[tex-live] [tlpmgui] tlpmgui starts in the wrong mode under Win32

[Zdenek Wagner]

2007/2/2, Philip Taylor (Webmaster) <P.Taylor at rhul.ac.uk>:
>
>
> Zdenek Wagner wrote:
>
>  > You should not consider texmf trees as data but as a part of the
>  > program.
>
> But they /are/ data, and should be treated as such.  Indeed,
> I would go further : the basic TEXMF structure should be
> read-only data; the TEXMFVAR structure should be read/write.
> And TEXMFLOCAL (I have never used TEXMFHOME) should be write-
> locked but easily unlockable/relockable if one needs to add
> packages.  It is not at /all/ clear to me why one might want

Access rights are set almost that way in Linux.

> to "pretend" that the TEXMF structure is in any way at all
> a part of the program, and it is equally unclear why the
> installer believes that I want the executable installed somewhere
> unde TEXMF.  All other programs are installed under
>
By doing that it is sufficient just set PATH. If you have several
versions of TL installed and you wish to process your old document by
TL2004 (e.g. because some packages heve been updated in an
incompatible way and your old document does not work with the latest
TL) you just modify PATH. If *.exe is not under TEXMF, you will also
have to set TEXMFCNF, or you must always get to sources and compile
them so that your paths are hard-coded as your personal default. It
would be more error prone for normal users.

I always prefer if related files are together. If I wish to remove TL,
I just remove one tree, not files from several trees. If I want to
instruct my OS where TL is installed, I set one environment variable,
not dozen of them pointing to several parts of one distribution. When
I want to switch between two versions, I prefer to change one
variable, not dozen (I would hardly remember what has to be changed
and how).

If you wish a real example, I can give you one. There is incompatible
change in textpath from PSTricks. My old files do not work with the
latest version and unfortunatelly I have not saved the version under
which it worked.

>         E:\Layered products\<Family>
>
> and that is where I would like PdfeTeX.exe and its ilk to
> go, not (as happens at the moment) under
>
>         F:\Data files\TeX
>
> ** Phil.
>


-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz