have been thinking about Jean-Marc's proposal to scrap InsetGraphics
entirely and use InsetExternal in its place. Essentially, he suggests
extending the ExternalTemplate grammar so that the dialog would have
extra widgets that 'appear by magic' if the template supports
scaling, rotating etc.
I imagined something like (below), although it is still a little
fuzzy around the edges. In particular, I am unsure how to tell LyX
that it should supply the various parameters. See, eg, the $$float
variable in <transform name="scale">. More confusingly still, I have
no idea how to specify how these things could be nested. See the mess
on the <success> line...
<format name="xfig">
<target name="latex_for_latex">
<export_formats>ps_tex</export_formats>
<export_format name="ps_tex">
<files>$$base.eps $$base.ps_tex</files>
</export_format>
<transform name="scale">
<begin> \scalebox{$$float}{ </begin>
<end> } </end>
</transform>
<transform name="rotate">
<begin> \rotatebox{$$length}{ </begin>
<end> } </end>
</transform>
<output>
<success> $$transforms "\input{$$base.ps_tex}"</success>
<failure> \framebox{Unable to generate $$base.ps_tex}
</failure>
</output>
</target>
</format>
The disadvantage of all this is that the different latex flavours (if
Alfredo's dream comes true) will duplicate identical code. Can xml
handle
<target name="latex_for_pdflatex" contents="latex_for_latex">
or similar?
Presumably we would also need some grammar to specify what additional
widgets were needed on the dialog. Here I can imagine "LyX scale" for
the size on the LyX screen, together with "scale" and "rotate" for
the parameters exported (in this case) to latex.
Any input from the experts?
--
Angus
