[Axiom-developer] RE: windows/linux coherency

[michel . lavaud]

Hello Bill,

Back with good ol' 33k modem...

On 20 Dec 2004 at 18:18, Page, Bill wrote:

> Yes, either alternative would be easy to implement in tm_axiom.
> Would you consider manually setting or changing an environment
> variable "too difficult" for the average Windows user? 

Too difficult? No, I think (at least from 10 years experience with AsTeX) that 
it's 
sufficient to indicate the procedure in the user's manual and recall it 
eventually in a 
FAQ. The discussion list can solve last problems for those who don't read 
manuals 
and don't know all options of Windows. The only potential problem I would see 
is to 
know whether user's modifications can be harmful or not : for env vars, I think 
they 
can't because there is a well-defined procedure in Windows to modify them that 
avoids regedit, and because TM_AXIOM is a  variable specific to AXIOM (e.g. 
modifying the PATH env var could be considered as more "dangerous", as it is 
shared by many other programs). 

If not
> then I think that is the best way to go. I can arrange to set
> this variable to some default during installation on Windows.
> How would you control this when running Axiom directly from
> CD?

At installation time. It is possible to enter this as a new key in the 
registry, or in 
autoexec.bat. And if there will be an axiom.ini, it would be possible to read 
it from 
the installed axiom.ini.
 
> I agree that it is undesirable to put all of Axiom in a
> sub-directory of the TeXmacs tree.
> 
> If the new tm_axiom consults the TM_AXIOM environment variable
> and finds
> 
>   TM_AXIOM=texbreaker:n
> 
> then it can be made to behave exactly the way the cygwin
> tm_axiom does now.

Great! I downloaded the latest version and it reads OK the parameter value. 
Maybe 
it would be useful to add in the doc that it is necessary to got out of TeXmacs 
and 
rerun it, to take into account a modification?

Unfortunately, it seems that it is still necessary that axiomsys.exe be either 
in the 
PATH or in the texmacs/plugins/axiom/bin directory. I succeeded in making 
nevertheless Axiom run inside TeXmacs and keeping axiomsys.exe in the Axiom 
tree, by adding an axiomsys.bat in the TeXmacs\plugins\axiom\bin directory, 
then 
changing the bat extension into exe extension, but it's a rather dirty and 
temporary 
hack. I think it would be better if tm_axiom could find the true binary 
axiomsys.exe 
from $AXIOM\bin.

I am sorry to insist on having (if possible) axiomsys.exe NOT run from the 
PATH.  I 
know it's rather orthogonal to the usual practice on Unixes, but on these 
systems 
there is a superuser that is supposed to "know" and install everything cleanly. 
On 
Windows, users often install themeselves, and they can install different 
versions or 
different distributions of a given program, so that, if several binaries with 
the same 
name are in the PATH, it can produce very strange results. This is a classical 
problem e.g. for TeX distributions (and I solved the pb in AsTeX in this way, 
so that 
it is compatible with all other TeX installations, even if they use the PATH).

- For the "l" and "c" parameters in Sutor's output, these are the "left" and 
"center" 
parameters of the array environment. In Sutor's output, the "l" is used, but it 
is 
rendered centered inside TeXmacs, as if the "c" parameter was used instead, so  
I 
suspect it is a bug in TeXmacs import filter.

- For the output with nested arrays (in the example with -1/3 power), the 
structure is 
the following:

begin array
- 
   begin array 
     text
    \\
    \\
    text
  end array
text
end array

I think it ought to be either

begin array
- 
   \left( begin array 
     text
    \\
    \\
    text
  end array\righ)
text
end array

to be correct, and I supposed that, if the original form was intended (i.e. 
with no \left( 
and \right)) then probably it ought to be

begin array
- 
   begin array 
     text
    \\
    text
  end array
    \\
ext
end array

i.e. the second \\ in the first array would seem to be incorrectly placed.

Another reason I would suppose the original form is not what was intended : the 
motivation for using a LaTeX array seems to be to break a long line into 
several 
small ones. So :

- if one breaks a long part into 3,
- and then adds the sequel after the block of 3 lines on the same line,

it seems rather contradictory ?  But of course, it is just a supposition.

Your last question, about the possibility to run TeXmacs + Axiom directly from 
the 
CD : yes, it works with apparently no problem (although I did not test it very 
much).

And a last point about axiom.ts : I think there might be a problem on Windows : 
the 
type is still written just after the number of the formula, not on the next 
line. Is your 
modified axiom.ts supposed to write it on the next line, or did I understand 
you 
incorrectly? (sorry, I don't write from my PC, I answer just from memory - it 
might be 
deficient :-))

Best wishes ,
Michel