Hello,
In tex/latex bundled in fedora (I guess it comes from tetex and it is now in texlive) there is a simple system to view documentation. The files are found below /usr/share/texmf/doc using kpathsea (so hopefully rapidly) and opened using the appropriate application (currently using xdg-open for everything...).
In fedora should we use this system and put the doc files below /usr/share/texmf/doc/ or use %doc?
-- Pat
On Tuesday 15 January 2008 16:03:28 Patrice Dumas wrote:
Hello,
In tex/latex bundled in fedora (I guess it comes from tetex and it is now in texlive) there is a simple system to view documentation. The files are found below /usr/share/texmf/doc using kpathsea (so hopefully rapidly) and opened using the appropriate application (currently using xdg-open for everything...).
In fedora should we use this system and put the doc files below /usr/share/texmf/doc/ or use %doc?
Notice that this is in line with other languages, the documentation for R packages (as an example) in under the R tree. I would like to favour the texmf tree as the natural packaging place of latex documentation.
The package that started this discussion is the review https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=428686
I would like to use this package to be an example to draft the fedora (la)tex package guidelines. Sooner or later we need them and now is good time. :-)
Notice that the package follows the consensus on this list in August, naming the package as tex-simplecv.
All feedback is welcome. :-)
-- Pat
On Tue, Jan 15, 2008 at 04:25:49PM +0000, José Matos wrote:
In fedora should we use this system and put the doc files below /usr/share/texmf/doc/ or use %doc?
Notice that this is in line with other languages, the documentation for R packages (as an example) in under the R tree. I would like to favour the texmf tree as the natural packaging place of latex documentation.
Anybody else has an advice?
-- Pat
On 21/01/2008, Patrice Dumas pertusus@free.fr wrote:
On Tue, Jan 15, 2008 at 04:25:49PM +0000, José Matos wrote:
In fedora should we use this system and put the doc files below /usr/share/texmf/doc/ or use %doc?
Notice that this is in line with other languages, the documentation for R packages (as an example) in under the R tree. I would like to favour the texmf tree as the natural packaging place of latex documentation.
Anybody else has an advice?
My feeling is we want to make it as easy as possible for users to find the docs they need. Adding lots of different locations really is counter to that desire, and we should strive to keep docs in one location.
However If we're going down the /usr/share/texmf/doc route, I guess we could just have a symlink from /usr/share/doc/tex to /usr/share/texmf/doc as a best of both worlds fix.
j.
Jonathan Underwood wrote:
On 21/01/2008, Patrice Dumas pertusus@free.fr wrote:
On Tue, Jan 15, 2008 at 04:25:49PM +0000, José Matos wrote:
In fedora should we use this system and put the doc files below /usr/share/texmf/doc/ or use %doc?
Notice that this is in line with other languages, the documentation for R packages (as an example) in under the R tree. I would like to favour the texmf tree as the natural packaging place of latex documentation.
Anybody else has an advice?
My feeling is we want to make it as easy as possible for users to find the docs they need. Adding lots of different locations really is counter to that desire, and we should strive to keep docs in one location.
I also favor this reasoning but I know that we presently have other examples of documentation following a different upstream convention (For instance, ruby gems). In addition, this case may be more like man, info, or ghelp than like ruby gems.
One thing I'd like to ask about from the original post:: In tex/latex bundled in fedora (I guess it comes from tetex and it is now in texlive) there is a simple system to view documentation.
What is this "simple system"? We do have a rule that nothing marked as %doc should break an application if it is not present on the system. If this help system is integrated into applications (like ghelp for gnome) then this would count under that rule. If it's more like man and info pages then we'd want them to be marked as doc even if they are located somewhere other than %{_docdir}.
-Toshio
On 21/01/2008, Toshio Kuratomi a.badger@gmail.com wrote:
One thing I'd like to ask about from the original post:: In tex/latex bundled in fedora (I guess it comes from tetex and it is now in texlive) there is a simple system to view documentation.
What is this "simple system"? We do have a rule that nothing marked as %doc should break an application if it is not present on the system. If this help system is integrated into applications (like ghelp for gnome) then this would count under that rule. If it's more like man and info pages then we'd want them to be marked as doc even if they are located somewhere other than %{_docdir}.
In theory, to get documentation on any tex package, you type "texdoc <package>". The system then looks in texmf/tex/doc/ for <package>.{pdf,html,ps,dvi,...} and loads it in the appropriate viewer.
This doesn't always work, for example with packages whose documentation isn't named after the package, but that's the theory. More information at http://linux.die.net/man/1/texdoc or http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/entries/texdoc.html
MEF
On Mon, Jan 21, 2008 at 07:15:30PM +0000, Mary Ellen Foster wrote:
On 21/01/2008, Toshio Kuratomi a.badger@gmail.com wrote:
One thing I'd like to ask about from the original post:: In tex/latex bundled in fedora (I guess it comes from tetex and it is now in texlive) there is a simple system to view documentation.
What is this "simple system"? We do have a rule that nothing marked as %doc should break an application if it is not present on the system. If this help system is integrated into applications (like ghelp for gnome) then this would count under that rule. If it's more like man and info pages then we'd want them to be marked as doc even if they are located somewhere other than %{_docdir}.
In theory, to get documentation on any tex package, you type "texdoc <package>". The system then looks in texmf/tex/doc/ for <package>.{pdf,html,ps,dvi,...} and loads it in the appropriate viewer.
This doesn't always work, for example with packages whose documentation isn't named after the package, but that's the theory. More information at http://linux.die.net/man/1/texdoc or http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/entries/texdoc.html
There are two tools for browsing documentation actually, texdoc and texdoctk. The both are now packaged in texlive-doc subpackage. The texdoctk provides a nice GUI where one can navigate to a particular part of docs.
If we want to move docs anywhere else than to $TEXMFMAIN/doc, we need to rework texdoctk a bit as it expects in its configuration file (texdocrc.defaults) a path to documentation relative to the main texmf tree. It's not worth the effort IMO, as $TEXMFMAIN/doc has always been a directory where to put documentation so more things could break if we change that.
Jindrich
On Mon, Jan 21, 2008 at 08:12:32AM -0800, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
location.
I also favor this reasoning but I know that we presently have other examples of documentation following a different upstream convention (For instance, ruby gems). In addition, this case may be more like man, info, or ghelp than like ruby gems.
One thing I'd like to ask about from the original post:: In tex/latex bundled in fedora (I guess it comes from tetex and it is now in texlive) there is a simple system to view documentation.
What is this "simple system"? We do have a rule that nothing marked as %doc should break an application if it is not present on the system. If this help system is integrated into applications (like ghelp for gnome) then this would count under that rule. If it's more like man and info pages then we'd want them to be marked as doc even if they are located somewhere other than %{_docdir}.
It is more like info pages (and see the other response for more in-depth explanations...), and should be marked as %doc. And they are rightly marked as %doc in packages that installs them here (texlive, for example).
-- Pat
Patrice Dumas wrote:
On Mon, Jan 21, 2008 at 08:12:32AM -0800, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
location.
I also favor this reasoning but I know that we presently have other examples of documentation following a different upstream convention (For instance, ruby gems). In addition, this case may be more like man, info, or ghelp than like ruby gems.
One thing I'd like to ask about from the original post:: In tex/latex bundled in fedora (I guess it comes from tetex and it is now in texlive) there is a simple system to view documentation.
What is this "simple system"? We do have a rule that nothing marked as %doc should break an application if it is not present on the system. If this help system is integrated into applications (like ghelp for gnome) then this would count under that rule. If it's more like man and info pages then we'd want them to be marked as doc even if they are located somewhere other than %{_docdir}.
It is more like info pages (and see the other response for more in-depth explanations...), and should be marked as %doc. And they are rightly marked as %doc in packages that installs them here (texlive, for example).
Sounds good. FWIW, I think %{_datadir}/texmf/doc is fine.
-Toshio
Just a note that R essentially has an internal documentation browsing system, and as far as I know it has not been our policy to dictate where applications keep their internal help files, even if those files are in standard formats. So perhaps R is not the best example to use here.
- J<
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