On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 11:18:42AM -0400, Richard Heck wrote:
> Below.
>
> Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:
> >>> 2) The existence of a style attribute does not affect how and where I
> >>> can select text
> >>>
> >> This is a con for me. I want to select the whole charstyle
> >> automatically and not bother with micro selection.
> >>
> > I am abivalent on this one. When a character style is a noun, for
> > example, I like the fact that selection goes in one glob. After all,
> > one nice thing about selection in word is the way it selects full
> > words when it feels it should (I think it is one of the few automatic
> > things they got right).
> >
> > OTOH, when it comes to setting large parts of text in a charstyle (and
> > assuming the we have the 3-box model), then I do not think this is
> > still the case. Assuming an example like what Helge proposed:
> >
> > \emph{Sentence 1. Sentence 2.} Sentence 3.
> >
> > I expect that I should be able to select sentences 2 and 3 to cut and
> > paste them. The block model is not as good for long text as for short
> > one.
> Thinking about this, and actually using (as opposed to developing) LyX for
> the past few days, I've come to a kind of compromise position. I think my
> own view on this depends very much on just how "semantic" something feels,
> and I think JMarc's comments here reflect the same point of view. I don't
> think I want to lose \emph in the way it now functions. Of course \emph has
> some sort of meaning---linguistically, it amounts to focus, more or
> less---but it's meaning is very unspecific, and one can use emphasis for all
> kinds of reasons. And you might emphasize whole sentences, etc. So you don't
> have the kind of division between emphasized text and the surrounding text
> that argues for special deletion and selection behavior. And I think this is
> a reflection of the fact that, while \emph is in some sense "semantic", it
> is at best minimally so. It doesn't really have a meaning of its own.
> Rather, each use of emphasis has some significance, and there's some sort of
> vague relation between the different significances, but that's about it.
>
> On the other hand, noun, or code, or url---now those are really semantic,
> and the charstyle-as-inset behavior seems entirely appropriate for them.
> Those are cases in which the text really functions as a unit, and I will
> generally want to select them as units, delete them as units, move over them
> as units if I don't want to move into them, and so forth. They're also cases
> in which you're generally dealing with small chunks.
>
> So, in that sense, I think the current behavior of 1.6.svn is pretty much
> correct. I'd be reluctant to lose \emph in its current form---at least until
> other issues, like selection behavior and line breaking, were resolved, in
> which case it doesn't matter as much. The open question, for me, is in which
> box \strong is supposed to fit. Is it more like \emph or is it more like
> \noun? My sense is that it's probably more like \emph, in which case it
> ought to be handled like \emph. And if there are other things that are more
> like \emph, then they should be handled that way, too. But offhand, I can't
> think of any.
>
> The really nice thing about this proposal is that it saves us all a lot of
> work.
Actually I came to more or less the same view.
So:
- Noun should become an inset charstyle (lyx2lyx)
- Strong should take a similar slot as Emph, i.e.
a (non-inset) "font" attribute.
But:
- Code should be an inset charstyle. Something either
is, or isn't, code. Objective meaning.
Sounds like a plan?
- Martin
