Re: tex as lyx native file format
On Saturday 15 September 2007 22:10:07 Roberto Franceschini wrote:
I'm just saying that one side LyX is the best word processor, but on
the other side most of the people, dumb like mule, stick to LaTeX just
because it's the standard de-facto.
What is a standard depends a lot on what people are used to. IMHO there is no
such a thing as a latex standard there are instead lots of local standards.
I have see people using \be for \begin{equation}, \ee for \end{equation} and
for languages that use accents lots of other funny (and weird) definitions to
allow the use of accented characters.
So for me a standard latex is a urban legend, everyone talks about it but no
one ever saw it. ;-)
--
José Abílio
Re: tex as lyx native file format
On Saturday 15 September 2007 22:10:07 Roberto Franceschini wrote:
> I'm just saying that one side LyX is the best word processor, but on
> the other side most of the people, dumb like mule, stick to LaTeX just
> because it's the standard de-facto.
What is a standard depends a lot on what people are used to. IMHO there is no
such a thing as a latex standard there are instead lots of local standards.
I have see people using \be for \begin{equation}, \ee for \end{equation} and
for languages that use accents lots of other funny (and weird) definitions to
allow the use of accented characters.
So for me a standard latex is a urban legend, everyone talks about it but no
one ever saw it. ;-)
--
José Abílio
Re: tex as lyx native file format
Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format? .lyx file stores more information than a .tex file can ever store. For example, the change-tracking feature can save changes and produce different output (different .tex files) with or without revision marks. The branch feature can save different 'versions' of the same document. The yet-to-come embedding .lyx file can save dependent files along with .lyx file. Using .tex as the native lyx format would seriously limit what lyx can do. Cheers, Bo
Re: tex as lyx native file format
I love change tracking in LyX and I struggled to find something similar in TEX, so I really take care of what you say. What about a compatibility mode where nice feature like embedding, versioning, branching and all the .lyx-specific features are not available? This way the user can choose if use a lyx file and benefit of all the beaty of LyX or be compatible and use TEX files. Bye On 9/15/07, Bo Peng [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format? .lyx file stores more information than a .tex file can ever store. For example, the change-tracking feature can save changes and produce different output (different .tex files) with or without revision marks. The branch feature can save different 'versions' of the same document. The yet-to-come embedding .lyx file can save dependent files along with .lyx file. Using .tex as the native lyx format would seriously limit what lyx can do. Cheers, Bo
Re: tex as lyx native file format
Roberto Franceschini wrote: I love change tracking in LyX and I struggled to find something similar in TEX, so I really take care of what you say. What about a compatibility mode where nice feature like embedding, versioning, branching and all the .lyx-specific features are not available? This way the user can choose if use a lyx file and benefit of all the beaty of LyX or be compatible and use TEX files. Unfortunately this is not as easy as you think. So, sorry but no, this won't happen ;-) Your compatibility problem with TeX is an import problem, not a file format one. The solution is to improve TeX2LyX. Unfortunately, we lost our main developer in this area :-( Abdel.
Re: tex as lyx native file format
I got the point. I hope something in this direction can be done, compatibility is always a key issue and being both LyX and Tex open format they should be able to translate well. Thanks for the discussion. On 9/15/07, Abdelrazak Younes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Roberto Franceschini wrote: I love change tracking in LyX and I struggled to find something similar in TEX, so I really take care of what you say. What about a compatibility mode where nice feature like embedding, versioning, branching and all the .lyx-specific features are not available? This way the user can choose if use a lyx file and benefit of all the beaty of LyX or be compatible and use TEX files. Unfortunately this is not as easy as you think. So, sorry but no, this won't happen ;-) Your compatibility problem with TeX is an import problem, not a file format one. The solution is to improve TeX2LyX. Unfortunately, we lost our main developer in this area :-( Abdel.
Re: tex as lyx native file format
On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 02:23:31PM -0500, Bo Peng wrote:
Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format?
.lyx file stores more information than a .tex file can ever store. For
example, the change-tracking feature can save changes and produce
different output (different .tex files) with or without revision
marks. The branch feature can save different 'versions' of the same
document. The yet-to-come embedding .lyx file can save dependent files
along with .lyx file. Using .tex as the native lyx format would
seriously limit what lyx can do.
I'd guess that this could even made working using markup like
\lyxbranch{name}{.} etc.
However, that does not chance the fact that TeX is de-facto unparsable
by anything than TeX itself. Using it as native file format does not
make a lot of sense if we can't read it...
Andre'
Re: tex as lyx native file format
I'm not enetering the technincalities of the thing, i'm not in
position to do so.
I'm just saying that one side LyX is the best word processor, but on
the other side most of the people, dumb like mule, stick to LaTeX just
because it's the standard de-facto.
This make LyX widespreadening much more difficult than it would be.
Result:
1) I can wirte my master thesis using LyX. It was 1.4.1 and I think
I saved so much time compared to Latex and i got a much better result
too (Latex can do better, but you need an infinite amount of time
...).
2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a
collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex,
not lyx file format. Isn't this sad?
Bye
On 9/15/07, Andre Poenitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 02:23:31PM -0500, Bo Peng wrote:
Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format?
.lyx file stores more information than a .tex file can ever store. For
example, the change-tracking feature can save changes and produce
different output (different .tex files) with or without revision
marks. The branch feature can save different 'versions' of the same
document. The yet-to-come embedding .lyx file can save dependent files
along with .lyx file. Using .tex as the native lyx format would
seriously limit what lyx can do.
I'd guess that this could even made working using markup like
\lyxbranch{name}{.} etc.
However, that does not chance the fact that TeX is de-facto unparsable
by anything than TeX itself. Using it as native file format does not
make a lot of sense if we can't read it...
Andre'
Re: tex as lyx native file format
What about Scientific Workplace, I never used it, but some my co-author do. Seems to provide an editor with formula preview, table preview, etc while editing a .tex file. Why lyx can't run like this? Roberto On 9/15/07, Hans Meine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Samstag 15 September 2007, Roberto Franceschini wrote: 2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex, not lyx file format. Isn't this sad? However, TeX is turing-complete, and thus it can be *proven* that it is absolutely impossible to write a parser that reads any .tex into LyX. In practice, there are just too many possibilities how a specific effect can be achieved. Just try importing .tex files into LyX - the importer is already quite sophisticated. -- Ciao, / /.o. /--/ ..o / / ANS ooo
Re: tex as lyx native file format
Roberto Franceschini wrote: What about Scientific Workplace, I never used it, but some my co-author do. Seems to provide an editor with formula preview, table preview, etc while editing a .tex file. Why lyx can't run like this? How is one person using SW and one person using LaTeX better than one person using LyX and one using LaTeX? I wrote a paper with a co-author who used SciWord. He could send me the doc as a .tex file, but it was larded up with SciWord specific macros that I didn't have. I would load it (painfully) into LyX, editing out the SciWord macros, and then export a .tex file to send to him -- which SciWord would import and immediately lard up with macros. If I'd used LaTeX rather than LyX, it might have worked better, but he would have had to send me the SW macros. I'm not sure, but I think that with each draft there would be the possibility of new SW macros, so I don't think he could send me a bunch once and be sure I had all of them. (I'm not positive about this.) I'm working now with a LaTeX user. I write in LyX and send her .tex exports. She sends me .tex files which I import into LyX and then edit as needed. It works ok for papers, though I would hate to have to do it with a book. I think it was Abdel that hit the nail on the head; it makes sense to keep LyX's file format and use export/import, but it would help if the LaTeX to LyX conversion were more robust. /Paul
Re: tex as lyx native file format
Roberto Franceschini ha scritto:
Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format?
You may easily write, as I did, a script that converts a .tex
file to the LyX format into a temporary folder, opens it with
LyX, and, once you close the program, exports it back to
.tex overwriting your original source (I can send it to you;
my script also converts some stuff that my collegues have
a habit to use into equivalent stuff that LyX understands
and displays correctly -- it also used to expand the infinite
set of unneeded macros that my collegues used to use).
It would just be a few lines of code to allow LyX to do this
automatically behind the scenes, and warning you of the
information loss risk when you save back in .tex, suggesting
to use the native .lyx format instead.
The problem is that, at the moment, there is a lot of stuff
that gets changed or lost in the loop, probably the first one
being the original .tex indentation, what is likely to confuse
your co-editors.
some of my collaborators don't want to use LyX and prefer to use a
text editor and write the TEX directy.
Then, all you have to do is write your own sections in LyX
and edit/review their sections with import/edit/export loops.
I wrote in the past a Makefile that allowed mixed Lyx/LaTeX
editing, with the ability to export from LyX a .tex that may
be directly included into other .tex files (simply extracting
whatever comes between \begin{document} and
\end{document}. So I was free to edit my sections with LyX.
I hope you can do something.
Probably *you* can do something as well. I'm fighting every day
to persuade my co-authors to use LyX, and the past program
instabilities/bugs/problems didn't help at all in this direction.
Now, probably LyX starts being enough robust to be used
effectively. It's time for people to notice this and stop burdening
themselves with spending hours to fix LaTeX errors because
you forgot a '\' before a '_', or because you accidentally deleted
an extra parenthesis, or wasting time searching for that math
symbol that is just immediately choosable and clickable from
the LyX Math Toolbar.
T.
Re: tex as lyx native file format
Paul A. Rubin ha scritto: it would help if the LaTeX to LyX conversion were more robust. So, is there a wiki page on TODO items for the tex-lyx conversions ? T.
Re: tex as lyx native file format
On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 11:10:07PM +0200, Roberto Franceschini wrote: I'm not enetering the technincalities of the thing, i'm not in position to do so. I'm just saying that one side LyX is the best word processor, but on the other side most of the people, dumb like mule, stick to LaTeX just because it's the standard de-facto. This make LyX widespreadening much more difficult than it would be. Result: 1) I can wirte my master thesis using LyX. It was 1.4.1 and I think I saved so much time compared to Latex and i got a much better result too (Latex can do better, but you need an infinite amount of time ...). 2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex, not lyx file format. Isn't this sad? That's sad indeed. But I don't think that can be changed easily. Andre'
Re: tex as lyx native file format
2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex, not lyx file format. Isn't this sad? You can try to convert your co-authors. If you are the first author, they do not need to know anything about lyx before they can revise your paper. Bo
Re: tex as lyx native file format
On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 11:10:07PM +0200, Roberto Franceschini wrote: I'm not enetering the technincalities of the thing, i'm not in position to do so. I'm just saying that one side LyX is the best word processor, but on the other side most of the people, dumb like mule, stick to LaTeX just because it's the standard de-facto. This make LyX widespreadening much more difficult than it would be. Result: 1) I can wirte my master thesis using LyX. It was 1.4.1 and I think I saved so much time compared to Latex and i got a much better result too (Latex can do better, but you need an infinite amount of time ...). 2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex, not lyx file format. Isn't this sad? You should do a better marketing job... point out that LyX not only is free, but available for your -- yes *your* -- platform of choice too! And the cost of installing it, in terms of disc space etc., is asymptotically zero if you already have installed, or decided to install, a full LaTeX installation. So what are you waiting for? Worked for a few of my collaborators. - Martin
Re: tex as lyx native file format
> Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format? .lyx file stores more information than a .tex file can ever store. For example, the change-tracking feature can save changes and produce different output (different .tex files) with or without revision marks. The branch feature can save different 'versions' of the same document. The yet-to-come embedding .lyx file can save dependent files along with .lyx file. Using .tex as the native lyx format would seriously limit what lyx can do. Cheers, Bo
Re: tex as lyx native file format
I love change tracking in LyX and I struggled to find something similar in TEX, so I really take care of what you say. What about a "compatibility mode" where nice feature like embedding, versioning, branching and all the .lyx-specific features are not available? This way the user can choose if use a lyx file and benefit of all the beaty of LyX or be compatible and use TEX files. Bye On 9/15/07, Bo Peng <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format? > > .lyx file stores more information than a .tex file can ever store. For > example, the change-tracking feature can save changes and produce > different output (different .tex files) with or without revision > marks. The branch feature can save different 'versions' of the same > document. The yet-to-come embedding .lyx file can save dependent files > along with .lyx file. Using .tex as the native lyx format would > seriously limit what lyx can do. > > Cheers, > Bo >
Re: tex as lyx native file format
Roberto Franceschini wrote: I love change tracking in LyX and I struggled to find something similar in TEX, so I really take care of what you say. What about a "compatibility mode" where nice feature like embedding, versioning, branching and all the .lyx-specific features are not available? This way the user can choose if use a lyx file and benefit of all the beaty of LyX or be compatible and use TEX files. Unfortunately this is not as easy as you think. So, sorry but no, this won't happen ;-) Your compatibility problem with TeX is an import problem, not a file format one. The solution is to improve TeX2LyX. Unfortunately, we lost our main developer in this area :-( Abdel.
Re: tex as lyx native file format
I got the point. I hope something in this direction can be done, compatibility is always a key issue and being both LyX and Tex open format they should be able to translate well. Thanks for the discussion. On 9/15/07, Abdelrazak Younes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Roberto Franceschini wrote: > > I love change tracking in LyX and I struggled to find something > > similar in TEX, so I really take care of what you say. > > > > What about a "compatibility mode" where nice feature like embedding, > > versioning, branching and all the .lyx-specific features are not > > available? This way the user can choose if use a lyx file and benefit > > of all the beaty of LyX or be compatible and use TEX files. > > Unfortunately this is not as easy as you think. So, sorry but no, this > won't happen ;-) > Your compatibility problem with TeX is an import problem, not a file > format one. The solution is to improve TeX2LyX. Unfortunately, we lost > our main developer in this area :-( > > Abdel. > >
Re: tex as lyx native file format
On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 02:23:31PM -0500, Bo Peng wrote:
> > Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format?
>
> .lyx file stores more information than a .tex file can ever store. For
> example, the change-tracking feature can save changes and produce
> different output (different .tex files) with or without revision
> marks. The branch feature can save different 'versions' of the same
> document. The yet-to-come embedding .lyx file can save dependent files
> along with .lyx file. Using .tex as the native lyx format would
> seriously limit what lyx can do.
I'd guess that this could even made working using markup like
\lyxbranch{name}{.} etc.
However, that does not chance the fact that TeX is de-facto unparsable
by anything than TeX itself. Using it as "native" file format does not
make a lot of sense if we can't read it...
Andre'
Re: tex as lyx native file format
I'm not enetering the technincalities of the thing, i'm not in
position to do so.
I'm just saying that one side LyX is the best word processor, but on
the other side most of the people, dumb like mule, stick to LaTeX just
because it's the standard de-facto.
This make LyX widespreadening much more difficult than it would be.
Result:
1) I can wirte my master thesis using LyX. It was 1.4.1 and I think
I saved so much time compared to Latex and i got a much better result
too (Latex can do better, but you need an infinite amount of time
...).
2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a
collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex,
not lyx file format. Isn't this sad?
Bye
On 9/15/07, Andre Poenitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 02:23:31PM -0500, Bo Peng wrote:
> > > Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format?
> >
> > .lyx file stores more information than a .tex file can ever store. For
> > example, the change-tracking feature can save changes and produce
> > different output (different .tex files) with or without revision
> > marks. The branch feature can save different 'versions' of the same
> > document. The yet-to-come embedding .lyx file can save dependent files
> > along with .lyx file. Using .tex as the native lyx format would
> > seriously limit what lyx can do.
>
> I'd guess that this could even made working using markup like
> \lyxbranch{name}{.} etc.
>
> However, that does not chance the fact that TeX is de-facto unparsable
> by anything than TeX itself. Using it as "native" file format does not
> make a lot of sense if we can't read it...
>
> Andre'
>
Re: tex as lyx native file format
What about Scientific Workplace, I never used it, but some my co-author do. Seems to provide an editor with formula preview, table preview, etc while editing a .tex file. Why lyx can't run like this? Roberto On 9/15/07, Hans Meine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Samstag 15 September 2007, Roberto Franceschini wrote: > > 2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a > > collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex, > > not lyx file format. Isn't this sad? > > However, TeX is turing-complete, and thus it can be *proven* that it is > absolutely impossible to write a parser that reads any .tex into LyX. > In practice, there are just too many possibilities how a specific effect can > be achieved. Just try importing .tex files into LyX - the importer is > already quite sophisticated. > > -- > Ciao, / /.o. > /--/ ..o > / / ANS ooo > >
Re: tex as lyx native file format
Roberto Franceschini wrote: What about Scientific Workplace, I never used it, but some my co-author do. Seems to provide an editor with formula preview, table preview, etc while editing a .tex file. Why lyx can't run like this? How is one person using SW and one person using LaTeX better than one person using LyX and one using LaTeX? I wrote a paper with a co-author who used SciWord. He could send me the doc as a .tex file, but it was larded up with SciWord specific macros that I didn't have. I would load it (painfully) into LyX, editing out the SciWord macros, and then export a .tex file to send to him -- which SciWord would import and immediately lard up with macros. If I'd used LaTeX rather than LyX, it might have worked better, but he would have had to send me the SW macros. I'm not sure, but I think that with each draft there would be the possibility of new SW macros, so I don't think he could send me a bunch once and be sure I had all of them. (I'm not positive about this.) I'm working now with a LaTeX user. I write in LyX and send her .tex exports. She sends me .tex files which I import into LyX and then edit as needed. It works ok for papers, though I would hate to have to do it with a book. I think it was Abdel that hit the nail on the head; it makes sense to keep LyX's file format and use export/import, but it would help if the LaTeX to LyX conversion were more robust. /Paul
Re: tex as lyx native file format
Roberto Franceschini ha scritto:
Can make LyX work with TEX files as native document format?
You may easily write, as I did, a script that converts a .tex
file to the LyX format into a temporary folder, opens it with
LyX, and, once you close the program, exports it back to
.tex overwriting your original source (I can send it to you;
my script also converts some stuff that my collegues have
a habit to use into equivalent stuff that LyX understands
and displays correctly -- it also used to expand the infinite
set of unneeded macros that my collegues used to use).
It would just be a few lines of code to allow LyX to do this
automatically behind the scenes, and warning you of the
information loss risk when you save back in .tex, suggesting
to use the native .lyx format instead.
The problem is that, at the moment, there is a lot of stuff
that gets changed or lost in the loop, probably the first one
being the original .tex indentation, what is likely to confuse
your co-editors.
some of my collaborators don't want to use LyX and prefer to use a
text editor and write the TEX directy.
Then, all you have to do is write your own sections in LyX
and edit/review their sections with import/edit/export loops.
I wrote in the past a Makefile that allowed mixed Lyx/LaTeX
editing, with the ability to export from LyX a .tex that may
be directly included into other .tex files (simply extracting
whatever comes between \begin{document} and
\end{document}. So I was free to edit my sections with LyX.
I hope you can do something.
Probably *you* can do something as well. I'm fighting every day
to persuade my co-authors to use LyX, and the past program
instabilities/bugs/problems didn't help at all in this direction.
Now, probably LyX starts being enough robust to be used
effectively. It's time for people to notice this and stop burdening
themselves with spending hours to fix LaTeX errors because
you forgot a '\' before a '_', or because you accidentally deleted
an extra parenthesis, or wasting time searching for that math
symbol that is just immediately choosable and clickable from
the LyX Math Toolbar.
T.
Re: tex as lyx native file format
Paul A. Rubin ha scritto: it would help if the LaTeX to LyX conversion were more robust. So, is there a wiki page on TODO items for the tex<->lyx conversions ? T.
Re: tex as lyx native file format
On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 11:10:07PM +0200, Roberto Franceschini wrote: > I'm not enetering the technincalities of the thing, i'm not in > position to do so. > I'm just saying that one side LyX is the best word processor, but on > the other side most of the people, dumb like mule, stick to LaTeX just > because it's the standard de-facto. > This make LyX widespreadening much more difficult than it would be. > > Result: > 1) I can wirte my master thesis using LyX. It was 1.4.1 and I think > I saved so much time compared to Latex and i got a much better result > too (Latex can do better, but you need an infinite amount of time > ...). > 2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a > collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex, > not lyx file format. Isn't this sad? That's sad indeed. But I don't think that can be changed easily. Andre'
Re: tex as lyx native file format
> > 2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a > > collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex, > > not lyx file format. Isn't this sad? You can try to convert your co-authors. If you are the first author, they do not need to know anything about lyx before they can revise your paper. Bo
Re: tex as lyx native file format
On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 11:10:07PM +0200, Roberto Franceschini wrote: > I'm not enetering the technincalities of the thing, i'm not in > position to do so. > I'm just saying that one side LyX is the best word processor, but on > the other side most of the people, dumb like mule, stick to LaTeX just > because it's the standard de-facto. > This make LyX widespreadening much more difficult than it would be. > > Result: > 1) I can wirte my master thesis using LyX. It was 1.4.1 and I think > I saved so much time compared to Latex and i got a much better result > too (Latex can do better, but you need an infinite amount of time > ...). > 2) I cannot use LyX anymore because when you write in a > collaborarion a common format is needed and, de-facto, this is Latex, > not lyx file format. Isn't this sad? You should do a better marketing job... point out that "LyX not only is free, but available for your -- yes *your* -- platform of choice too! And the cost of installing it, in terms of disc space etc., is asymptotically zero if you already have installed, or decided to install, a full LaTeX installation. So what are you waiting for?" Worked for a few of my collaborators. - Martin
