I use lyx 1.4.3 with linux (Fedora Core 5), and in the past have found it useful to define the environment variable
BIBINPUTS = /home/jim/my_bibfiles My impression was that this allowed bibtex by default to search for .bib files in this particular directory, so that when it came to adding .bib files to my document I didn't have to go hunting around directories to include them. These .bib files conveniently showed up as clickable items. However, I recently had the following problem. I put a few .bib files in a different directory and wished to include them for bibtex in some document. Since they weren't in the directory specified by BIBINPUTS, I had to click through a directory tree and specify their absolute path when I included them. Everything worked fine within the document itself. I was able to add citations and choose from a list that corresponded to the .bib files I had included. The citations appeared to show up correctly in the lyx window itself. However, when it came to viewing the document (DVI or PDF) the references were not properly included (just a bunch of ??). Lyx complained that it couldn't find the .bib files I specified, although lyx didn't complain whatsoever when I added these .bib files after my insertion of the Bibtek Generated Bibliography (from Insert --> List/TOC --> Bibtex Bibliography). To see what the problem was, I eliminated the BIBINPUTS environment variable and rebooted. After this, lyx was able to find properly the .bib files I had previously tried to include with no success. Thus, it appears that unless you double-click one of the .bib files specified in the directory of BIBINPUTS, then lyx (or bibtex) fails to "find" the corresponding .bib files. The solution seems to be to remove the BIBINPUTS environment variable altogether. Why is this? Shouldn't I be able to define a default BIBINPUTS directory, but still add whatever .bib files I wish from other directories? Thanks, Jim
