[be] [task #8017] use/allow xetex as formatter

[Dennis Drescher]

Follow-up Comment #9, task #8017 (project bibledit):

I'm glad the information was helpful. As for what's BE's role in publishing I
would have to say that what you have now would seem to be adequate. If you
were to move toward using XeTeX/ptx2pdf as your renderer you would have a very
big task on your hands and I don't think the return would be that good.

It is unclear to me why UBS decided to go this route with PTX. I'm not
complaining though, this has caused UBS to contribute a lot to the ptx2pdf
macro package by way of documentation. That has been a very good thing. Had
you asked your question a year ago I would have had much less information to
share with you.

I think BE needs to provide the user with basic output so that the content
can be proofed, not published. Publishing Scripture text is a whole other
process and expecting an editor to do that is really not realistic. Instead, I
feel BE should be a tool that helps the author focus on content development
and leave formating to other applications.

I hope it wasn't me who submitted the original request on this. If so, I'm
certainly changing my mind now. In the original request it says "ptx2pdf
macros provides a very powerful and easy to use and configure formatter". I
use it every day in my work and I would have to disagree with that statement.
It is complicated. I'm working on a package (ptxplus) that will hide the
complications from the user but there's a long way to go on that. If this kind
of system were to be folded into BE I think BE would be moving down the
"bloat-ware" path, IMO.

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