evince-2.22.2-alt0.M41.1
emacs22-common-22.2-alt5
emacs-mode-auctex-11.85-alt1
xdvi is not installed

I opened a LaTeX file in Emacs, C-c C-c (LaTeX), C-c C-c (View), and it wanted to run:

xdvi  a.dvi

although xdvi is not installed on this system. But evince is!

Expected: AUCTeX detects the installed program to view DVI, and uses it. (A trivial thing in modern times; something like that is expected from an OS nowadays, not manual setup of viewers for different types of files.)

Comments on implementation of the feature: AFAIR, this feature has been partially implemented for xdvi (Emacs gets told whether xdvi is available), dvips, dvilj etc. by making tetex-{xdvi,dvips,dvilj} put a scriptlet into /etc/emacs/site-start.d/ , which sets the values of the relevant Emacs variables. To complete this, probably, *all* the DVI viewers (incl. evince) should put such a scriptlet to /etc/emacs/site-start.d/ , to inform Emacs how it can be used to view DVI.

Another way would be to use the more common "database" of filetype-program associations (I don't know how it is called), so that Emacs just gives a command like "open a.dvi", and the system decides which program that is available to use.


A similar report about PDF: #19236