Gentlemen,
Thanks for all the thought on this. My thoughts:
First, the idea of linking and unlinking seemed unwieldy at first, but in
actual use it might just work. (I teach high school. I have a monitor and a
computer set up outside the classroom, dedicated for this scrolling display.
With leaderboards, general announcements, timely announcements, and a few other
screens, I actually will have around twelve screens display, with delays closer
to 6-10 seconds between screens.)
Second, if I use a script with the call “skim link.pdf” then how do I force
full-screen mode?
Thank you.
Bruce
On Jan 6, 2015, at 9:29, Schneider wrote:
Adam:
Speaking as the guy who originally added kqueue support to Skim for
watching files and reloading when they changed, it's not a matter of
desire; it's technically impossible to fix.
Ahh. Why is that? Is it that it is impossible to know when the file
is completed?
Yes. We do try as best we could, but this is never fully possible. The only way
to is for the generating process to tell us when it's done. This is why we
recommend to do it this way rather than using our file watcher.
If there were a technical way to know when the file is done and to
prevent Skim from ever crashing this way, that would be very useful.
This can only be accomplished by modifying the program which generates
the PDF, unfortunately.
The external program that is running Skim could certainly be modified.
What would it need to do to prevent Skim from crashing?
I can think of two approaches.
First there might be a way to signal to Skim that the file is ready.
Second, one could switch soft links, which is fast. I tried that and
Skim did not detect the switch. :-(
It's described on the Wiki. Use the applescript revert command after the file
is finished.
Anyway, I only mention this here because it appears that the OP is
writing a program to run unattended, and may not have the luxury of
relaunching Skim when it crashes. His choice.
Right.
Instead of soft links, I tried hard links ('ln' instead of 'ln -s')
and it worked!
********************************************************************************
#!/bin/tcsh -f
#(ie run the tshell on this but don't read the .cshrc or .tcshrc)
echo version = 1.00 of hardlk 2015 Jan 06
# 2015 Jan 06, 1.00: origin
echo switch hard links
# going through soft links worked:
set sourcefile1 = a.pdf
set sourcefile2 = b.pdf
# now do it directly
set sourcefile1 = =lattice_20.pdf
set sourcefile2 = =lattice_21.pdf
rm -f link.pdf; ln $sourcefile1 link.pdf
skim link.pdf
skim link.pdf
while (1)
sleep 3
clear
rm -f link.pdf; ln $sourcefile2 link.pdf
ls -l *.pdf
sleep 3
clear
rm -f link.pdf; ln $sourcefile1 link.pdf
ls -l *.pdf
end
********************************************************************************
Adam, would that be fast enough or guarantee that it would not crash?
Tom
Links add all kinds of other potential problems, so I don;'t think this is a
very good idea. Also, with older versions of Skim, removing the old file would
break the file watching completely. With the latest release this would work. So
why not just replace the file, instead of replacing it with a link?
Anyway, I really don't think replacing the file is a good way for the OP to
proceed.
Christiaan------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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