Robert Dodier writes:
> On 6/10/06, van Nek <van.nek at arcor.de> wrote:
>
>> neither in inti-cl.lisp nor in dir_vars.txt I find the variables
>> offered in ui-tips.shtml.
>> So it seems there is an update necessary.
>
> I agree that the environment variables should be documented,
> but the place to put that is in the texinfo documents.
> We could create a new node named "Environment variables".
>
> Probably we can just cut-n-paste from the man page
> (not ui-tips.shtml) into Runtime.texi.
Yes. And either update ui-tips or drop appropriate
part from it as obsolete.
>> Variables like *maxima-tempdir* and *maxima-userdir*
>> should be available at Maxima level.
>
> Not sure that we should do that. I can see some utility
> of exposing these 2, but there are about 12 more ...
I think Volker's idea to expose these two variables to
user is quite good. Why just these two why not others?
All other variables are different in nature.
They describe Maxima installation layout and essentially
are "static". I hardly can imagine why anyone want reset
their value.
On the other hand *maxima-tempdir* and *maxima-userdir*
are dynamic run-time variables. They depend on concrete
Maxima execution environment. It is quite natural that
user may want to reset them. But I see one trouble
namely - Maxima strings which are essentially symbols.
If we make new Maxima level option variable maxima_tempdir
and set maxima_tempdir:"blah-blah-blah" then value
of $maxima_tempdir will be lisp symbol not lisp string.
I'm not sure that this will work well on all lisp
implementations if blah-blah-blah contain national
characters.
>> In addition to our discussion about postscript plotting
>> one can think about a variable $maxima_gsviewdir
>> for the location of gsview32.exe (ghostview) on Windows,
>> which is false by default and could be set if ghostview is installed.
>
> I don't think we should do this. As I've suggested elsewhere,
> if plot2d/plot3d writes something to a file, Maxima shouldn't
> try to display it.
>
I agree. BTW GhostView for Windows is no longer free, isn't it?
Even more GhostView is not the only program to view PS
both on Windows and UNIX. At least on Linux I know 3 or 4
alternatives.
--
Vadim V. Zhytnikov
<vvzhy at mail.ru>
<vvzhy at netorn.ru>