[Ipe-discuss] LaTeX runs -> temporary files

[Andreas Keil]

Hi Otfried,

thanks a lot for this absolutely great tool! I am surprised that it took me
about 10 years of LaTeX'ing for stumbling upon it...

I have one minor feature request regarding the LaTeX runs performed by Ipe
for typesetting text and formulae:
Would it be possible to make the name of the temporary LaTeX file
configurable using prefs.lua or an environment variable? I managed to make
Ipe run LaTeX from the current directory (setting IPELATEXDIR to "./"). This
enables me to include LaTeX files in the preamble relatively to the current
image/directory (like \input{packages}). However, since Ipe names the temp
file "text.tex" there could be a conflict with a TeX file with the same name
already existing in the current directory. It would therefore be nice if one
could specify the temp file's name (maybe including subfolders so that we
could e.g. process ./ipetmp/ipetmp.tex).

The problem of enabling relative \input paths in Ipe drawings could also be
handled in two other ways:
- A simpler solution than proposed above would be to just modify the
apparently hard-coded "text.tex" to sth. less ambiguous like "ipetmp.tex".
- Another solution would be if Ipe would by default run in the currently
opened image's directory (using a temporary file name like
<imageprefix>-ipetmp.tex). The temporary files could be a bit disturbing if
left behind in this case. They should probably be removed by Ipe
automatically whenever a file is closed in Ipe (since they shouldn't be
needed for debugging anymore anyhow). This second "solution" would, however,
mean considerable work and changes on your side and might not suit
everyone's needs. I just proposed it for completeness.

Another question I have (out of curiosity): Did you ever think about
optionally not storing rendered glyphs in the pdf/eps files but instead rely
on the font definitions (either by embedding or by assuming they'd be there,
e.g. after inclusion in a LaTeX document)? I know that embedding would make
the files larger whereas not embedding without glyph rendering would make
the files non-self-contained. However, there might be applications for this
- but I may be wrong...

OK, let's finish this lengthy e-mail. Thanks again for this wonderful piece
of software!

Cheers,
Andreas.