On Jun 4, 2010, at 10:53, David Baumgold wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 11:46 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>> 
>> On Jun 4, 2010, at 10:31, [email protected] wrote:
>> 
>>> Revision: 68483
>>>          http://trac.macports.org/changeset/68483
>>> Author:   [email protected]
>>> Date:     2010-06-04 08:31:28 -0700 (Fri, 04 Jun 2010)
>>> Log Message:
>>> -----------
>>> updated LaTeXiT to v2.2.0, added dependency on pdftex, along with variant 
>>> to specify external pdftex
>> 
>>> +variant mactex description "If your TeX distribution is MacTeX" {
>>> +     depends_run-delete    bin:pdftex:texlive
>>> +}
>> 
>> I thought the whole point of specifying the texlive dependency using the 
>> bin:-style was so that an external binary such as one from MacTeX could 
>> satisfy it. (I believe the user is assumed to have inserted the path to the 
>> MacTeX programs into the binpath in macports.conf if they want to use 
>> MacTeX.) So I don't think such a variant is necessary here. I've not seen 
>> such a variant in other ports that use TeX.
> 
> So that's why the bin:-style specification alone didn't work for me!
> When I was editing the port, I tested it on my own machine before
> committing it, and although I have MacTeX installed, MacPorts didn't
> find my pdftex. I noticed that it was in /usr/texbin, and I figured
> that wasn't the reason why -- I didn't know that I could add that path
> to a file, much less that I *should*! Where is this documented, and is
> there a good way to point it out to potential users of this port?

I was unable to locate any documentation, for example in the wiki, but I recall 
such discussions on the mailing lists before. A MacPorts wiki page about TeX 
would probably be a good thing for someone to write.


>> I'm not a fan of this variant description either; it doesn't have the 
>> imperative style we use in other variant descriptions. Think of it as a 
>> checkbox in a GUI: you wouldn't write a checkbox label starting with "If". I 
>> guess you just copied this from the auctex port but I don't like it there 
>> either. "Use MacTeX instead of TeX Live" would be how I would describe the 
>> variant, if indeed the variant is necessary.
> 
> Definitely a good point. I did just copy the description from the
> auxtex port, but I like your description better. I'll update the port,
> and we can continue discussing whether the variant is necessary at
> all. (I feel like it is, unless there is some other way to indicate to
> the user that the port can still be installed with MacTeX instead of
> TeX Live.)

In any case, it is a general problem that affects tons of ports, not just 
LaTeXiT. And it's probably the wrong idea to try to modify each of those ports 
to deal with the situation; we should deal with it at the source. Which is 
either in the texlive port, or one of its dependencies (texlive_base? 
texlive_texmf-minimal? texlive_texmf-full?). Whichever port is picked could be 
modified to print a message before in pre-configure, referring users to the 
wiki page that hasn't been written yet. And the wiki page could explain to 
users how to use MacTeX instead.


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