Re: [be] bibledit 4.2 packages are in Debian unstable

[Kim Blewett]

> > either (A) it can detect xetex, and work around it being missing (maybe
> > greying out menu items that *need* xetex?), in which case it does not
> > depend on xetex.
> Bibledit-Gtk gives a message if it does not find xetex, so that the user
> is aware of it and the function that would use it does not work till
> such time that xetex is installed, so Bibledit-Gtk detects it.
>
> Not all users may be able to install xetex, or know how to do it. They
> would have a problem if xetex does not get installed right at the start.
> Xetex is included with the texlive-xetex package, and it is quite a
> sizeable install. And that may be another problem too if disk space is
> short.
From my somewhat limited experience with Xetex and greater experience 
with BE's built-in print processor, I don't think the "average Roman 
script user" needs the Xetex print processor; I'm guessing that it's 
there for specialized script needs. The standard processor works fine 
for printing simple drafts in Roman scripts, and there doesn't seem to 
be much assistance in BE with customizing the formatting using either 
processor.

If a GUI with more print formatting options could be developed, I 
imagine that the Xetex print option would offer better control, but the 
average translator doesn't know how to use Xetex so its power is beyond 
our reach.

So I would recommend against packaging Xetex as a BE dependency, please, 
especially since it is a big install.

Kim