On Mon, Jan 11, 1999 at 09:04:15AM -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Cut and paste should be okay but raises another issue. My last doc
> submissions included a lot of "by hand" linebreaking so things would print
> well. This resulted in some ERT being inserted into various docs. I did
> this hoping that 1.0.0 would be out by now and that people wanted clean,
> printable docs.
>
> New documentation is always good, but it will affect the need for some of
> the linebreaks. So my question is this: should the docs be biased for
> clean reading within LyX, or for clean printing on paper?
>
> The difference may sound trivial, but trust me, it is not. There is a fair
> amount of work converting between the two, and a lot of ERT comes and goes
> to keep things looking good. Now, I'm not about to suggest we stop writing
> documentation, but is the work need to make nicely printed docs worth the
> effort? If not, I don't want to waste my time doing it.
>
> FWIW, the usual trouble spots are URL's, code, and other verbatim-like
> stuff.
>
> Comments?
I certainly don't want to suggest that you were wasting your time when you did
this, but I feel it's not worth optimizing for printing for several
reasons.
(1) It creates ERT.
(2) The docs are constantly changing, which would require a person (e.g., you)
to be worrying constantly about changing the linebreaks, too.
(3) We're not entirely sure when 1.0 will come out. If you can get an absolute
commitment from Lars the day before it comes out, then you could perhaps spend
that night fixing things, but otherwise there would be no way to be sure.
(4) Perhaps most importantly, I feel like the docs ought to be optimized for
reading within LyX.
(4a) It's not like we have a LyX software package that people can buy at a
store (yet? :) that needs a printed manual
(4b) How often do people read printed docs anyway? In my experience, people
don't read docs at *all* more often than not. And IMO people are much more
likely to read docs from a menu rather than getting up, asking their coworkers
who had the LyX manual last, "no I meant the user guide not the tutorial", and
then they can't even do a search for the word they're looking for. Maybe
sysadmins who install LyX for their groups do print out the manuals; maybe
individual LyXers have found it useful to have a printed copy, but I think the
greatest benefit for the greatest number lies in reducing ERT (via the
Editors' Revolt to Trim ERT) and optimizing for LyX.
As a separate issue, is there a way to get LyX to linebreak intelligently in
such cases? But doesn't url.sty make url's break cleanly? I just looked at the
docs for it, and it sort of looks like we ought to be using it for any url's
or email addresses in the docs...
-Amir
