[Axiom-developer] LatexWiki image path names, Axiom library code and

[Bill Page]

Bob.

On Saturday, July 10, 2004 3:49 PM you wrote:

> I wrote:
> > ... and then some changes in the Axiom interface code
> > to use the right method to get the full path names. 
> > Phew!
> 
> 0.32 will use the full path for the LocalFS images/ by 
> default.  Is there anything I need to fix here?

No, what you wrote in LatexWiki is fine. I just had solved the
path name problem a little differently while getting the
previous version to work and I did not recognize the difference
in my code at first. And I didn't have adequate error checking.

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While on the subject of image path names, I would like to
propose a change in the way the LocalFS directory is set up
and in the image URLs. What we have now is

  http://computer/path/images/name.png

In the URL what I would like to see is this

  http://computer/images/path/name.png


In other words, we should move the "images" directory *before*
the path rather than after it the way it appears now and the
corresponding file name should include the path. It would be

  workingDir/LatexWiki/path/name.png

Only the LatexWiki directory, and the LocalFS name 'images'
which maps to it, need to be created at installation time
(as it is now). But if the additional directories in
workingDir/LatexWiki/path do not yet exist, then I they
should to be automatically created.  This would mean that
sub-directory structure of workingDir/LatexWiki in the file
system would match the corresponding structure in Zope. PNG
files would be located in the directory corresponding to
the folder where the Zwiki page resides that references them.
In a environment (such as Plone) where there might be many
different folders containing wiki pages, this allows the
images to be grouped into smaller more efficient groups.

But more importantly for Axiom, the images directory is also
where the compiled library files are saved. Having a sub-
directory corresponding to each user or system folder that
contains an wiki page with Axiom library code would insure
that all of these environments saw their own working
environments - allowing different users to create and
maintain different versions of library packages with the
same name.

Another thing related thing that I am planning to do is
to enable the Apache front-end (which currently talks to
Zope by reverse proxy) to access the PNG files in the images
directory directly via a rewrite rule. This is quite easy
and would likely lead to a large improvement in the speed
of delivery of the images. This way we take advantage of
the fact that we actually store the images in the file
system rather than in the ZopeDB.

> ... 
> Your site is generating different images than mine, despite 
> the fact that the parameters are the same.  What version of 
> ghostscript and PIL do you have?  Compare:
>     http://mcelrath.org:9674/Plone2/UserOptions
>     http://axiom-developer.org:9080/Members/mcelrath/UserOptions
> as you indicate, your site is making images that are a 
> slightly different size, and have different amount of space 
> around the letters. I have ghostscript 7.07 on one computer 
> and 7.07.1 on another (and the images those two generate are 
> identical).

Yes, I see the difference. It is especially obvious in Mozilla.

> 
> ...
> This is not a zope or plone problem, as the images we are
> generating are different.  It must be one of: latex, dvips,
> ghostscript, or PIL.

Here are the versions I am using:

address@hidden page]$ gs -v
GNU Ghostscript 7.05 (2002-04-22)
Copyright (C) 2002 artofcode LLC, Benicia, CA.  All rights reserved.

address@hidden page]$ latex -v
TeX (Web2C 7.3.1) 3.14159
kpathsea version 3.3.1
Copyright (C) 1999 D.E. Knuth.
Kpathsea is copyright (C) 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
There is NO warranty.  Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the TeX copyright and
the GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the files
named COPYING and the TeX source.
Primary author of TeX: D.E. Knuth.
Kpathsea written by Karl Berry and others.

address@hidden page]$ dvips -v
This is dvips(k) 5.86 Copyright 1999 Radical Eye Software
(www.radicaleye.com)

address@hidden page]$ /usr/bin/python2.3 -V
Python 2.3.3

address@hidden page]$ ls -d Im*
Imaging-1.1.4  Imaging-1.1.4.tar.gz

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Regards,
Bill Page.