On 03/20/2015 08:44 AM, Jerry wrote:
On Mar 14, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Robert Susmilch <rob...@susmilch.com> wrote:
This seems absurd given that Lyx purports to free you to write and not
micromanage things like this. The tutorial goes on and on about using
citations, bibliography, automatic section and chapter title numbering
that takes care of itself. If I can number an equation and it's
automatic that means the equation numbering can / will change as they
are moved about, added or deleted, etc.
I agree, but would stop short of "absurd" and simply say "awkward," "clumsy,"
and then I'll stop. It does work. I believe that Microsoft Word and Mathematica require the same sort of
tedious labeling, and those are not necessarily good models. I know for a fact that this problem can be
handled better because I used the long-gone and much-loved FullWrite Professional for about 10 years, from
1988 to 1998, and it did not require labeling of anything. You simply inserted, as a reference, the current
equation number and then FullWrite automatically kept everything up to date. It was just that simple.
And, not trivially, FullWrite had a _graphical_ equation browser, a
window of all your (filtered) stand-alone equations, numbered or not, in a
scrollable window. Now _that_ was neat. I think I have filed a feature request
for LyX but I don't expect anything to happen for a long time. However, LyX has
an option to render equations on-screen already (Instant Preview) so it seems
that the hard part of a graphical browser has already been done.
With a graphical browser, one could assign nonsense labels (AA, AB, AC,
... or just 1, 2, 3, ...) and use the graphical browser to find the one to
which you want to insert a reference and just click on the image. That's what
you do anyway, only instead of a dedicated graphical browser, you just scroll
around in your main document window until you find the equation you want to
reference, and that's not efficient or fun.
and then...
On Mar 15, 2015, at 5:26 PM, David A Case <c...@biomaps.rutgers.edu> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 14, 2015, Robert Susmilch wrote:
I have Googled a way to refer to numbered equations in text, such as
"See equation (3)" in Lyx but everything I read, whether from other
users or wikis, suggests labeling the already numbered equations and
then using the label to cross reference.
This seems absurd ....
This has been discussed before on this list. The requirement to have a
label makes good sense: how do you propose to refer to an equation that
does not have a label? Remember that its number will change as equations
are added or removed, whereas the label will not change.
It seems like you may wish to have a cross reference that says the
following: "refer to the *current* equation (3), and update the number in
the cross reference if the corresponding equation number changes." This
might be implemented by having LyX create a unique but hidden label for
every numbered equation, and providing some sort of user interface to
refer to it.
Nice answer.
For good reasons or bad, this is not the way LyX and latex work.
Why do you say this? You just proposed a solution to use the LyX/Latex
underpinnings to do that very thing. And that's probably the way FullWrite did
it.
Note that
numbered equations are no different in this respect than are numbered
sections, etc.
....dave case
Finally (I'll file a ticket for this in due course), a simple improvement of
the current system would be to display the labels with more characters than are
currently used; currently, so few characters are displayed that one quickly
becomes confused about which equation the label belongs to.
Jerry
Dear Jerry and followers of this very issue,
personally I am happy with LyX's philosophy and think we should not
over-emphasize such detail.
Is adding a label really such tremendous effort?
However, I see the point of some users.
But could it be that the implementation of "this simple improvement"
turns out not to be so very simple?
(see above: For good reasons or bad, this is not the way LyX and latex work)
Now, please have a look at the screen-shot attached.
It shows an excerpt of André Miede's excellent "classicthesis".
He created a new type of reference (Insert > Custom Insets > CT-auto
cross-reference) which can show labels of more characters / words next
to the number.
I know, this is not exactly what is being discussed here but it
certainly goes in that direction.
And last but not least: users who prefer FullWrite Professional's
features over those of Lyx may stick to it.
Cheers!
Michael
