I think I've found a new best friend :)
I'm also pulling from replies at various levels to put this in 1
message rather than several.
>From Jules Bean
> As a warning, I'm a mathematician, so a) I talk like a mathematician,
> and b) I mainly use LyX for mathematics (although I've done a couple
> of letters on it). Most of my comments are about maths mode.
In spite of all my titles & training, me too :) [and just how many
mathematician-lawyers can you find :)
> b) Actions which are used frequently should be a single key-press,
> even if that's not very easy to remember. You learn it.
Yes! keystroke count is everything!
> c) Actions which are used rarely should be mnemonic -- easy to
> remember -- even if they are multiple keypresses. Things you do
> rarely you care less about the time it takes to perform.
This would help, too. THen again, I still (rarely now) attempt
wordstar key commands :)
> 2) Math-mode entry
> Under the xemacs keybindings, which I use, (damn it, I don't want
> to confuse my poor muscle memory more than necessary by learning
> too many different bindings for the same actions), the key sequence
> to enter math-mode is 'M-c m'. I'm not sure exactly what to propose
> instead, but I really think this needs to be only one keypress.
I thought it was C-m, but maybe I did that myself :)
> As an aside, you may think that I'm whining over nothing. However,
> when you enter math mode as often as I do (often more than once a
> sentence) it gets very annoying, especially as compared to simply
> typing '$' in plain emacs. Also, you may say 'why don't you just
> change your bindings file?'. I will ;) but I wanted to start some
> discussion on this since it can benefit everyone!
good bindings will win them away from the dark side :)
> More serious, though, than the number of characters which need to
> be typed is the confusing nature of the command. 'M-c m', typed
> once, puts you into math-mode. However, typing 'M-c m' again
> doesn't put you out of math-mode --- it puts you into math-text
> mode. Then hitting it again puts you back into normal math-mode.
> IMO, 'modal' keys should either be idempotent (so hitting it the
> second time does nothing) or self-inverting.
I think an award is due for working "idempotent" into a discussion of a
word processor :)
In fact, the inverse
> to 'M-c m' is either 'ESC' or simply a space typed at the end of
> the block --- which is confusing, since they're not of the same
> 'shape' as the command that got you in there.
I hadn't given this thought before, but it makes sense. Going back to
word star, this was well enough done that I routinely sed commands I'd
never heard of, as they were obvious. To a lesser extendt, I could do
this with the default bindings in Word 1 and 3 (mac versions. Yeah,
I"m dating myself by referring to things fromt he days when microsoft
wrote good software :)
> 5) Proposal : a 'ligatures' or 'autocorrect' system
> One of the very minor, but useful, features of TeX is the way it
> lets you type the nearest approximation to what you want using a
> 'typewriter keyboard', and substitutes the typographically neat
> equivalent. In particular, 'fancy' quotes (") and en and em dashes
> (---). I propose that this UI element could be taken up a level
> into LyX, with a system that does the following (for example):
> -> becomes \rightarrow
> <- becomes \leftarrow
> => becomes \Rightarrow (etc..)
> ==> becomes \Longrightarrow (etc..)
I like these. Come to think of it, give him a cookie :) Perhaps this
could extend a step further, with user-definable entries? I use union,
intersection, etc. a lot in slides for statistics classes, but such
correction for these isn't as obvious as the arrows, and what I'd
choose as obvious would likely be (much) different than someone else
(especially someone who hasn't done the wordstar-word-lyx cycle :)
> 6) Scope macros:
> The current macro system is clever, but could be neater. One
> improvement I'd like is to let LyX know about TeX's scoping
> rules...
there's some macro ability now, I think . . ., but I"ve been out of
touch a while.
Marko Mentkioned,
>^K^K
mmm, speaking of wordstar :)
jmarc jmentioned,
>A quick search in the list of entries would indeed be nice. As far as
>regexp are concerned, this is indeed nice, but only for experienced
>users.
I think the trick is having something that scales nicely with the user,
like the old wordstar help levels, or early mac programs (particularly
word)> The obvious should work, but the power should be there, too.
(And the buffer short cut displays are an excellent example of doing
this).
>Andre> Being able to search for the regexp /John/ should benifit
>Andre> not-so-experienced users too...
>I mean this is very important for experienced users (I'd personally
>love to have that), but I do not personnally know many people who are
>fluent in regexps (and especially not the one who would be interested
>in LyX).
but regexps are things you pick up a bit at a time, as you need them.
And (to harp on the subject) LyX picks up folks over teh shorter
keystrokes, too--my natural inclination would probably be raw latex,
but the combination of less keystrokes and display of my equations keep
me firmly with lyx.
>All I meant to say is that regexp support is not a top priority for
>many users, IMO. However, it may happen soon since it is a priority
>for many of the coders :)
Speaking of which, what happened to the regexp find and replace patch?
hawk
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