texmfstart is nor do I understand its purpose.
>
> I imagine the first thing I have to do is configure, because it is
> certainly not found on my system.

...

> For example:
>
> tmp $ texexec --version
>
> TeXExec 5.4.3 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 1997-2005
>
>                 texexec : TeXExec 5.4.3 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 1997-2005
>                 texutil : TeXUtil 9.0.1 - ConTeXt / PRAGMA ADE 1992-2006
>                     tex : pdfeTeX, 3.141592-1.30.4-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.5)
>                 context : ver: 2006.06.23 20:39
>                 cont-en : ver: 2006.06.23 20:39  fmt: 2006.6.27  mes:
> english
>                 cont-nl : ver: 2006.06.23 20:39  fmt: 2006.6.27  mes:
> dutch
>
>          total run time : 3 seconds
>
>                 warning : use 'texmfstart texexec' instead
>
>
> Now for questions:
>
> 1. How do I configure my system to use texmstart?

Under windows it comes as an executable, under linux I sometimes
created an executable file named texexec (in the bin folder of course)
with the content
    ruby path-to-context-ruby-scripts/texmfstart.rb

Here's a citation from a mac user:

On 5/25/06, Hans van der Meer wrote:
> I did some digging in the .../context/ruby script directory and found
> a small problem with the script, at least for some users.
>
> On my MacOSX system the script file(s) needed the execute bits set,
> so I did:
> cd ..../context/ruby
> (sudo) chmod -R a+x *.rb
>
> And of course an alias "texmfstart=texmfstart.rb" comes in handy.
>
> I hope this helps others who might be struggling to get texmfstart
> running.
>
> Hans van der Meer

Something should be automated here I suppose. The MikTeX guy wasn't
extremely responsive to it, tetex isn't maintained any more, perhaps
at least you Mac guys could/should do something about it. Can someone
write a note to the contextgarden about how to do configure the
texmfstart properly?

> 2. What are some of the usual uses I should be employing of
> texmfstart?

As a regular user you shouldn't note it's presence once you set it up
properly. But generally you can use it to run stuff such as
"texmfstart mptopdf" without having to worry whether mptopdf is a perl
or ruby program, you can use it to edit config files, open
documentation and so on, but the list is way to long (and I don't know
it all/don't know how to use all its features) ...

Most notable the modern modules which call external programs are
written in such a way that they execute "texmfstart
name-of-the-script", for example "texmfstart pstopdf some-ps-file"
instead of "pstopdf some-ps-file". This means that the user doesn't
need "pstopdf" to be present on the system as an executable command
and means better portability.

> How will it improve performance?

Just as George N. White said: performance in terms of
how-many-seconds-per-run is not really the question, but I guess that
it might improve performance since it might use more clever methods to
execute things. I know that Hans has somehow rewritten the kapathsea
and mpto, but I don't really know which scripts are responsible for
calling them and for faster execution. However: you don't need to
worry about performance. Hans does.

If you care about performance in mp labels, you can improve it
considerable by using texexec.rb (and texmfstart to start it) an by
switching from btex ... etex to textext("...") and \sometxt
(aproximately ten times faster on my examples and able to do some
crazy things that have never been possible with btex ... etex or
textext). But well ... the presence of texmfstart is essential in this
case.

> How will it simplify my work? Etc?
> I.e what are the advantages?

Portability. Support: sooner or later you'll figure out that the old
texexec.pl doesn't do what it's supposed to do (mp labels being one of
the problems for example). Hans is willing to work on improving the
texexec.rb, but not on fixing the old stuff that will become obsolete
one day anyway.

Mojca