[Ipe-discuss] LaTeX runs -> temporary files

[T T]

On 4 March 2010 15:47, Andreas Keil <andreas.keil at cs.tum.edu> wrote:
> 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.

You can also set TEXINPUTS variable, which defines directories
searched for tex input files (add trailing colon or semicolon,
depending on the your system, to append the standard search path). And
this doesn't require any changes to Ipe.

Cheers,

Tomek