Re: [a new branch?] (was: Output to directory patch)

[Al Haji-Ali]

Hello Mose,

On 25/02/2021, Mosè Giordano wrote:
> Sorry, but I don't buy this argument.  LaTeX isn't unique in producing
> intermediate and final files after a build.  Building any non-trivial
> C/C++ programs involves using a complex build system which would
> generate lots of build files (makefiles, ninja, etc...), in addition
> to the compiled files.  Some build systems make it easy to to the
> build in a different directory than that where the source is, but one
> of the main points is to easily delete those files.  However, it's
> also easy to clean up all LaTeX intermediate and final files from
> within AUCTeX, and you can ignore them in your VCS, if that's your
> concern.  So in the end I don't see how this feature is so
> fundamental, as nice as it is.
>
I agree that the feature is not fundamental, but it is convenient (at least to 
me) and makes my workflow much nicer. For example, I often have single file tex 
projects that I can now put in a single directory and have all the output files 
neatly packed in a sub-directory.

With that being said, this feature might be for OCD people like me who are 
obsessed about their file structure so I understand if ultimately it ends up on 
a public repository or a branch for others to install when they want to.

> If implementing this feature in a clean and robust way was easy, it'd
> have happened years ago, well before my attempt in 2013.
>
I can't say as to why this feature was not implemented before, but it does 
seems to work very well for me at least (and Uwe I believe). AUCTeX is mature 
and complex and has many features, so it will take time for a new feature to be 
fully implemented in all aspects. I also don't use most of AUCTeX features so I 
am hoping that other members of the community will give feedback, like Ikumi, 
and I will do my best to fix any problems.

I don't see any fundamental problems in AUCTeX that would prevent it from 
exposing this feature that is implemented in many tex tools, so I am not sure 
what stopped your attempt. One thing that I can say is that there were some 
tools (IIRC bibtex is one of them) which did not implement the functionality 
correctly in TeXLive 2016. When I implemented this, I had to update to TeXLive 
2020 to make sure everything works as expected (I haven't traced which TeXLive 
version fixed the issues). It could also be that other distributions like 
MikTeX are problematic. Perhaps this is what you are referring to?

On 25/02/2021, Ikumi Keita wrote:
> I'll take a look, but I'm not currently inclined to incorporate it...
I hope you can reconsider or tell me what it would take to have the feature 
incorporated.

In any case, at least as long as I am using AUCTeX, I will update my repo to 
rebase to master for others to use the feature.

Best regards,
-- Al