Re: [Bug-AUCTeX] images for preview

[David Kastrup]

Tassilo Horn <address@hidden> writes:

> Of course, David is right.  But if you still want to run it in-place,
> you could also set
>
>   (setq preview-datadir (expand-file-name "preview" TeX-data-directory))

There will be always one more problem.  There are generated autoloads,
generated settings, preconfigured mechanisms and locations and so on
that are generated by the install process.

AUCTeX is not intended for running in-place.  You'll need to track down
everything the install process generates and rearranges and design a
substitute for it.

I don't see the point for that.  But it certainly makes more sense to do
that than handhold dozens of people through the process of making AUCTeX
make something it is not intended to do.

AUCTeX has _excellent_ installation instructions and mechanisms covering
a _variety_ of different needs.  I have not seen any evidence that the
available mechanisms and/or their documentation are insufficient for
using AUCTeX.  So the first step should always be to point people to the
documentation pertaining to their use case rather than lending them a
hand for shooting themselves in the foot.

If it can be established beyond reasonable doubt that the available
mechanisms and documentation don't cut it, they need to get extended
accordingly.

But there is _nothing_ gained by helping a dozen people hand-mangling
their installation beyond recognition.  It will come back at you with
hundreds of bug reports by people using their installations or advice
(possibly picked from the mailing list archives by the use of keywords)
and the automated bug reporting mechanisms will report settings and
versions about the configuration of the "installed" package that don't
actually correspond to what the user is using, making it even more of a
gamble of figuring out what went wrong.

-- 
David Kastrup