Re: [Bug-AUCTeX] 11.86; View problems

[Tassilo Horn]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

>>   (add-hook 'TeX-mode-hook 'TeX-PDF-mode)
>
> That's probably about the worst thing you can do.  It will switch off
> PDF mode for everything which PDF mode would otherwise be chosen for and
> vice versa.

Ups, I'm using this for years, and never had any problems.  Or at least
I didn't notice them. :-)

And isn't it true that (add-hook 'foo-hook 'bar-mode) will always turn
on the minor mode `bar-mode', i.e., not toggle?  Ah, no, that's emacs
24.1+ only...

,----
| * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
| 
| ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function call now ENABLES
| the minor mode unconditionally.  This is so that you can write e.g.
| 
|  (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'foo-mode)
| 
| to enable foo-mode in Text mode buffers, removing the need for
| `turn-on-foo-mode' style functions.  This affects all mode commands
| defined by `define-minor-mode'.  If called interactively, the mode
| command still toggles the minor mode.
`----

> So it will do what you want only when AUCTeX is without a clue, and do
> the wrong thing whenever AUCTeX would know better.

In what cases would AUCTeX automatically determine that it should
compile to PDF instead of DVI and vice versa?

> It would make much more sense to do
>
> M-x customize-variable TeX-PDF-mode RET
>
> and set and save PDF mode as default.  That's what the documentation
> also states:
>
>  -- Command: TeX-PDF-mode
>      (`C-c C-t C-p') This command toggles the PDF mode of AUCTeX, a
>      buffer-local minor mode.  You can customize `TeX-PDF-mode' to give
>      it a different default.  The default is used when AUCTeX does not
>      have additional clue about what a document might want.  This
>      option usually results in calling either PDFTeX or ordinary TeX.

If I didn't want to use `customize', could I also go with either

  (setq-default TeX-PDF-mode t)

or

  (TeX-global-PDF-mode 1)

Thanks,
Tassilo