On Fri, May 07, 1999 at 02:32:02PM +0800, Rod Pinna wrote:
> Hi Allan,
>
> Thanks for your response. I haven't used CVS before, so I'm going to
> be a wuss, and submit the tar ball here, as you suggested.
>
> It includes the documentation, .layout and template files.
Hi, Rod.
A few comments on the new layout.
(1) Thanks! It's always good to get new layouts
(2) Thanks for providing documentation. I have a few minor notes, but in
general, it's *much* better to get non-perfect documentation rather than no
documentation.
- If you write "LaTeX" and "LyX" (using that exact capitalization), then LyX
will automatically turn LaTeX into \LaTeX and LyX into the corresponding
thing. And you don't even have to put a "\ " afterwards!
- When you right Layout->Document, you shouldn't put a spaces (hard or
regular) between around the menu separator. In addition, you should use
the new menu separator (in LyX 1.0.2) which you can get by using
Insert->Special Character->Menu Separator.
(3) More importantly, I think that the layout file isn't really handled
correctly. Yes, it works, but I think it could be nicer. I'm not (by a long
ways) an expert on layouts, so I'm hoping other lyx-devel people will help
out here.
You write:
# Theorm environments have been copied over from
# the amsmaths.inc file. It could not be inputfiled
# as it does some stuff which is incompatible with
# the Elsevier stlye, that is it redefines
# the theorem* environments in the preamble.
I'm wondering if you might be able to use amsmaths.inc after all. Couldn't
you get rid of the preamble stuff the same way that it's done in
amsdefs.inc, where it says:
Style Proof
...
# We don't want the preamble from Theorem
Preamble
EndPreamble
End
And you can always use "NoStyle" to get rid of styles that you don't want,
like Theorem* et al.
Then as far as the frontmatter thing goes, it would be much better if you
could handle the title, etc. without using so much TeX mode (otherwise known
as Evil Red Text). I know there was discussion on this list about
frontmatter issues.... A few possible solutions.
(a) with TeX hacking, you might be able to do something like John's slides
layout does.
(b) you could create a "EndofFrontmatter" (ick, you would need a better
name for it :) layout which is put just before the title starts (kind of like
a \maketitle command). This layout would write \end{frontmatter}. Oh, of
cousre you'd need a FrontMatter layout too. (Both of these would be layouts
with KeepEmpty set to 1, and you could make them look more like dividers.
Again, see John's slides.layout.) Hm. If I'm not mistaken, you could have a
\frontmatter and a \mainmatter, (commands instead of environments) which
would translate into layouts a bit more nicely.
(c) According to Alain Castera, if you create just a Frontmatter layout, you
can *nest* (using the "change environment depth" commands) the title etc.
into it. A bit complicated, but with a template it just might work.
(d) you could put \begin{frontmatter} and \end{frontmatter} in tex mode, but
use "normal" layouts for title, author, etc. I think the amount of ERT is
much less this way.
(e) LyX developers: any other ideas?
I hope this email isn't too discouraging. Think of it as minor corrections
to a neat thing, rather than extensive criticism.
I also hope this email isn't too long, but I'm not very good at writing
short emails.
-Amir
