Re: SLopUF: Sumatra and issue 635 (pdf locking)

[Bertalan Fodor]

LilyPondTool's PDF viewer solves this problem by automatically closing the file 
when compiling.

Bert

> ------- Original Message -------
> From: "Robin Bannister" <address@hidden>
> To: "lilypond-user" <address@hidden>
> Sent: 08/08/23/, 12:11:43
> Subject: SLopUF:  Sumatra and issue 635 (pdf locking)
> 
> 2.10.33 on Win XP SP3
> 
> I started using XP for Lilypond work about half a year ago, 
> leaving behind 2.8.6. on Win98, where I had had Adobe Reader for 
> viewing pdf output. 
> I thought being on XP might offer the chance of finding a viewer 
> which didn't get in the way of Lilypond generating its pdf.
> 
> In the wikipedia entry for SumatraPDF it said 
> > .. unlike other PDF viewers it does not lock the PDF file. 
> So I tried 0.8, but it blocked Lilypond just the same. 
> So did 0.7, but at least it seemed more stable. 
> 
> And I continued working rather like on Win98: 
>  - double click on 1.ly (my invariant filename) 
>  - File > Close in Sumatra 0.7
>  - wait for console window (Ghostscript) to come and go 
>  - drag (the new) 1.pdf onto Sumatra
> i.e. the usual mouse drudgery, but there were two benefits:
>  - Sumatra usually applied the old position and zoom to the new file
>  - using Adobe for other things didn't interfere with my Lilypond work
> 
> The irritation remained: why must this be, when at the same time 
> Lilypond is not bothered by the log file being left open in notepad? 
> The discussion re issue 635 [1] reminded me of this, and a week ago 
> I revisited Sumatra and saw that it now offered automatic reloading, 
> i.e. indirectly reaffirming that you didn't have to close to allow updates. 
> I thought of testing this using Windows Explorer and found that Sumatra 
>  - doesn't let you drag or delete the file (whereas notepad does) 
>  - but does let you overwrite it (as when dropping with +). 
> I later found this distinction confirmed on the Sumatra forum [2]. 
> 
> So an effective workaround is to point Sumatra to a different file, 
> e.g. viewer.pdf, and overwrite this when Lilypond is finished (like [3]):
> > copy 1.pdf viewer.pdf
> 
> The high-powered variant of this involves disabling 
> >    (if (access? pdf-name W_OK) 
> >        (delete-file pdf-name)) 
> as in issue 635, letting Lilypond do the overwriting (of 1.pdf) itself. 
> 
> This may be sufficient for some; things are now nicely streamlined. 
> But I don't like the way the view gets out of sync when Lilypond aborts 
> early due to a syntax error or somesuch. I might be distracted while waiting 
> for the console window and the Sumatra refresh, and then think that my 
> latest edit (e.g. an override) hadn't changed anything. 
> So I recommend making the state of progress more obvious by doing
> > del 1.pdf
> > copy dummy.pdf viewer.pdf
> before starting Lilypond, dummy.pdf being chosen as obviously different. 
> 
> 
> [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2008-06/msg00088.html
> [2] http://forums.fofou.org/sumatrapdf/topic?id=4933 
> [3] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2006-07/msg00453.html
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Robin
> 
> r3b
> 
> 
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