On 14.03.05, Helge Hafting wrote:
> G. Milde wrote:
>
> >I would prefer, if LyX did not accept "illegal" characters in a label, so I
> >am able to find this label in the form I entered in the LaTeX output (which
> >I share with my co-workeres) and in the LyX source (which I tend to edit
> >with regexp-replace from time to time.
> >
> >But maybe others prefer automatic conversion in order to have easier
> >remembrable labels.
> >
> Automatic conversion is nice, *if* lyx also does the reverse
> conversion when displaying the label on screen or in lists.
> (Currently this works in some cases and fails in others.)
Here it starts to get complicated...
> I don't normally use "[]{}\/" in label names, but I frequently
> use non-ascii characters like æøåôé because they are part
> of my language. I _can_ avoid them because I happen to know
> what "ASCII" is, but the common user does not know that
> letters beyond a-z is special. Not until they crash something,
> and then they have a hard time figuring out it was an "å" that did it. :-/
However, an "perfect hiding" of the label substitution will make the
figuring out even harder. An illegal label made with ERT (or pure LaTeX
in an imported document) will trigger a long search and a "but it worked
fine in LyX" groan.
This is why I opt for a insert-label dialog that refuses illegal
characters and explains the reason in the status line (as we already do
when the user enters 2 spaces in "normal" mode). This way the common user
will "learn by doing".
The annoyance of a limited character set for labels is IMHO far
out-wighted by increased transparency (and compatibility) and simpler
code.
Günter
--
G.Milde web.de
