Asymptote command options: Windows bug

[Sean Fitzpatrick]

The command being used to process Asymptote images in the CLI and devscript is (I think) as follows:

asy -f pdf -noV -noprc -iconify -tex xelatex -batchMask file.asy

On Windows, the -iconify option produces a black rectangle for every image in PDF output, instead of the desired image. (I am using the asy that comes with TeXLive for Windows, I think.)

Removing the -iconify option fixes things for me.

I can't recall why we have this option in the first place :-)

On Linux, things are working fine.

I think John Bowman's server still isn't working as hoped for the 'server' method for Asymptote generation.

[Rob Beezer]

The -iconify switch was introduced in May 2020 in commit

3bb8833bde95ca32fa7171d0fbc53c178287c9d9

apparently to replace -offscreen which I think might have been making those
black rectangles on Linux. Maybe? No good code comments, and I've not searched
the Google Groups.

Do you want to make a PR that removes it? We can then get some testing across OSes.

Rob

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[Sean Fitzpatrick]

I'll test on Linux when I'm back in my office next week, to make sure things work ok without it. 

I might not get to it right away. Classes start on Wednesday (I'm not exactly prepared) and I've got search committee and PROTEUS work waiting for me, too 

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[Sean Fitzpatrick]

I shouldn't trust Google's AI overview, but:

- it allows images to build in a minimized window (in the background) when running in batch mode (good when you have lots of images to build and other work to do)

- it's only useful for certain graphics drivers

- unless the AI was trained on my own posts, I'm not the only one who has encountered blank images on Windows 

It sounds like something that would ideally be a user option, but I'm not sure how hard it would be to implement that.