Re: new beta: 2.96.1.20040322

[ hope you don't mind if I add tetex-pretest to the CC list,
  since others may want to follow this discussion as well ]
  
Reinhard Kotucha <[email protected]> writes:

> suppose you have several machines in your local network with different
> monitors with different screen resolutions.

> I configured emacs to open a window which fits on the screen with the
> lowest resolution.  This works very well because emacs doesn't modify
> its configuration files.

> Netscape, however, remembers its geometry.  That is extremely
> annoying.  If I used it on a high resolution device and resized the
> window to fit the screen, I had a lot of trouble when I logged in
> again from a machine with a low res monitor because I couldn't access
> all the four corners of the window.

OK, the current version doesn't save the geometry any more.

> IMHO it is wrong to modify a config file without asking the user
> whether he really wants it.

Agreed, but that's the reason why I had to use a file different
from ~/.Xdefaults. I think if you change one of the values in
the GUI (e.g. `use TeXPages', or `show toolbar' in the Motif
version), the expected behaviour is that this change is
persistent. (In the next Motif version, there will be a
Preferences dialog where you can customize more things, e.g.
colors of hyperlinks, which will be stored there as well).

It would be possible to have two `classes' of changes,
non-persistent one and persistent ones (the `Preferences'), but
then we would need to duplicate some options, eg. have a Menu
`Shrink factor', and a Preference `Set the default shrink
factor'. So I decided to not introduce such different classes,
and just save all values for the next session. If you change some
values (e.g. shrink) frequently anyway, saving them should at
least reduce the likelihood that you need to change them while
you view (work on) the same document for a certain time.

(For a quick overview of what may be stored currently if you
change the value in the GUI, you can do:
$ grep 'store_user_preference' texk/xdvik/*.c texk/xdvik/gui/*.c
)

> I'm even not so happy with the fact that we have two config files
> (~/.xdvirc and ~/.Xdefaults).  This may lead to confusion.

See above; BTW, gv does it the same way (~/.gv) - did it ever get
in your way? I would think most users wouldn't even realize it ;-)

More advanced users who want to control everything via
~~/.Xresources could still do:
$ alias xdvi="xdvi -q"
or empty~/.xdvirc and chmod it to 000.

And since it will only save those resources that were changed in
the session, there shouldn't be too many clashes. I'd suggest to
try out the current version for a while, and see how it works in
practice.

Best,
Stefan