[tex-live] beamer vs. hyperref

[Heiko Oberdiek]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 09:13:10AM +0200, Till Tantau wrote:

> hmm... I really hate this driver mess...
> 
> Anyway, I do not think that packages should use the *existence* of the  
> pdfoutput counter for determining whether *xetex* is present. I know  
> that beamer is not the only package that uses the define-pdfoutput-if- 
> it-is-not-defined-strategy. Admittedly, this strategy is not perfect,  
> but it does not seem so bad either.
> 
> I presume mankind really, really needs a central ultra-portable  
> package for determining the backend driver...

Probably yes, I was thinking about it. But finding a good
"ultra-portable" and "easy-to-use" is even more difficult ...

> I think the right way to discern the driver is, indeed, the one  
> suggested in the mail, namely making hyperref smarter.

I have done it (v6.78a).

Regarding the counter "pdfoutput": I don't see an advantage.
It only fools others that pdfTeX might be running and someone
could be tempted to set \pdfoutput=1 and expecting PDF from
a TeX compiler that isn't able to generate PDF.

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <oberdiek at uni-freiburg.de>