>> On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 07:55:03AM +0200, Jan Peters wrote:
>>> Also selecting the row with the mouse cursor or using the shift-cursor
>>> keys, and THEN pressing delete has no effect. That should always
>>> delete the row - or give an error message if impossible.
>> Put that as feature request on bugzilla ;-)
>
> I am not sure this is wise. Cut & paste should work with cell contents
> -- also multiple-cell contents, if a rectangle-full of cells is selected --,
> not cells themselves. I find this extremely convenient to move
> sub-matrices around.
>
> Operating on cells or rows or columns themselves should then be separate
> operations.
I agree: del/backspace should be only about erasing *contents* in tables
and matrices. But I also agree we need something easier for erasing
*cells*. What about Ctrl+del/backspace?
Guys, if you do this, LyX will always remain only for a limited class of people
which would not even include high school math teachers. Do you really want that?
LyX needs to avoid all special key combinations - right now it easier
to get started
with Word, so many people use it even knowing the alternative! LyX
needs more users in the general public who spread easy to use programs
- people who like difficult things are more likely to directly code in
latex and are partially lost as lyx users anyway.
Remove ALL special combinations! Anything has to be logical to a first
time lyx users
otherwise there will be no second time.
I am a strong believer in LyX and the concept WYSWIM. But the
breakthrough for LyX will ONLY come if we get a fair quota among first
time users. Two years ago, we required our masters students in CS545
to submit Latex typesetted homework. I recommended both SWP and LyX as
Lyx was not yet as great as now. But I also warned the students that
SWP would deactivate after 4 Weeks. Thus, initially most used LyX as
Latex newbies. Most people started with with LyX, also as I had it
installed on the school owned computers - but very few stayed with it.
The complaints were always exactly the same: too difficult to do
simple things. Now, these are smart Masters students, and LyX 1.5.x
would probably do much better. But you need to remember KISSS (Keep It
SSSimple... or something like that) LyX instead of making it complex
by having key combinations for trivial things.
How did SWP do in comparison? Well, ppl spend a lot of effort in using
it many times despite the licensing system. Some constantly switched
computers, others even changed their harddrives - but more people were
using SWP for the second homework than for the first - for LyX it was
the opposite.
I am fighting to get LyX mainstream among all people I interact with
and would not recommend SWP anymore as it is dying bread. But as long
as deleting a line in a multiline equation requires the tiniest bit of
knowledge it will not be an easy sell...
Cheers,
-Jan
