Re: [Texmacs-dev] Re: configure flag for our design recovery tool?

[Joris van der Hoeven]

> On Thu, Jul 25, 2002 at 06:20:54PM +1000, Amir Michail wrote:
> >
> > I was wondering whether you would consider adding a configure
> > flag for our design recovery tool (perhaps --drt?).
> 
> I am rather *for* supporting any external tool, but I am not convinced
> that putting explicit support into texmacs is the right way to go.

I agree with David; we should provide you with appropriate make options
which will enable you to support your external tool.

> > Basically, to get it to work with TeXmacs, several things are needed:
> > 
> > * compile with -g and -finstrument-functions
> 
> That can be supported easily by a new CXXDEBUG variable in the
> makefile.
> 
> Joris: Since all platforms should set it to none, I do not think it
> is required to support it explicitely in the configure.

Maybe we should rather add CXXEXTRA and LDEXTRA variables.

> > * link with our tracer code (this involves adding our obj file to the
> > link)
> 
> Well, one can also support that with an additional variable.
> 
> In the end you would say:
> 
>     To compile texmacs with DRT support, type:
> 
>         ./configure
>       make CXXDEBUG="-g -finstrument-functions" \
>              EXTRA_OBJ=~/path/to/tracer.o

I would prefer LDEXTRA; this would allow you to specify
addional libraries and so.

> > * make the cursor color 254,1,1 instead of 255,0,0 (we use 254,1,1
> >   to track the cursor to identify the focus of the user during a demo
> >   of the app; 255,0,0 is likely to clash with other aspects of the
> > display such as the icons.
> 
> I do not think that is the right solution. Maybe we should instead
> use hidden (meaning not visible in the GUI) preferences options for
> the cursor and environment box colors. That way, TeXmacs could be
> reconfigured by script using the -b option and some piece of Scheme
> like:
> 
>     (set-preference "text caret color" '(254,1,1))
>     (set-preference "math caret color" '(254,1,1))
>     (quit-TeXmacs)
> 
> But that is not very good either since there would be no obvious way
> for the user to revert the preferences back to the default.

Yes, I plan to add support for changing colors in the Settings menu,
but later, because we do not have a good color picker yet and
I would prefer TeXmacs to be ported to a new GUI toolkit first.

> Another option would be to let DRT start TeXmacs as:
> 
>     texmacs -b /path/to/drt/texmacs-config.scm
> 
> where the texmacs-config.scm would look like:
> 
>     (load-init-file) ; user or system, based on usual heuristic
>     (set-text-caret-color-rgb 254 1 1)) ; these will be built-in ...
>     (set-math-caret-color-rgb 254 1 1)) ; ... functions of texmacs.
>     ; now, let texmacs run with customized colors
> 
> Indeed that would be the best from the TeXmacs point of view.

I agree.

[David: please check that Amir suscribed]