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Message-ID:  <199610071640.KAA25264@gortel.phys.ualberta.ca>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Date:         Mon, 7 Oct 1996 10:40:31 -0600
From: Michal Jaegermann <michal@PHYS.UALBERTA.CA>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject:      Re: General configuration of LaTeX
Status: R

>
> Would it be an idea to have something like the following in LaTeX?
>
> You have a local configuration file, called e.g. latex.cfg.
> In this file you could have constructs like
>
> \ifpackage{<packagename>}    % or: \begin[<packagename>]{config}
> \UseOption{<options for package packagename>}
....

In a sense a similar mechanism exists already and I am even using it. :-)

You can create my_own_private.cls, or my_particular.sty, which will
load your own default classes, packages, options passing remaining
options where are needed.  Then you do:
\documentclass[...whatever...]{my_own_private}
or
\usepackage{my_particular}
and you are set.

I know that this is not exactly equivalent with proposed latex.cfg.
On the other hand a possibility that you will send me a "standard"
document, deeply convinced that I can process it and print it the same
way as you do, is greatly diminished.  Such misunderstandings, in a
presence of configuration files, are bound to happen almost immediately
- especially if there would be system-wide latex.cfg files and not only
individual ones - although even in the later case you can count on it
with a 100% certainity.

It is not hard to devise situations when I will be not able to
print your "standard" document, produced with latex.cfg, at all.

  Michal