On Wed 15 Jan 2020 at 06:11:47 (+0000), Russell L. Harris wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 11:28:02PM -0600, David Wright wrote:
> > As soon as I switched to pdflatex, I started using a blink comparator
> > technique (between two fvwm viewports) which depends on one of the
> > PDF renderings remaining unchanged while the other (same PDF) is
> > updated (with r) each time the source is reprocessed. xdvi would
> > make that near impossible.
>
> David, The technique sounds interesting; I should give it a try.
> Where is it documented? Must I start using fvwm?
I'm not sure, because I haven't been adventurous in trying out other
window managers (leaving aside DEs). I once tried xfwm4, and obviously
I played with twm in the last century when I first used X.
The method is simple, like most of my techniques, and is limited to
working on one page at a time, and using xpdf (or any viewer that can
be coerced into not refreshing).
Open the source file in an editor¹, process the source to produce a
PDF (either in an xterm² or with the editor's compile directive),
view the PDF⁴. ¹ ² and ⁴ are fvwm viewports as shown below, which can
be instantly switched between with ⊞ → ← ↑ ↓ (my bindings).
Make changes in the source, reprocess, and view the PDF in ³.
Switching back and forth between ³ and ⁴ gives you the blink
comparator effect. Make more changes in the source, reprocess,
and hit r in ³ so that ³ stays up to date but ⁴ is unchanged.
|¹editor window |²xterm for processing |³PDF up-to-date |⁴PDF original |
←—————→
I find this useful when fine-tuning small cosmetic changes.
For example, the positions of "kam die" and "world made" in the
attached are a visual compromise, because these words apply to
notes that are necessarily out of alignment.
Cheers,
David.
