Re: [AUCTeX-devel] Default settings

[David Kastrup]

Uwe Brauer <address@hidden> writes:

>>> "Tassilo" == Tassilo Horn <address@hidden> writes:
>
> Hi Tassilo
>
>    >> I consider direct PDF generation the "basic" option, and going through
>    >> DVI the "technical" alternative that might be required in some
>    >> esoteric situation.
>
>    > Now TeX-PDF-mode is enabled by default.
>
> I agree completely with David, that this is not a good idea, because of 
>
>     -  preview-latex
>
>     -  speed questions.
>
> I usually user dvi for compiling, only if I want to print I use pdflatex.
>
> Please reconsider this default setting you just changed.

I'm not sure actually sure whether or not it is a good idea: I actually
have it set to t myself.  I was just contesting the reasoning.  The
active development on preview-latex happened at a time when core
developers used 166MHz CPUs.  As a result, the interactive response of
preview-latex even in PDF mode is pretty good: it prioritizes on-screen
material, so you get sort of an xroach-like effect when going through a
preview-latexed document on a slow computer: after every change of the
view, the on-screen images assemble quickly.  For large documents with
lots of formulas, this effect persisted for several minutes.

So on a personal rather than a time-shared computer, preview-latex is
not much of an issue (once the initial LaTeX run has completed which
still may easily take twice as long for PDF as for DVI).

For large documents, however, the speed difference of the main run is a
definite difference, and xdvi has better readable rendering and is much
faster than xpdf.

I am currently mostly working on small documents like letters.  PDF mode
as default makes sense there as it corresponds to the typical final
format.

-- 
David Kastrup