Setting preferences


General

You must restart jPicEdt if you want a new language choice to take effect.


LaTeX, epic and PsTricks tab panes

Let you set format specific parameters. One thing common to all formats is the prolog/epilog string, and is used when running LaTeX on your picture from within jPicEdt.
These strings get prepended/appended to the text generated by the formatter (i.e. the text starting with \begin{picture}) so that the resulting text is a "stand-alone" LaTeX file, and can be directly compiled by LaTeX. The default prolog/epilog simply include necessary packages, but you can add your own macro definition here, so that, for example, arguments of text-boxes which use macros of your own are compiled properly.

Unitlength is always set to 1 mm at the beginning of the saved file. OK, this is rather stringent, but (useless to say) you sure CAN load a file containing a different value ! jPicEdt will simply scale the drawing accordingly. (There's actually another efficient way to scale the entire drawing by using the SCALE tool in the tool-bar).

LaTeX picture environment specific parameters

LaTeX picture environment only allows for a small number of line slopes ; in emulated mode, jPicEdt use the \multiput command to emulate lines of any slope, using a set of very closed and tiny horizontal or vertical segments. As a result, lines of any thickness can now be drawn (FYI, the \thickness command doesn't work with standard slanted lines).


External commands

How it works...

When running LaTeX/DVI/... from within jPicEdt, a LaTeX file is created on the fly by jPicEdt in the standard temp' directory of the OS you're using (e.g. c:\windows\temp), or another temp' dir if you changed it (see Directories panel). The variety of operating systems and LaTeX distributions made it impossible to design a scheme for running external commands that wouldn't rely on scripts (e.g. batches under DOS, AppleScript on MacOS).

So the best thing to do is (as for me) to use external scripts which call the adequate programs (latex, dviwin32.exe/xdvi,...). You can pass argument to this script by using the predefinite symbols "{p}" and "{f}".

Here's an example of an external batch that will work under Linux's bash-shell :

#!/bin/sh
cd $1
$2 $3

Suppose this script was saved in the "add-ons" directory, then the command line which appears under the "external-commands"'s tab in the preferences-setting tabsheet will be typesetted as follows:

{i}/ext_proc {p} latex {f}

(where "latex" can be replaced by any appropriate name, e.g. xdvi, kghostview, kdvi,...).

This will lead, once "{p}" and "{f}" have been replaced, to :

ext_proc /tmp latex jpicedt46858

which finally yields,

cd /tmp
latex jpicedt46858

(latex accept a file w/o extension on the command line, otherwise add ".tex" manually in your script).

Loading predefined configurations

There currently exist scripts and predefined configurations for the following LaTeX distribution :

These scripts reside in the add-ons subdirectory of where jPicEdt got installed (you need to have installed the add-ons package during jPicEdt's installation).
To load a predefined configuration file, go to the Preferences->Commands pane, press the LOAD PREDEFINED CONFIGURATION button, and browse the directory tree until you find a file matching your LaTeX distribution.