Why can't xdvi search for DVI files?
t...@maths.tcd.ie
Wouldn't it make life easier if one could add a DVIPATH to texmf.cnf
listing directories where xdvi, etc, can look for DVI files?
This would make documentation in DVI much easier to access.
ja...@linpro.no
> Wouldn't it make life easier if one could add a DVIPATH to texmf.cnf
> listing directories where xdvi, etc, can look for DVI files?
>
> This would make documentation in DVI much easier to access.
Yes. But that should be the job of a documentation system, not the
document viewer. _You_ can write a shell or perl script that finds the
document in the DVIPATH, and then invokes xdvi on it. Like the Unix
command 'man' does and then invokes more or less or pg or other pager
to show the file.
Xdvi is much to much for too many already.
Nicolai
t...@maths.tcd.ie
> > listing directories where xdvi, etc, can look for DVI files?
>
> document viewer.
By "xdvi" I meant "kxdvi", eg xdvi within teTeX.
Since all the other teTeX programs use kpathsearch to look for files,
it seems entirely logical to me that xdvi should do the same.
This wouldn't in fact require any change to xdvi.
ja...@linpro.no
> > Yes. But that should be the job of a documentation system, not the
> > document viewer.
>
> By "xdvi" I meant "kxdvi", eg xdvi within teTeX.
I assumed as much.
> Since all the other teTeX programs use kpathsearch to look for files,
> it seems entirely logical to me that xdvi should do the same.
>
> This wouldn't in fact require any change to xdvi.
Well, in that case xdvi would already be able to do it ;-)
But, as far as I can tell from kpsewhich a small patchlet would be
required to get kpathsea to search for dvi files first. I'm not that
familiar with kpathsea though.
But I still don't think it should go inside xdvik. Just because
something can be done one way does not mean it should be done that way.
You can use kpsewhich to find dvi files from a shell or perl script
to locate the dvi file. And then invoke xdvi. Call the script texdoc
(analogous to perldoc which looks up perl documentation) or simular.
With some work it can be extended with keyword searches in dvi files
(like man does). A usefull extention would also be to search a
document index in a favourite CTAN mirror and direct xdvik to get and
open the document from there. I would prefer this extention to be
external to xdvik though. I would consider this a worthwhile thing
to have, and I shall look forward to seing these extentions from you.
Nicolai