Re: [AUCTeX] New commands to activate AUCTeX?

[David Kastrup]

Uwe Siart <address@hidden> writes:

> the AUCTeX manual now says:
>
> ,----[ (info "(auctex)Installation under MS Windows") ]
> |  10. Run `make install' in the installation directory.
> | 
> |  11. With XEmacs, AUCTeX and preview-latex should now be active by
> |      default.  With Emacs, acticavation depends on a working
> |      `site-start.d' directory or similar setup, since then the startup
> |      files `auctex.el' and `preview-latex.el' will have been placed
> |      there.  If this has not been done, you should be able to load the
> |      startup files manually with
> |           (load "auctex.el" nil t t)
> |           (load "preview-latex.el" nil t t)
> |      in either a site-wide `site-start.el' or your personal startup file
> |      (usually accessible as `~/.emacs' from within Emacs and
> |      `~/.xemacs/init.el' from within XEmacs).
> `----
>
> Does this mean that (require 'tex-site) is no longer the preferred way
> to activate AUCTeX.

Yes, mostly.  Loading auctex.el has the advantage that it has the path
to tex-site.el hardwired into it: that way you are pretty sure to get
the most up-to-date version of AUCTeX even if other tex-site.el are
flying around on your system.  Given the number of error reports where
people had an old tex-site.el shadowing the new installation, I think
this is prudent.

It also means that a user can do
(unload-feature 'tex-site)
and have AUCTeX removed for all practical purposes.  Something like
that is important if we want to encourage using AUCTeX as a system
default.  The current Emacs/XEmacs code of unload-feature will not
work after (require 'tex-site).

> The lines cited above could be understood in such a way that
>
>   (load "auctex.el" nil t t)
>   (load "preview-latex.el" nil t t)
>
> are the commands to be put in site-start.el. Is this true now?

Yes.

> I'm worried because another section in the manual still says
>
> ,----[ (info "(auctex)Loading the package") ]
> |    For GNU Emacs, the recommended way to activate AUCTeX is to add the
> | following line to your `.emacs' file:
> | 
> |      (require 'tex-site)
> `----

That is because I am still working on the non-Windows installation
instructions and have not checked in an update yet.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum