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TEXDOCTK(1)		     General Commands Manual		     TEXDOCTK(1)

NAME
     texdoctk - GUI for easier access of TeX package and program documentations

SYNOPSIS
     texdoctk -[aq]

DESCRIPTION
     texdoctk  is  a GUI for easier access to a large part of the vast amount of
     package and program documentations and tutorials for TeX and its  different
     derivatives  (mainly  LaTeX). It is optimized and included in the teTeX and
     fpTeX distributions and also available with TeXLive.

     The documentation is grouped into 17 categories; the  18th  button  of  the
     main panel is inactive by default and intended for use with local additions
     (see section CONFIGURATION below).

     In the settings window you see a checkbox in the html->ps and text->ps con-
     verter  menus for switching on/off output redirect. This is due to the fact
     that some converters do not write their output into a file but to stdout by
     default, so a redirect is needed, e.g.

     a2ps myfile.txt >myfile.ps

OPTIONS
     -v     verbose: enable some viewer messages which	are  otherwise	sent  to
	    stderr,  as well as some warning popup windows. This can also be set
	    in a configuration file.

     -a     autoview: autostart viewer if a listbox contains only one item (this
	    will frequently happen in search results). This can also be set in a
	    configuration file.

CONFIGURATION
     The configuration is controlled by the system  default  configuration  file
     ($TEXMFMAIN)/texdoctk/texdocrc.defaults,  most  of whose entries can though
     be overridden by the users' own optional ~/.texdocrc files  and/or  command
     line options.

   The Settings menu and configuration files
     The Settings menu is used to change the user-definable settings of texdoctk
     for the duration of the program call or as new defaults. The latter case is
     the  purpose of the Save button, which generates or rewrites the user's own
     ~/.texdocrc file. The system defaults cannot be edited  with  the	Settings
     menu.

     Paths  The  TEXMF-type  paths  on the system are reported, and the user can
	    specify the name of the subdirectory of $HOMETEXMF, where  the  per-
	    sonal documentation is stored.

     General viewer behaviour

	    Suppress error messages toggle verbose mode (see option -v); default
	    is off.

	    Autostart  viewer  for one-item listboxes if a listbox contains only
	    one item (see option -a)

	    Use text viewer for unknown file format i.e. treat the file as plain
	    text. texdoctk should recognize the usual file formats and also  re-
	    late  names like README to plain text, but some docs may have freely
	    invented names. Default is on; if switched off, trying to view  such
	    files  will  raise an error. The switch does not influence printing:
	    unrecognized formats cannot be printed.

	    Change viewer colours  using  either  RGB  triplets  in  the  format
	    #rrggbb or the standardized names.

     DVI/PostScript/PDF/HTML/Plain text
	    For  text  files, texdoctk provides an own viewer. If this viewer is
	    disabled, but no alternative viewer is specified, texdoctk tries  to
	    read the content of the environment variable $PAGER.

	    If you want to print the documentations, you will need converters to
	    turn non-PS files into PostScript. Here are some suggestions:

	       dvi->ps:   dvips   (is	part   of   teTeX)  (http://www.radical-
	    eye.com/dvips.html)

	     pdf->ps: pdf2ps (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost) or  Acrobat  Reader
	    (http://www.adobe.com)

	     html->ps: html2ps (http://user.it.uu.se/~jan/html2ps.html)

	     plain text->ps: a2ps (http://www-inf.enst.fr/~demaille/a2ps/)

	    The  html->ps and text->ps converter menus for switching on/off out-
	    put redirect.  This is due to the fact that some converters  do  not
	    write  their output into a file but to stdout by default, so a redi-
	    rect is needed, e.g.  a2ps myfile.txt >myfile.ps

     The system-wide configuration  file  is  ($TEXMFMAIN)/texdoctk/texdocrc.de-
     faults and should only be writable by the administrator of the installation
     using  any text editor. The optional user configuration file is ~/.texdocrc
     and can override all but those system settings which affect  the  installa-
     tion  as  a whole. The preferred way of changing it is through the Settings
     menu.

   The databases
     texdoctk comes with  a  default  database	file  ($TEXMFMAIN)/texdoctk/tex-
     doctk.dat with a special format. It is divided into 17 sections correspond-
     ing  to the 17 buttons that are active by default. Each section begins with
     a line

     @section_name

     where section_name is the text as it appears in the button. This  title  is
     followed by the descriptive entries for each documentation, which have this
     format:

     package-label;Short description for listbox (opt. package-name);path in doc
     directory;optional keywords

     (without breaking the line!). Comments (initiated with a #) and empty lines
     are  ignored  by the program. The second field is the text displayed in the
     selection listboxes of texdoctk, and you will usually want to  mention  the
     name  of  the  package in parens along with it; the first field is a unique
     label for the package for internal use of the program which will usually be
     chosen identical to the package name, but can be different if there is more
     than one documentation file coming with a package.

     The administrator will probably install additional packages  in  the  local
     texmf  tree.  The	corresponding documentation can be made accessible by an
     additional database  $TEXMFLOCAL/texdoctk/texdoctk-local.dat.  Furthermore,
     individual users possibly install additional packages in an texmf subdirec-
     tory  of  their $HOME, for which they can make an individual database them-
     selves as $TEXMFHOME/texdoctk/texdoctk-pers.dat. After creating such files,
     texhash must be executed.

     Both types of databases must have the same structure as  the  system  data-
     base, although they need (and should) not include all its sections if there
     are  no additional entries. For example, if the the package foo is added to
     the local tree such that its documentation  file  is  ($TEXMFLOCAL)/doc/la-
     tex/foo/foo.dvi and it is decided that it fits best into the existing cate-
     gory Graphics, texdoctk-local.dat would look like this:

     @Graphics
     foo;Create bells and whistles (foo);latex/foo/foo.dvi;decoration

     The  entry  for  foo  will  then  be appended to the list of entries in the
     Graphics category. The 18th button can be activated in the  same  way,  but
     using  a  new category name; possible entries at the beginning of the data-
     base which have not been assigned to a category will be assigned to the de-
     fault Miscellaneous, making the 18th button active with  that  label.  Note
     that  you	cannot have more than 18 categories; if there are more, only the
     one defined last will appear and be used.

     If the documentation is included in the .sty file instead of a proper docu-
     mentation file, the optional keywords should start with -?- directly  after
     the  semicolon,  where ? is 0, 1, 2 or 3; these are flags which indicate in
     which part of the .sty the instructions are placed and should help texdoctk
     to extract the documentation from the style  and  present	it  without  the
     code, which would normally be of little use.

     0	    no specific place, scattered between the code

     1	    at	end, behind \endinput; some .sty files have well-organized docu-
	    mentation behind the end of the actual code, where TeX  doesn't  see
	    it upon compilation

     2	    at	beginning, terminated by %%%%%%; in some other cases, some usage
	    information is at the beginning of the .sty as a comment  terminated
	    by a line full of %

     3	    as 2, but with a blank line as termination

     See the system database for plenty of examples.

FILES
      $TEXMFMAIN/texdoctk/texdocrc.defaults system-wide configuration file

       ~/.texdocrc  (optional)	personal configuration file; can also be created
     with the Settings menu

      $TEXMFMAIN/texdoctk/texdoctk.dat default database file  for  documentation
     files of the distribution

      $TEXMFLOCAL/texdoctk/texdoctk-local.dat (optional) local database file for
     documentation files

      $TEXMFHOME/texdoctk/texdoctk-pers.dat (optional) personal database file of
     individual users for documentation files

BUGS
     Widget  placement	in  topic  toplevels  becomes  ugly when the toplevel is
     stretched or shrunk.

     The font in the frame labels of the Settings menu are not forced to the de-
     fault font; this will become visible e.g. at hi-res screens, where the  la-
     bel font is not scaled up.

     Netscape  and  Mozilla  error  output will be written to stderr even if the
     quiet mode was set.

AUTHOR
     texdoctk was written by Thomas Ruedas <tr@geol.ku.dk>.

     This manual page was originally written by Adrian Bunk <bunk@fs.tum.de> for
     the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). It  is  now  main-
     tained by Thomas Ruedas.

COPYRIGHT
     Copyright (C) 2000-2004 Thomas Ruedas
     This  is  free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
     warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

								     TEXDOCTK(1)

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