Re: [AUCTeX] how to use the git repository to obtain the latest aucTeX?

[Tassilo Horn]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

>>>> Why don't people read it?
>>
>> I think most people have the assumption that when specifying a
>> --prefix, then everything will be underneath that.
>
> Then perhaps we should just do that and just print a prominent warning
> when the result will not work without additional user-level
> configuration.

That would be preferrable, IMHO.

>> The config.log suggests that's the case because the directory is not
>> in load-path.  But how could I add that to load-path given that
>> configure calls emacs with --batch which implies -q?
>
> It does not imply --no-site-init IIRC.

Yes, but the site startup file has to be on the standard emacs load
path.  Here it's in /etc/emacs/, but it could also be in
/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp.  And that's where the user probably has no
permissions.  And it would be strange to edit a global config file in
order to get a single-user install working.

> At any rate: while there was a wagonload of work invested in that
> area, it would appear that some of that meets the label "too clever".

Seems so, especially wrt the single-user install.  AUCTeX is the only
elisp package I know that you can't just unpack/clone, optionally
configure & make and then add that directory to load-path and be done.

Well, you actually can using

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setq TeX-data-directory "~/Repos/el/auctex"
      TeX-lisp-directory TeX-data-directory
      preview-datadir (expand-file-name "preview" TeX-data-directory)
      preview-lispdir preview-datadir)

(eval-after-load 'info
  '(add-to-list 'Info-directory-list "~/Repos/el/auctex/doc"))

(load "~/Repos/el/auctex/auctex.el" nil t t)
(load "~/Repos/el/auctex/preview/preview-latex.el" nil t t)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

but that's of course inofficial, unsupported, undocumented.
Nevertheless, it works fine for me, and is less hassle than the
documented way.  I wonder if it would make sense to document that
instead of the current advice for user-installs in the docs.

Bye,
Tassilo