Re: Anyone used Lyx on Mac OS X Mavericks

[Ken Springer]

On 10/31/13 8:28 AM, Stephan Witt wrote:

Am 31.10.2013 um 14:56 schrieb James Sutherland james.sutherl...@utah.edu:


I just started testing with Mavericks and haven't seen any trouble with LyX.
James


Sorry, slightly of topic, but…

I don't want to upgrade to Mavericks because of the crippled Sync-Services.
With Mavericks one cannot sync it's iPhone via USB-Port anymore.
You have to use your iCloud account at Apple to sync your contacts and 
calendars.
I didn't find any alternate solution.


I don't own any iOS devices, so syncing is not important to me.  It also 
means, improvements (which is a matter of opinion, of course) that helps 
OS and iOS communicate is unimportant to me.  The two Mavericks features 
that interest me, the tabbed Finder and Tags, I already have in Mountain 
Lion via 3rd party software.  And, I've read elsewhere of 
software/Mavericks issues.


So, I'm in no hurry to update, if at all.


All of you Apple users, you have no problem with this privacy attack?


Privacy issues are the reason I avoid any cloud involvement other than 
web browsing as much as I can.  That's limited to shopping, online 
banking, and a Dropbox account where nothing personal is stored, no 
backups, nada.  I use it as a pseudo FTP site for large files rather 
than try to email or sumpin'.  G  My computers are networked, so I 
don't need it for transferring data between systems.


snip


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.2.3

Re: Anyone used Lyx on Mac OS X Mavericks

[Ken Springer]

On 10/31/13 8:28 AM, Stephan Witt wrote:

Am 31.10.2013 um 14:56 schrieb James Sutherland james.sutherl...@utah.edu:


I just started testing with Mavericks and haven't seen any trouble with LyX.
James


Sorry, slightly of topic, but…

I don't want to upgrade to Mavericks because of the crippled Sync-Services.
With Mavericks one cannot sync it's iPhone via USB-Port anymore.
You have to use your iCloud account at Apple to sync your contacts and 
calendars.
I didn't find any alternate solution.


I don't own any iOS devices, so syncing is not important to me.  It also 
means, improvements (which is a matter of opinion, of course) that helps 
OS and iOS communicate is unimportant to me.  The two Mavericks features 
that interest me, the tabbed Finder and Tags, I already have in Mountain 
Lion via 3rd party software.  And, I've read elsewhere of 
software/Mavericks issues.


So, I'm in no hurry to update, if at all.


All of you Apple users, you have no problem with this privacy attack?


Privacy issues are the reason I avoid any cloud involvement other than 
web browsing as much as I can.  That's limited to shopping, online 
banking, and a Dropbox account where nothing personal is stored, no 
backups, nada.  I use it as a pseudo FTP site for large files rather 
than try to email or sumpin'.  G  My computers are networked, so I 
don't need it for transferring data between systems.


snip


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.2.3

Re: Anyone used Lyx on Mac OS X Mavericks

[Ken Springer]

On 10/31/13 8:28 AM, Stephan Witt wrote:

Am 31.10.2013 um 14:56 schrieb James Sutherland :


I just started testing with Mavericks and haven't seen any trouble with LyX.
James


Sorry, slightly of topic, but…

I don't want to upgrade to Mavericks because of the crippled Sync-Services.
With Mavericks one cannot sync it's iPhone via USB-Port anymore.
You have to use your iCloud account at Apple to sync your contacts and 
calendars.
I didn't find any alternate solution.


I don't own any iOS devices, so syncing is not important to me.  It also 
means, improvements (which is a matter of opinion, of course) that helps 
OS and iOS communicate is unimportant to me.  The two Mavericks features 
that interest me, the tabbed Finder and Tags, I already have in Mountain 
Lion via 3rd party software.  And, I've read elsewhere of 
software/Mavericks issues.


So, I'm in no hurry to update, if at all.


All of you Apple users, you have no problem with this privacy attack?


Privacy issues are the reason I avoid any cloud involvement other than 
web browsing as much as I can.  That's limited to shopping, online 
banking, and a Dropbox account where nothing personal is stored, no 
backups, nada.  I use it as a pseudo FTP site for large files rather 
than try to email or "sumpin'".My computers are networked, so I 
don't need it for transferring data between systems.





--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.2.3

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/26/13 10:17 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial
program for a platform now long gone.

But, as I wrote in
news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, if I help by
reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
reporting a bug:

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a thank you. #2 garners what a douchebag!

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance


Not the same situation, Steve.  In both examples, fixing my friend's 
skateboard bugs result in a feature of his skateboarding that gives me 
something I can use.  :-)


If I report a bug in a piece of software, fairly obviously it's 
something I use but is broken.  When the bug is squashed, then I and 
everyone else has something they can use.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/26/13 1:25 PM, John Coppens wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org,
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Many, if not most projects include a 'THANKS' file in their packages with
the names of people who collaborated in the project. Not all include bug
reporters, which is fine by me if the report results in an improved version
of the free program. That's more than thanks enough for me.


Same here.  I don't care about a public thanks, just squash the bug(s).  :-)


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/26/13 10:17 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial
program for a platform now long gone.

But, as I wrote in
news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, if I help by
reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
reporting a bug:

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a thank you. #2 garners what a douchebag!

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance


Not the same situation, Steve.  In both examples, fixing my friend's 
skateboard bugs result in a feature of his skateboarding that gives me 
something I can use.  :-)


If I report a bug in a piece of software, fairly obviously it's 
something I use but is broken.  When the bug is squashed, then I and 
everyone else has something they can use.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/26/13 1:25 PM, John Coppens wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org,
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Many, if not most projects include a 'THANKS' file in their packages with
the names of people who collaborated in the project. Not all include bug
reporters, which is fine by me if the report results in an improved version
of the free program. That's more than thanks enough for me.


Same here.  I don't care about a public thanks, just squash the bug(s).  :-)


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/26/13 10:17 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com> wrote:


I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial
program for a platform now long gone.

But, as I wrote in
news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, if I help by
reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
"reporting a bug":

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a "thank you." #2 garners "what a douchebag!"

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance


Not the same situation, Steve.  In both examples, fixing my friend's 
skateboard "bugs" result in a feature of his skateboarding that gives me 
something I can use.  :-)


If I report a bug in a piece of software, fairly obviously it's 
something I use but is broken.  When the bug is squashed, then I and 
everyone else has something they can use.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/26/13 1:25 PM, John Coppens wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com> wrote:


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org,
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Many, if not most projects include a 'THANKS' file in their packages with
the names of people who collaborated in the project. Not all include bug
reporters, which is fine by me if the report results in an improved version
of the free program. That's more than thanks enough for me.


Same here.  I don't care about a public thanks, just squash the bug(s).  :-)


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Ken Springer]

On 10/25/13 2:52 AM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:

25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:


... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx
binary.
  From the top of my head, it is at
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx



Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?



Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line.
If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do open myfile.lyx.

OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type,
where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all
its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by
drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder
looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX.


Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to
that kind of organization.


I just learned about Jean-Marc's information about OS X applications a 
couple weeks ago.


If you want to see the contents of the individual application's folder, 
open the Applications folder.  Right click on the application you are 
interested in, such as Preview.app, and select Show Package Contents. 
Now, if you want/need to, you can do all the normal file management 
operations you usually.


To fix something on this Mac, I had to do just this.  But danged if I 
remember what the issue was.  :-(


One other thing, simply removing an app from the Applications folder 
does not remove all files associated with the application.  Depending on 
the program and how it's installed, i.e. for a single user or for all 
users, the various Library folders may contain files used by the 
application.  Those files get left behind if you simply remove the 
application from the Applications folder.  You can manually search for 
the extra files and remove them, or use a program to remove them.  I use 
a free program called AppCleaner that looks for those files.  A couple 
of mouse clicks, and the extra files are gone.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Ken Springer]

On 10/25/13 2:52 AM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org wrote:

25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:


... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx
binary.
  From the top of my head, it is at
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx



Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?



Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line.
If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do open myfile.lyx.

OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type,
where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all
its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by
drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder
looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX.


Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to
that kind of organization.


I just learned about Jean-Marc's information about OS X applications a 
couple weeks ago.


If you want to see the contents of the individual application's folder, 
open the Applications folder.  Right click on the application you are 
interested in, such as Preview.app, and select Show Package Contents. 
Now, if you want/need to, you can do all the normal file management 
operations you usually.


To fix something on this Mac, I had to do just this.  But danged if I 
remember what the issue was.  :-(


One other thing, simply removing an app from the Applications folder 
does not remove all files associated with the application.  Depending on 
the program and how it's installed, i.e. for a single user or for all 
users, the various Library folders may contain files used by the 
application.  Those files get left behind if you simply remove the 
application from the Applications folder.  You can manually search for 
the extra files and remove them, or use a program to remove them.  I use 
a free program called AppCleaner that looks for those files.  A couple 
of mouse clicks, and the extra files are gone.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: Mavericks troubles

[Ken Springer]

On 10/25/13 2:52 AM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
 wrote:

25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak:


... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx
binary.
  From the top of my head, it is at
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx



Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable
take care of this?



Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line.
If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do "open myfile.lyx".

OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type,
where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all
its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by
drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder
looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX.


Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to
that kind of organization.


I just learned about Jean-Marc's information about OS X applications a 
couple weeks ago.


If you want to see the contents of the individual application's folder, 
open the Applications folder.  Right click on the application you are 
interested in, such as Preview.app, and select Show Package Contents. 
Now, if you want/need to, you can do all the normal file management 
operations you usually.


To fix something on this Mac, I had to do just this.  But danged if I 
remember what the issue was.  :-(


One other thing, simply removing an app from the Applications folder 
does not remove all files associated with the application.  Depending on 
the program and how it's installed, i.e. for a single user or for all 
users, the various Library folders may contain files used by the 
application.  Those files get left behind if you simply remove the 
application from the Applications folder.  You can manually search for 
the extra files and remove them, or use a program to remove them.  I use 
a free program called AppCleaner that looks for those files.  A couple 
of mouse clicks, and the extra files are gone.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...

On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

He's serious, and so am I: if you want professional software and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.


I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post, and 
mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply 
news://news.gmane.org:119/CAKh=ax83kk2gzk7urwhnluo2nbaixxv6jvdvyvswtejyf3f...@mail.gmail.com 
and my reply news://news.gmane.org:119/l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org where 
we think we made it clear our comments do not apply to LyX, but the 
community as a whole.


Regarding my reply to Vincent's, Not professional ? Right, don't use it 
then., it's simply an issue with text only based communication, where 
there are multiple ways of interpreting what has been written. 
Regardless of the native language of the writer.


I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as Well, 
OK, don't use it.  Or I could have read it as OK, A$$hole, go f**k 
off!  Or, the feeling behind the words could be something in between. 
With such a short reply, and no indicators such as smilies to let me 
know the emotion behind the comment, I don't know how Vincent feels with 
his reply.


Years ago, I saw flame wars get started over comments this simple.


The difference between commercial software and open source projects is
that the former produces software for the market and gets money for a
living of it (which results in some obligations towards the paying
users), while the latter produce software for themselves (the open
source group, while non-active users can use the software as a benefit).
I devote my (rare) free time to LyX development to get a good product
for myself. Nothing else. Of course I listen to users wishes (and I
think people on this list can acknowledge that all of us do), but I
only take them up if I find them interesting enough to devote my (spare)
free time or if I need the feature myself. I think nobody can expect
more from me.


Agreed, but there is the cross over segment of program developers.  This 
group develops the software, but then charges for help and assistance. 
I may be wrong, but I think Red Hat/Fedora used to do this, and may 
still do it.  I purchased, yes purchased, a copy of Red Had 9 from a 
long gone computer retail company to try it out.  Ended up not using Red 
Hat for reasons not related to this discussion.


This group is obviously trying to make money from the FOSS software.

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively 
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed.  Then the bugs just sit there, 
never getting fixed.  If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then 
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs.  This is the non 
professional attitude I'm talking about.  Even worse are the developers 
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial product.


It isn't the software that isn't or couldn't be professional, it's the 
attitudes of developers who indicate they wish to be professional, but 
they are not in this area.



This is how I came into LyX development, as a complete programming
novice: I wanted some things to change, and no one took it up, so I did
myself.

So if you think that we want LyX to be commercially widespread or
successful, you misunderstood us (and the whole open source movement).
Everybody certainly has individual motives, but for many developers
(including me), success does not mean rule the world or kick out
program X from the market (I do not care at all for this kind of
goal), but: attract more developers, make the application as YOU want
it, have fun, learn something.


Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were 
not LyX specific.


As an observation only, any FOSS developer group may not want to have 
the impression the goal is to be a commercial level project, but there 
is no way you can control how others see the software package as word 
of mouth comments are passed from one person to another.


So it's possible that the impression of Group A is the desire to be at 
this level, but that is not the intent of the members of Group A.



So if you think LyX is not the right tool for you, use something else. I
could not care less, really.


But, you do care, otherwise you would not have replied.  G

Returning to Vincent's reply, Not professional ? Right, don't use it 
then., not using a particular FOSS program is exactly why I'm going to 
try LyX and on this list.  It's also why I'm trying Scrivener 
(commercial software and paid for.  :-)  ), which to me/for me is darned 
near perfect for organizing your research and then getting something on 
paper.  As I said, I think at this moment, the odds are 99% in favor I 
will not use Scrivener 

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 4:38 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Wed, 23 Oct 2013 18:31:48 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


On 10/23/13 2:31 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

Interesting comments. I too have found small vendors to be much more
helpful. Often the developers help with or even do all of the tech
support at small vendors. And they actually read my emails, instead
of replying with canned responses.


Most of the time, you can't get help from the big guys, really pisses
me off.


If it pisses you off, then as Vincent van Ravesteijn said, don't use
it. Use proprietary software, with their official support channels
(often for limited time or costing money) full of script-reading ignos
escalating to other script reading ignos.


It appears you also misinterpreted the post.  It was generalized, and 
not specific to LyX.


Product support, customer service, in general, sucks.  Online, offline, 
commercial, open source, just about everywhere.  For software these 
days, you are supposed to join a forum.  If I went back through all my 
forum posts asking for help, I think I'd be lucky to find 10% of them 
have had answers to my questions.


But, there are exceptions.  With one problem I had with a Windows 
security update, I was on the phone, more than once, with a support 
engineer in New Delhi.



Earlier in this thread someone implied that some Open Source projects
are unprofessional. Well yeah, surprise surprise, Open Source isn't
most developers' profession: It doesn't pay the rent. You want
professional, go to those who make their money by charging you for
software. If you want good software with excellent support for those who
know how to ask questions and behave on a mailing list, stay with Open
Source.


That was me, and as I hope I cleared up in a post somewhere, I was 
speaking about attitudes more than the software.


You don't have to make money to have a professional attitude about your 
work.



It's funny. In February 2008 I got royally pissed at what I considered
bad support from the LyX community, so I started designing a
book-writing software alternative to LyX, using VimOutliner, LaTeX, and
a few other things. There's a long, rich tradition in free software that
if you don't like their support or their progress adding features, you
fork their project.


From what I've read about LyX, it's used by many college students in 
the math and science's department.  Am I to presuppose all the students 
have the programming skills to fix issues that are broken, don't work, 
or what ever is not working right?



But you know what never occurred to me? Going with
Page Plus, Microsoft Publisher, or InDesign. Here are just a few
reasons these alternatives never occurred to me:


Page Plus I've never tried, used Publisher in the mid-90's for a work 
project, found it lacking in comparison to another DTP package I was 
familiar with.  FYI, had no option in the choice of software.  InDesign 
I'd never heard of until a few weeks ago.



* http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html


I read this months ago, but as part of a thread somewhere on government 
overreach.



* http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200104/200104.htm#_editors_desk


I like the opening of your article, but don't have the time to get 
through it today.  I'm still trying to get to an article on the 9th 
Amendment to Constitution I started reading last week.



* http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-continues-to-fail-716222/


Of this I'm not surprised.  I read alt.comp.os.windows-8 and most are 
not that happy with Win 8.  I've got it installed here to play with. 
I think it should be good for tablets and smart phones, but not desktops 
with big screens and people/groups who want a system that's efficient to 
navigate and use.


One exception to the big screen comment may be places like restaurants, 
where a Point of Sale use may be good.  The waitstaff of a restaurant 
simply touches the screen to place a customer's order, for instance.



*http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240185097/Microsofts-Windows-81-update-fails-to-deliver


Debating on upgrading my 8.0 install.  Only one is legal, so I'm 
thinking of buying a retail 8.1 copy.



There's something that doesn't make sense to me: Why does someone go on
the mailing list of an Open Source project and diss Open Source? I diss
Windows all the time, but I don't do it on ##windows. I diss Apple all
the time, but I don't do it in Apple User Groups. I diss OpenOffice all
the time, but not on an OpenOffice mailing list.


Feel free to call it a diss, I call it freedom to express an opinion. 
 It all depends on how you say it.  Make it personal to an individual, 
no.  Make it an opinion about a product, group, etc., OK.


If you don't express your opinion of X in an area for X, you do X no 
favors.  You become:


1.  The opposite of a politician who only tells the constituent what the
  constituent wants to hear.
2.  The group becomes the merchant who never finds out

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 9:03 AM, Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:


On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 3:59 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...


On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

 Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


 Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

He's serious, and so am I: if you want professional software
and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.


I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post,
and mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply

news://news.gmane.org:119/__CAKh=__ax83KK2GzK7uRwhnLUo2NBaixxV6JV__DVYvswTeJYF3Frhw@mail.gmail.__com

http://news.gmane.org:119/CAKh=ax83kk2gzk7urwhnluo2nbaixxv6jvdvyvswtejyf3f...@mail.gmail.com
and my reply news://news.gmane.org:119/__l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org
http://news.gmane.org:119/l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org where we
think we made it clear our comments do not apply to LyX, but the
community as a whole.

Regarding my reply to Vincent's, Not professional ? Right, don't
use it then., it's simply an issue with text only based
communication, where there are multiple ways of interpreting what
has been written. Regardless of the native language of the writer.

I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as
Well, OK, don't use it.  Or I could have read it as OK, A$$hole,
go f**k off!  Or, the feeling behind the words could be something
in between. With such a short reply, and no indicators such as
smilies to let me know the emotion behind the comment, I don't know
how Vincent feels with his reply.

It was this part that made me a bit angry indeed:


I've learned over the years, if I read something that sets me off, 
it's best not to reply right away.  The odds are very good I've 
misunderstood it.   G



 You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
 developed by *volunteers*, do you?
 
  I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do
 
We do our best, but it's just not possible to be professional when there
is only a handful contibutors who need to find some spare time to
maintain a project like LyX.


I would contend the opposite.  Maybe you would get less done, but doing 
less and doing it right the first time is usually a better road to 
travel.  In the long run, I've had fewer problems with that approach.



  Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were
not LyX specific.
A lof of the general comments also do apply to LyX, so it feels a bit
as being critized, even though you say they are not LyX specific.


I can only speak for myself...  Since I've to even get further than step 
1 of the tutorial, I don't know enough about LyX to be able to say 
anything specific.  Except I have trouble typing an uppercase X in LyX! 
  LOL



Last remark: Welcome to LyX as a new user ;


Thanks, Vincent.  I'll likely just be a lurker for quite awhile.  Most, 
if not all, of the subjects currently being discussed are over my head, 
I usually don't have a clue what people are talking about.  But after I 
get Scrivener under some control, I'll catch up.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But I 
did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial 
program for a platform now long gone.


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting 
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by 
fixing the bug?


On 10/24/13 7:57 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do seem to have very strong opinions about open-source, and demand
very high standards. Would you care to tell us how many open-source
projects have you created or at least been an active developer in?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.

I do have some free software installed, some open source, some
not. But I get updates and bug fixes from the free software, not
so much from the open source software in the way of bug fixes.


On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including
LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

 I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to
produce some
 technical
 manuals quickly that looked good to management and that
didn't
 make me
 deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

 LyX really came through for me.

 Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I
used the
 KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of
intent.
 Looks good!

 Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available.
ModernCV looks
 good,
 under development for seven years.

 Except it won't accept last names much longer than the
author's name
 without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks
to deal
 with this.

 Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example
says, 'The
 moderncv
 class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
 explained in
 the preamble of this document; for more information
look at the
 documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

 Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and
includes
 this:
 'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look
in the
 examples
 directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled
into dvi,
 ps or pdf.'

 The example LyX file points to documentation that
doesn't actually
 exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is
explained.
 Seven years
 of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can
use.

 I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself',
'That's how
 open source
 works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
 documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a
document
 NOW, not
 work on the documentation for the tool to produce the
document.

 Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If
you have
 the time
 to produce something that you expect people to use, you
need to
 make the
 time to explain how to use it.

 (Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is
richly
 documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
 generally.)

 -- Rich


 To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to
LyX, but as
 in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source
community in
 general.

 I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he
clearly states
 his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


 When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have
spent.  I got
 into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

 I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly
moving
 back

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 11:35 AM, Walter van Holst wrote:

On 24/10/2013 07:32, Richard Talley wrote:

I've read good things about Scrivener. It's more a 'book project
management' program than a word processor. I know some people use it for
everything until it's time to print, then they export to LaTeX. Good
luck with it.


A somewhat close analog to Scrivener is CeltX. I prefer Scrivener over
CeltX, but if FOSS is a principle, I'd recommend looking into CeltX.


I wish I had known about this program, I would have tried it.  May 
still, as I've downloaded the Mac and Windows versions.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 5:13 PM, Bryan Baldwin wrote:

On 10/25/2013 05:32 AM, Ken Springer wrote:

snip

We know your argument. Seriously, We've heard it everywhere all the
time...end-less-ly. Everybody wishes that their software was robust with
magic documentation and free specialists that will fix your problem or
tell you what to do on demand. It doesn't always work out that way,
though. Tough.

You think you are owed an explanation of how everything you download and
run works. That could be a mistake. These licenses generally state, AS
IS WITH NO WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. Its usually printed all or in part in all captial letters.

If there is something that you want to see happen in free software, and
the developers who are working for free (or paid by someone else to work
on it contrary to your interests) aren't doing it, or aren't doing it
fast enough to suit you, and you cannot or will not do it yourself, you
still have recourse. It works similarly to, but not quite the same as,
the proprietary model.

Pay someone to do it for you. Then you'll have someone obligated to put
up with your whinging.

That is not us.


This is all the time I have for this reply.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 12:55 PM, Richard Talley wrote:




On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:


I can't speak for Rich, but it was not my intent to leave an
impression of mass exodus.  Just my pulling back from the
potential promise I saw that open source has, but IMO is not doing a
good job of meeting.  I think Canonical is making that effort, but I
have no feel as to their success.  Someday, when I'm rich but not
famous, and have the time, I really want to try Linux.  Personally,
I don't care for the direction MS and Apple are going with the
operating systems.  AKA, I'm not a cloud fan and a devotee of the
cloud idea for personal use.

I see an opportunity for open source to be a real contender/option
to be an alternative to MS and Apple for the users.  I think this
should be obvious with the success of the Android/Linux based
phones.  I am a fan of competition, of which there is little today.
  But I think the attitudes of many in the open source community may
be undermining that opportunity.


The words I wrote that started this thread were a little harsh, but I
was frustrated. My experience with LyX has been excellent - it's gotten
out of my way and allowed me to concentrate on the content and structure
of my documents, just what it was designed to do.

In other circumstances, with no time deadline, I would not have minded
working on the problem. But I was writing from the point of view of the
majority of users to whom computers are not intrinsically interesting,
but just tools to get some work done. The response to this is often an
exhortation to them to learn about their computers, an attitude that
there's something lacking in those who don't. But I've known any number
of intelligent doctors and lawyers and teachers whose cognitive loads
are already high enough that telling them that they need to gain an
intimate of knowledge of computers is just a bar too high. They want
their computers to just work, the way the other appliances in their
lives do. Apple seems to understand this better than the rest of the
industry; it's striking to watch toddlers pick up iPads and just get to
it. (Noting that Apple OSes are based on FOSS and they contribute in
important ways to the community; who would have guessed 25 years ago
that Apple would achieve the apparently impossible - a Unix-style
operating system usable by the average person?)


Your experience with other computer users mirrors mine!  And then, when 
something goes wrong, who do they call?  Me.  When I tell them they need 
to learn more, I get the old I don't have the time speech.  We all 
have 24 hours in a day, it's how we choose to spend them.  You can spend 
the time learning how to avoid the bad things, or ultimately spend more 
time dealing with problems a little at a time.


Having the computer just work is why I bought this Mac.  So tired of 
that little yellow shield in Windows telling me there were updates and 
bug fixes waiting.


And as you noted, LyX got out of your way.  That's the way all software 
should work.  You don't expect to have to work on your car, your TV, 
whatever in order to use it.  But you do have to take the time to learn 
to drive and operate your car, TV, whatever.


We are past the days of the Model T and no power tools.


That said, there are two attitudes common in the open source community
that are orthogonal.

The first is that free (in Stallman's senses) and open software is just
better, intrinsically, philosophically and politically. It should take
over the world. The bazaar is better than the cathedral.

But when people complain about how impenetrable, geeky and poorly
documented much of FOSS is, it's often thrown back in their faces (we're
all volunteers, we scratch our own itches, learn about your computer,
learn to code and contribute).


Exactly.  Those responses aren't exactly customer friendly, are they. 
Which is why my respect for the efforts of some has dropped.  In another 
open source program list, I've had people tell me since the program is 
free, that's good enough.  It's not.  Not in computer programs, car 
repair, or anything.  Have some pride in your work.  I'd rather pay for 
something that works than have to fix something that's free.  And I 
have.  I think I've mentioned that somewhere.



FOSS is wonderful, at times. FOSS is terrible, at times (sometimes the
same time it's wonderful).

Proprietary software is wonderful, at times. It's terrible, at times
(sometimes the same time it's wonderful).


True in both cases.


A lot of human technology is old (controlled fire goes back before H.
sapiens!) and we've learned lots of ways to control and cope. Digital
computer technology is less than a century old and we're still in the
early learning phase of controlling and coping with it.

I divide software organizations, not into FOSS vs. proprietary, but into
apathetic or hostile to criticism

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 8:32 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:

24/10/2013 15:59, Ken Springer:

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed.  Then the bugs just sit there,
never getting fixed.  If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs.  This is the non
professional attitude I'm talking about.  Even worse are the developers
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial
product.


I cannot speak for other free (as in freedom) software, but the deal is
simple: programmers do what they can and scratch their own itches,
either because they need a feature or they want to implement it, and
users do what they want and scratch their own itches by sending bug
reports. Their is nothing more in the implied contract. We do have 10
years old bugs in LyX; it is not only because we do not care about them,
but many of them require work that is difficult to get right. For
example, we will have one of these 10-year-old bugs fixed due to a
Google Summer of Code project, and I can say I am very happy about that.

That said, I have to admit that there are bugs I have no interest in
fixing. The magic of open source is that, if the bug is important
enough, it should annoy one of the developers and it will eventually get
fixed.

About the way bugs are labeled, I can tell you that regression is a
very important term for us. We do not let such bugs linger too long.
In the opposite, a bug accompanied by a comment like OMG LYX IS
WORTHLESS DUE TO THIS BUG is not likely to get much attention.

That's how it works. We don't owe you anything, you don't owe us
anything either, but by some mystery the ecosystem is viable.


Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in 
the long run?



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: Getting Support: was: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 1:27 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:32:55 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


Product support, customer service, in general, sucks.  Online,
offline, commercial, open source, just about everywhere.  For
software these days, you are supposed to join a forum.  If I went
back through all my forum posts asking for help, I think I'd be lucky
to find 10% of them have had answers to my questions.


I changed the subject line because the old subject line infuriated me...


Fortunately, changing the subject line doesn't break the threading for 
me.  G



Getting support is difficult, but luckily there are things you can do
to make solution more likely. Certainly the first step if you're
asking for tech support is to read this and live by it:

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


Skimmed and bookmarked.  Just getting so far behind...


Speaking for myself, when somebody majorly violates the tenants of the
preceding link, I never provide an answer, even if I know the answer by
heart. Life's too short, I'm too busy, and answering questions doesn't
pay the rent, so I have no need to be nice to the vast hoards of
unthinkers.

Next, and this is very pertinent to the LyX list, when submitting an
example of a bug, submit a minimal example. I mean continue to remove
things until anything else you remove makes the symptom disappear. This
accomplishes two things:

1) It probably solves your problem without help. If you can flip a
symptom on and off by adding or removing one sentence, you're
probably in a position to understand the mechanism of the problem.
2) It makes it much easier for anyone responding to you to reproduce
your problem, and to quickly understand what's going on, and either
tell you the answer or tell you where to look next.


I've been in the fixit maintenance fields all my life.  This is just 
basic troubleshooting.  One thing I learned is many, if not most, people 
needing a fix of some kind didn't know enough about the subject to ask 
the right questions, or even describe the problem.  Just had a 
discussion elsewhere and the words image, copy, and backup were used 
interchangeably causing confusion.


I've also learned, sometimes what should be the obvious solution isn't 
the solution.  And something you just don't believe is the cause, turns 
out to be the cause.


I would contend the same problem exists with computer and software 
users.  They don't know enough about what they are using to be able to 
ask intelligent and clear questions.  :-(



Sometimes, when submitting a Minimum Example for a problem that seems
to be a LaTeX problem (actually my misuse of LaTeX would be more
accurate), I'll go so far as to code it in LaTeX, not LyX, and then
post the question. This rules out LyX, making it easier for the list
inhabitants to 1) Know whether the solution is within their area of
expertise, and 2) Rule out LyX right away. LyX-List inhabitants are
nice enough that they'll answer LaTeX questions, even though
technically LaTeX is not their product.


At this point, I couldn't code anything in LaTeX if our lives depended 
on it!LOL


But, that's the thing.  I want to use this tool called LyX, and by 
extension LaTeX, and others.  Not build it.



Having been on the LyX-Users list since 2001, I've seen a lot of help
requests come with giant LyX files. Does the submitter really expect
*me* to carve up his gigantic document in order to make a Minimum
Example? Well, that's not going to happen, because if it's too much
work for the guy who needs a solution, it's certainly too much work for
me.

Next, if you have an error message, put it in a search engine. You
might find a lot of valuable information.


A common suggestion, but not always the right answer when there is 
nothing specific to work from.  One, if the user doesn't know anything 
about what he/she's doing, how are they supposed to be able to do an 
adequate search of the web?  Two, some people like me, often just never 
seem to use the correct terms.  I can look, sometimes seemingly forever, 
for X in a search.  I tell one of my sisters what I'm looking for, and 
even though she knows little to nothing about what I'm looking for, in a 
few minutes she's got the answer(s).  Bugs the devil out of me.



I've found that the guy who answers a lot of questions for others gets
a lot of detailed and devoted help when he needs it. I've found this on
the LyX list the past 12 years. I help newbies with layouts and light
LaTeX and the like, and then the *big brains* on the list help me when I
have a showstopper problem. Pay it forward, and you'll get lots of
support.

Sometimes you post a concise symptom description and minimal example
and do everything right, and you know *someone* on the list has info,
but you're met with deafening silence. It's time for the patented,
can't miss, Steve Litt Answer-Getting Method (SLAGM). What you do is
make some sort of kludge to fix your symptom

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...

On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

He's serious, and so am I: if you want professional software and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.


I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post, and 
mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply 
news://news.gmane.org:119/CAKh=ax83kk2gzk7urwhnluo2nbaixxv6jvdvyvswtejyf3f...@mail.gmail.com 
and my reply news://news.gmane.org:119/l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org where 
we think we made it clear our comments do not apply to LyX, but the 
community as a whole.


Regarding my reply to Vincent's, Not professional ? Right, don't use it 
then., it's simply an issue with text only based communication, where 
there are multiple ways of interpreting what has been written. 
Regardless of the native language of the writer.


I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as Well, 
OK, don't use it.  Or I could have read it as OK, A$$hole, go f**k 
off!  Or, the feeling behind the words could be something in between. 
With such a short reply, and no indicators such as smilies to let me 
know the emotion behind the comment, I don't know how Vincent feels with 
his reply.


Years ago, I saw flame wars get started over comments this simple.


The difference between commercial software and open source projects is
that the former produces software for the market and gets money for a
living of it (which results in some obligations towards the paying
users), while the latter produce software for themselves (the open
source group, while non-active users can use the software as a benefit).
I devote my (rare) free time to LyX development to get a good product
for myself. Nothing else. Of course I listen to users wishes (and I
think people on this list can acknowledge that all of us do), but I
only take them up if I find them interesting enough to devote my (spare)
free time or if I need the feature myself. I think nobody can expect
more from me.


Agreed, but there is the cross over segment of program developers.  This 
group develops the software, but then charges for help and assistance. 
I may be wrong, but I think Red Hat/Fedora used to do this, and may 
still do it.  I purchased, yes purchased, a copy of Red Had 9 from a 
long gone computer retail company to try it out.  Ended up not using Red 
Hat for reasons not related to this discussion.


This group is obviously trying to make money from the FOSS software.

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively 
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed.  Then the bugs just sit there, 
never getting fixed.  If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then 
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs.  This is the non 
professional attitude I'm talking about.  Even worse are the developers 
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial product.


It isn't the software that isn't or couldn't be professional, it's the 
attitudes of developers who indicate they wish to be professional, but 
they are not in this area.



This is how I came into LyX development, as a complete programming
novice: I wanted some things to change, and no one took it up, so I did
myself.

So if you think that we want LyX to be commercially widespread or
successful, you misunderstood us (and the whole open source movement).
Everybody certainly has individual motives, but for many developers
(including me), success does not mean rule the world or kick out
program X from the market (I do not care at all for this kind of
goal), but: attract more developers, make the application as YOU want
it, have fun, learn something.


Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were 
not LyX specific.


As an observation only, any FOSS developer group may not want to have 
the impression the goal is to be a commercial level project, but there 
is no way you can control how others see the software package as word 
of mouth comments are passed from one person to another.


So it's possible that the impression of Group A is the desire to be at 
this level, but that is not the intent of the members of Group A.



So if you think LyX is not the right tool for you, use something else. I
could not care less, really.


But, you do care, otherwise you would not have replied.  G

Returning to Vincent's reply, Not professional ? Right, don't use it 
then., not using a particular FOSS program is exactly why I'm going to 
try LyX and on this list.  It's also why I'm trying Scrivener 
(commercial software and paid for.  :-)  ), which to me/for me is darned 
near perfect for organizing your research and then getting something on 
paper.  As I said, I think at this moment, the odds are 99% in favor I 
will not use Scrivener 

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 4:38 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Wed, 23 Oct 2013 18:31:48 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


On 10/23/13 2:31 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

Interesting comments. I too have found small vendors to be much more
helpful. Often the developers help with or even do all of the tech
support at small vendors. And they actually read my emails, instead
of replying with canned responses.


Most of the time, you can't get help from the big guys, really pisses
me off.


If it pisses you off, then as Vincent van Ravesteijn said, don't use
it. Use proprietary software, with their official support channels
(often for limited time or costing money) full of script-reading ignos
escalating to other script reading ignos.


It appears you also misinterpreted the post.  It was generalized, and 
not specific to LyX.


Product support, customer service, in general, sucks.  Online, offline, 
commercial, open source, just about everywhere.  For software these 
days, you are supposed to join a forum.  If I went back through all my 
forum posts asking for help, I think I'd be lucky to find 10% of them 
have had answers to my questions.


But, there are exceptions.  With one problem I had with a Windows 
security update, I was on the phone, more than once, with a support 
engineer in New Delhi.



Earlier in this thread someone implied that some Open Source projects
are unprofessional. Well yeah, surprise surprise, Open Source isn't
most developers' profession: It doesn't pay the rent. You want
professional, go to those who make their money by charging you for
software. If you want good software with excellent support for those who
know how to ask questions and behave on a mailing list, stay with Open
Source.


That was me, and as I hope I cleared up in a post somewhere, I was 
speaking about attitudes more than the software.


You don't have to make money to have a professional attitude about your 
work.



It's funny. In February 2008 I got royally pissed at what I considered
bad support from the LyX community, so I started designing a
book-writing software alternative to LyX, using VimOutliner, LaTeX, and
a few other things. There's a long, rich tradition in free software that
if you don't like their support or their progress adding features, you
fork their project.


From what I've read about LyX, it's used by many college students in 
the math and science's department.  Am I to presuppose all the students 
have the programming skills to fix issues that are broken, don't work, 
or what ever is not working right?



But you know what never occurred to me? Going with
Page Plus, Microsoft Publisher, or InDesign. Here are just a few
reasons these alternatives never occurred to me:


Page Plus I've never tried, used Publisher in the mid-90's for a work 
project, found it lacking in comparison to another DTP package I was 
familiar with.  FYI, had no option in the choice of software.  InDesign 
I'd never heard of until a few weeks ago.



* http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html


I read this months ago, but as part of a thread somewhere on government 
overreach.



* http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200104/200104.htm#_editors_desk


I like the opening of your article, but don't have the time to get 
through it today.  I'm still trying to get to an article on the 9th 
Amendment to Constitution I started reading last week.



* http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-continues-to-fail-716222/


Of this I'm not surprised.  I read alt.comp.os.windows-8 and most are 
not that happy with Win 8.  I've got it installed here to play with. 
I think it should be good for tablets and smart phones, but not desktops 
with big screens and people/groups who want a system that's efficient to 
navigate and use.


One exception to the big screen comment may be places like restaurants, 
where a Point of Sale use may be good.  The waitstaff of a restaurant 
simply touches the screen to place a customer's order, for instance.



*http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240185097/Microsofts-Windows-81-update-fails-to-deliver


Debating on upgrading my 8.0 install.  Only one is legal, so I'm 
thinking of buying a retail 8.1 copy.



There's something that doesn't make sense to me: Why does someone go on
the mailing list of an Open Source project and diss Open Source? I diss
Windows all the time, but I don't do it on ##windows. I diss Apple all
the time, but I don't do it in Apple User Groups. I diss OpenOffice all
the time, but not on an OpenOffice mailing list.


Feel free to call it a diss, I call it freedom to express an opinion. 
 It all depends on how you say it.  Make it personal to an individual, 
no.  Make it an opinion about a product, group, etc., OK.


If you don't express your opinion of X in an area for X, you do X no 
favors.  You become:


1.  The opposite of a politician who only tells the constituent what the
  constituent wants to hear.
2.  The group becomes the merchant who never finds out

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 9:03 AM, Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:


On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 3:59 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...


On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

 Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


 Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

He's serious, and so am I: if you want professional software
and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.


I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post,
and mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply

news://news.gmane.org:119/__CAKh=__ax83KK2GzK7uRwhnLUo2NBaixxV6JV__DVYvswTeJYF3Frhw@mail.gmail.__com

http://news.gmane.org:119/CAKh=ax83kk2gzk7urwhnluo2nbaixxv6jvdvyvswtejyf3f...@mail.gmail.com
and my reply news://news.gmane.org:119/__l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org
http://news.gmane.org:119/l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org where we
think we made it clear our comments do not apply to LyX, but the
community as a whole.

Regarding my reply to Vincent's, Not professional ? Right, don't
use it then., it's simply an issue with text only based
communication, where there are multiple ways of interpreting what
has been written. Regardless of the native language of the writer.

I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as
Well, OK, don't use it.  Or I could have read it as OK, A$$hole,
go f**k off!  Or, the feeling behind the words could be something
in between. With such a short reply, and no indicators such as
smilies to let me know the emotion behind the comment, I don't know
how Vincent feels with his reply.

It was this part that made me a bit angry indeed:


I've learned over the years, if I read something that sets me off, 
it's best not to reply right away.  The odds are very good I've 
misunderstood it.   G



 You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
 developed by *volunteers*, do you?
 
  I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do
 
We do our best, but it's just not possible to be professional when there
is only a handful contibutors who need to find some spare time to
maintain a project like LyX.


I would contend the opposite.  Maybe you would get less done, but doing 
less and doing it right the first time is usually a better road to 
travel.  In the long run, I've had fewer problems with that approach.



  Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were
not LyX specific.
A lof of the general comments also do apply to LyX, so it feels a bit
as being critized, even though you say they are not LyX specific.


I can only speak for myself...  Since I've to even get further than step 
1 of the tutorial, I don't know enough about LyX to be able to say 
anything specific.  Except I have trouble typing an uppercase X in LyX! 
  LOL



Last remark: Welcome to LyX as a new user ;


Thanks, Vincent.  I'll likely just be a lurker for quite awhile.  Most, 
if not all, of the subjects currently being discussed are over my head, 
I usually don't have a clue what people are talking about.  But after I 
get Scrivener under some control, I'll catch up.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But I 
did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial 
program for a platform now long gone.


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting 
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by 
fixing the bug?


On 10/24/13 7:57 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do seem to have very strong opinions about open-source, and demand
very high standards. Would you care to tell us how many open-source
projects have you created or at least been an active developer in?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.

I do have some free software installed, some open source, some
not. But I get updates and bug fixes from the free software, not
so much from the open source software in the way of bug fixes.


On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including
LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

 I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to
produce some
 technical
 manuals quickly that looked good to management and that
didn't
 make me
 deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

 LyX really came through for me.

 Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I
used the
 KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of
intent.
 Looks good!

 Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available.
ModernCV looks
 good,
 under development for seven years.

 Except it won't accept last names much longer than the
author's name
 without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks
to deal
 with this.

 Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example
says, 'The
 moderncv
 class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
 explained in
 the preamble of this document; for more information
look at the
 documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

 Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and
includes
 this:
 'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look
in the
 examples
 directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled
into dvi,
 ps or pdf.'

 The example LyX file points to documentation that
doesn't actually
 exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is
explained.
 Seven years
 of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can
use.

 I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself',
'That's how
 open source
 works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
 documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a
document
 NOW, not
 work on the documentation for the tool to produce the
document.

 Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If
you have
 the time
 to produce something that you expect people to use, you
need to
 make the
 time to explain how to use it.

 (Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is
richly
 documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
 generally.)

 -- Rich


 To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to
LyX, but as
 in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source
community in
 general.

 I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he
clearly states
 his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


 When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have
spent.  I got
 into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

 I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly
moving
 back

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 11:35 AM, Walter van Holst wrote:

On 24/10/2013 07:32, Richard Talley wrote:

I've read good things about Scrivener. It's more a 'book project
management' program than a word processor. I know some people use it for
everything until it's time to print, then they export to LaTeX. Good
luck with it.


A somewhat close analog to Scrivener is CeltX. I prefer Scrivener over
CeltX, but if FOSS is a principle, I'd recommend looking into CeltX.


I wish I had known about this program, I would have tried it.  May 
still, as I've downloaded the Mac and Windows versions.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 5:13 PM, Bryan Baldwin wrote:

On 10/25/2013 05:32 AM, Ken Springer wrote:

snip

We know your argument. Seriously, We've heard it everywhere all the
time...end-less-ly. Everybody wishes that their software was robust with
magic documentation and free specialists that will fix your problem or
tell you what to do on demand. It doesn't always work out that way,
though. Tough.

You think you are owed an explanation of how everything you download and
run works. That could be a mistake. These licenses generally state, AS
IS WITH NO WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. Its usually printed all or in part in all captial letters.

If there is something that you want to see happen in free software, and
the developers who are working for free (or paid by someone else to work
on it contrary to your interests) aren't doing it, or aren't doing it
fast enough to suit you, and you cannot or will not do it yourself, you
still have recourse. It works similarly to, but not quite the same as,
the proprietary model.

Pay someone to do it for you. Then you'll have someone obligated to put
up with your whinging.

That is not us.


This is all the time I have for this reply.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 12:55 PM, Richard Talley wrote:




On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:


I can't speak for Rich, but it was not my intent to leave an
impression of mass exodus.  Just my pulling back from the
potential promise I saw that open source has, but IMO is not doing a
good job of meeting.  I think Canonical is making that effort, but I
have no feel as to their success.  Someday, when I'm rich but not
famous, and have the time, I really want to try Linux.  Personally,
I don't care for the direction MS and Apple are going with the
operating systems.  AKA, I'm not a cloud fan and a devotee of the
cloud idea for personal use.

I see an opportunity for open source to be a real contender/option
to be an alternative to MS and Apple for the users.  I think this
should be obvious with the success of the Android/Linux based
phones.  I am a fan of competition, of which there is little today.
  But I think the attitudes of many in the open source community may
be undermining that opportunity.


The words I wrote that started this thread were a little harsh, but I
was frustrated. My experience with LyX has been excellent - it's gotten
out of my way and allowed me to concentrate on the content and structure
of my documents, just what it was designed to do.

In other circumstances, with no time deadline, I would not have minded
working on the problem. But I was writing from the point of view of the
majority of users to whom computers are not intrinsically interesting,
but just tools to get some work done. The response to this is often an
exhortation to them to learn about their computers, an attitude that
there's something lacking in those who don't. But I've known any number
of intelligent doctors and lawyers and teachers whose cognitive loads
are already high enough that telling them that they need to gain an
intimate of knowledge of computers is just a bar too high. They want
their computers to just work, the way the other appliances in their
lives do. Apple seems to understand this better than the rest of the
industry; it's striking to watch toddlers pick up iPads and just get to
it. (Noting that Apple OSes are based on FOSS and they contribute in
important ways to the community; who would have guessed 25 years ago
that Apple would achieve the apparently impossible - a Unix-style
operating system usable by the average person?)


Your experience with other computer users mirrors mine!  And then, when 
something goes wrong, who do they call?  Me.  When I tell them they need 
to learn more, I get the old I don't have the time speech.  We all 
have 24 hours in a day, it's how we choose to spend them.  You can spend 
the time learning how to avoid the bad things, or ultimately spend more 
time dealing with problems a little at a time.


Having the computer just work is why I bought this Mac.  So tired of 
that little yellow shield in Windows telling me there were updates and 
bug fixes waiting.


And as you noted, LyX got out of your way.  That's the way all software 
should work.  You don't expect to have to work on your car, your TV, 
whatever in order to use it.  But you do have to take the time to learn 
to drive and operate your car, TV, whatever.


We are past the days of the Model T and no power tools.


That said, there are two attitudes common in the open source community
that are orthogonal.

The first is that free (in Stallman's senses) and open software is just
better, intrinsically, philosophically and politically. It should take
over the world. The bazaar is better than the cathedral.

But when people complain about how impenetrable, geeky and poorly
documented much of FOSS is, it's often thrown back in their faces (we're
all volunteers, we scratch our own itches, learn about your computer,
learn to code and contribute).


Exactly.  Those responses aren't exactly customer friendly, are they. 
Which is why my respect for the efforts of some has dropped.  In another 
open source program list, I've had people tell me since the program is 
free, that's good enough.  It's not.  Not in computer programs, car 
repair, or anything.  Have some pride in your work.  I'd rather pay for 
something that works than have to fix something that's free.  And I 
have.  I think I've mentioned that somewhere.



FOSS is wonderful, at times. FOSS is terrible, at times (sometimes the
same time it's wonderful).

Proprietary software is wonderful, at times. It's terrible, at times
(sometimes the same time it's wonderful).


True in both cases.


A lot of human technology is old (controlled fire goes back before H.
sapiens!) and we've learned lots of ways to control and cope. Digital
computer technology is less than a century old and we're still in the
early learning phase of controlling and coping with it.

I divide software organizations, not into FOSS vs. proprietary, but into
apathetic or hostile to criticism

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 8:32 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:

24/10/2013 15:59, Ken Springer:

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed.  Then the bugs just sit there,
never getting fixed.  If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs.  This is the non
professional attitude I'm talking about.  Even worse are the developers
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial
product.


I cannot speak for other free (as in freedom) software, but the deal is
simple: programmers do what they can and scratch their own itches,
either because they need a feature or they want to implement it, and
users do what they want and scratch their own itches by sending bug
reports. Their is nothing more in the implied contract. We do have 10
years old bugs in LyX; it is not only because we do not care about them,
but many of them require work that is difficult to get right. For
example, we will have one of these 10-year-old bugs fixed due to a
Google Summer of Code project, and I can say I am very happy about that.

That said, I have to admit that there are bugs I have no interest in
fixing. The magic of open source is that, if the bug is important
enough, it should annoy one of the developers and it will eventually get
fixed.

About the way bugs are labeled, I can tell you that regression is a
very important term for us. We do not let such bugs linger too long.
In the opposite, a bug accompanied by a comment like OMG LYX IS
WORTHLESS DUE TO THIS BUG is not likely to get much attention.

That's how it works. We don't owe you anything, you don't owe us
anything either, but by some mystery the ecosystem is viable.


Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in 
the long run?



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: Getting Support: was: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 1:27 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:32:55 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


Product support, customer service, in general, sucks.  Online,
offline, commercial, open source, just about everywhere.  For
software these days, you are supposed to join a forum.  If I went
back through all my forum posts asking for help, I think I'd be lucky
to find 10% of them have had answers to my questions.


I changed the subject line because the old subject line infuriated me...


Fortunately, changing the subject line doesn't break the threading for 
me.  G



Getting support is difficult, but luckily there are things you can do
to make solution more likely. Certainly the first step if you're
asking for tech support is to read this and live by it:

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


Skimmed and bookmarked.  Just getting so far behind...


Speaking for myself, when somebody majorly violates the tenants of the
preceding link, I never provide an answer, even if I know the answer by
heart. Life's too short, I'm too busy, and answering questions doesn't
pay the rent, so I have no need to be nice to the vast hoards of
unthinkers.

Next, and this is very pertinent to the LyX list, when submitting an
example of a bug, submit a minimal example. I mean continue to remove
things until anything else you remove makes the symptom disappear. This
accomplishes two things:

1) It probably solves your problem without help. If you can flip a
symptom on and off by adding or removing one sentence, you're
probably in a position to understand the mechanism of the problem.
2) It makes it much easier for anyone responding to you to reproduce
your problem, and to quickly understand what's going on, and either
tell you the answer or tell you where to look next.


I've been in the fixit maintenance fields all my life.  This is just 
basic troubleshooting.  One thing I learned is many, if not most, people 
needing a fix of some kind didn't know enough about the subject to ask 
the right questions, or even describe the problem.  Just had a 
discussion elsewhere and the words image, copy, and backup were used 
interchangeably causing confusion.


I've also learned, sometimes what should be the obvious solution isn't 
the solution.  And something you just don't believe is the cause, turns 
out to be the cause.


I would contend the same problem exists with computer and software 
users.  They don't know enough about what they are using to be able to 
ask intelligent and clear questions.  :-(



Sometimes, when submitting a Minimum Example for a problem that seems
to be a LaTeX problem (actually my misuse of LaTeX would be more
accurate), I'll go so far as to code it in LaTeX, not LyX, and then
post the question. This rules out LyX, making it easier for the list
inhabitants to 1) Know whether the solution is within their area of
expertise, and 2) Rule out LyX right away. LyX-List inhabitants are
nice enough that they'll answer LaTeX questions, even though
technically LaTeX is not their product.


At this point, I couldn't code anything in LaTeX if our lives depended 
on it!LOL


But, that's the thing.  I want to use this tool called LyX, and by 
extension LaTeX, and others.  Not build it.



Having been on the LyX-Users list since 2001, I've seen a lot of help
requests come with giant LyX files. Does the submitter really expect
*me* to carve up his gigantic document in order to make a Minimum
Example? Well, that's not going to happen, because if it's too much
work for the guy who needs a solution, it's certainly too much work for
me.

Next, if you have an error message, put it in a search engine. You
might find a lot of valuable information.


A common suggestion, but not always the right answer when there is 
nothing specific to work from.  One, if the user doesn't know anything 
about what he/she's doing, how are they supposed to be able to do an 
adequate search of the web?  Two, some people like me, often just never 
seem to use the correct terms.  I can look, sometimes seemingly forever, 
for X in a search.  I tell one of my sisters what I'm looking for, and 
even though she knows little to nothing about what I'm looking for, in a 
few minutes she's got the answer(s).  Bugs the devil out of me.



I've found that the guy who answers a lot of questions for others gets
a lot of detailed and devoted help when he needs it. I've found this on
the LyX list the past 12 years. I help newbies with layouts and light
LaTeX and the like, and then the *big brains* on the list help me when I
have a showstopper problem. Pay it forward, and you'll get lots of
support.

Sometimes you post a concise symptom description and minimal example
and do everything right, and you know *someone* on the list has info,
but you're met with deafening silence. It's time for the patented,
can't miss, Steve Litt Answer-Getting Method (SLAGM). What you do is
make some sort of kludge to fix your symptom

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...

On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

He's serious, and so am I: if you want "professional" software and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.


I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post, and 
mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply 
news://news.gmane.org:119/CAKh=ax83kk2gzk7urwhnluo2nbaixxv6jvdvyvswtejyf3f...@mail.gmail.com 
and my reply news://news.gmane.org:119/l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org where 
we think we made it clear our comments do not apply to LyX, but the 
community as a whole.


Regarding my reply to Vincent's, "Not professional ? Right, don't use it 
then.", it's simply an issue with text only based communication, where 
there are multiple ways of interpreting what has been written. 
Regardless of the native language of the writer.


I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as "Well, 
OK, don't use it."  Or I could have read it as "OK, A$$hole, go f**k 
off!"  Or, the feeling behind the words could be something in between. 
With such a short reply, and no indicators such as smilies to let me 
know the emotion behind the comment, I don't know how Vincent feels with 
his reply.


Years ago, I saw flame wars get started over comments this simple.


The difference between commercial software and open source projects is
that the former produces software for "the market" and gets money for a
living of it (which results in some obligations towards the paying
users), while the latter produce software for themselves (the open
source group, while non-active users can use the software as a benefit).
I devote my (rare) free time to LyX development to get a good product
for myself. Nothing else. Of course I listen to users wishes (and I
think people on this list can acknowledge that all of "us" do), but I
only take them up if I find them interesting enough to devote my (spare)
free time or if I need the feature myself. I think nobody can expect
more from me.


Agreed, but there is the cross over segment of program developers.  This 
group develops the software, but then charges for help and assistance. 
I may be wrong, but I think Red Hat/Fedora used to do this, and may 
still do it.  I purchased, yes purchased, a copy of Red Had 9 from a 
long gone computer retail company to try it out.  Ended up not using Red 
Hat for reasons not related to this discussion.


This group is obviously trying to make money from the FOSS software.

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively 
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed.  Then the bugs just sit there, 
never getting fixed.  If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then 
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs.  This is the "non 
professional" attitude I'm talking about.  Even worse are the developers 
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial product.


It isn't the software that isn't or couldn't be professional, it's the 
attitudes of developers who indicate they wish to be professional, but 
they are not in this area.



This is how I came into LyX development, as a complete programming
novice: I wanted some things to change, and no one took it up, so I did
myself.

So if you think that "we" want LyX to be commercially widespread or
successful, you misunderstood us (and the whole open source movement).
Everybody certainly has individual motives, but for many developers
(including me), "success" does not mean "rule the world" or "kick out
program X from the market" (I do not care at all for this kind of
"goal"), but: attract more developers, make the application as YOU want
it, have fun, learn something.


Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were 
not LyX specific.


As an observation only, any FOSS developer group may not want to have 
the impression the goal is to be a commercial level project, but there 
is no way you can control how others see the software package as "word 
of mouth" comments are passed from one person to another.


So it's possible that the impression of Group A is the desire to be at 
this level, but that is not the intent of the members of Group A.



So if you think LyX is not the right tool for you, use something else. I
could not care less, really.


But, you do care, otherwise you would not have replied.  

Returning to Vincent's reply, "Not professional ? Right, don't use it 
then.", not using a particular FOSS program is exactly why I'm going to 
try LyX and on this list.  It's also why I'm trying Scrivener 
(commercial software and paid for.  :-)  ), which to me/for me is darned 
near perfect for organizing your research and then getting something on 
paper.  As I said, I think at this moment, the odds are 99% in favor I 

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 4:38 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Wed, 23 Oct 2013 18:31:48 -0600
Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com> wrote:


On 10/23/13 2:31 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

Interesting comments. I too have found small vendors to be much more
helpful. Often the developers help with or even do all of the tech
support at small vendors. And they actually read my emails, instead
of replying with canned responses.


Most of the time, you can't get help from the big guys, really pisses
me off.


If it pisses you off, then as Vincent van Ravesteijn said, don't use
it. Use proprietary software, with their official support channels
(often for limited time or costing money) full of script-reading ignos
escalating to other script reading ignos.


It appears you also misinterpreted the post.  It was generalized, and 
not specific to LyX.


Product support, customer service, in general, sucks.  Online, offline, 
commercial, open source, just about everywhere.  For software these 
days, you are supposed to join a forum.  If I went back through all my 
forum posts asking for help, I think I'd be lucky to find 10% of them 
have had answers to my questions.


But, there are exceptions.  With one problem I had with a Windows 
security update, I was on the phone, more than once, with a support 
engineer in New Delhi.



Earlier in this thread someone implied that some Open Source projects
are "unprofessional". Well yeah, surprise surprise, Open Source isn't
most developers' profession: It doesn't pay the rent. You want
professional, go to those who make their money by charging you for
software. If you want good software with excellent support for those who
know how to ask questions and behave on a mailing list, stay with Open
Source.


That was me, and as I hope I cleared up in a post somewhere, I was 
speaking about attitudes more than the software.


You don't have to make money to have a professional attitude about your 
work.



It's funny. In February 2008 I got royally pissed at what I considered
bad support from the LyX community, so I started designing a
book-writing software alternative to LyX, using VimOutliner, LaTeX, and
a few other things. There's a long, rich tradition in free software that
if you don't like their support or their progress adding features, you
fork their project.


From what I've read about LyX, it's used by many college students in 
the math and science's department.  Am I to presuppose all the students 
have the programming skills to fix issues that are broken, don't work, 
or what ever is not working right?



But you know what never occurred to me? Going with
Page Plus, Microsoft Publisher, or InDesign. Here are just a few
reasons these alternatives never occurred to me:


Page Plus I've never tried, used Publisher in the mid-90's for a work 
project, found it lacking in comparison to another DTP package I was 
familiar with.  FYI, had no option in the choice of software.  InDesign 
I'd never heard of until a few weeks ago.



* http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html


I read this months ago, but as part of a thread somewhere on government 
overreach.



* http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200104/200104.htm#_editors_desk


I like the opening of your article, but don't have the time to get 
through it today.  I'm still trying to get to an article on the 9th 
Amendment to Constitution I started reading last week.



* http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-continues-to-fail-716222/


Of this I'm not surprised.  I read alt.comp.os.windows-8 and most are 
not that happy with Win 8.  I've got it installed here to "play" with. 
I think it should be good for tablets and smart phones, but not desktops 
with big screens and people/groups who want a system that's efficient to 
navigate and use.


One exception to the big screen comment may be places like restaurants, 
where a Point of Sale use may be good.  The waitstaff of a restaurant 
simply touches the screen to place a customer's order, for instance.



*http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240185097/Microsofts-Windows-81-update-fails-to-deliver


Debating on upgrading my 8.0 install.  Only one is legal, so I'm 
thinking of buying a retail 8.1 copy.



There's something that doesn't make sense to me: Why does someone go on
the mailing list of an Open Source project and diss Open Source? I diss
Windows all the time, but I don't do it on ##windows. I diss Apple all
the time, but I don't do it in Apple User Groups. I diss OpenOffice all
the time, but not on an OpenOffice mailing list.


Feel free to call it a "diss", I call it freedom to express an opinion. 
 It all depends on how you say it.  Make it personal to an individual, 
no.  Make it an opinion about a product, group, etc., OK.


If you don't express your opinion of X in an area for X, you do X no 
favors.  You become:


1.  The opposite of a politician who only tells the constituent what the
  constituent wants to hear.
2.  The 

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 9:03 AM, Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:


On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 3:59 PM, Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com
<mailto:snowsh...@q.com>> wrote:

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...


On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

 Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


 Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

He's serious, and so am I: if you want "professional" software
and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.


I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post,
and mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply

news://news.gmane.org:119/__CAKh=__ax83KK2GzK7uRwhnLUo2NBaixxV6JV__DVYvswTeJYF3Frhw@mail.gmail.__com

<http://news.gmane.org:119/CAKh=ax83kk2gzk7urwhnluo2nbaixxv6jvdvyvswtejyf3f...@mail.gmail.com>
and my reply news://news.gmane.org:119/__l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org
<http://news.gmane.org:119/l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org> where we
think we made it clear our comments do not apply to LyX, but the
community as a whole.

Regarding my reply to Vincent's, "Not professional ? Right, don't
use it then.", it's simply an issue with text only based
communication, where there are multiple ways of interpreting what
has been written. Regardless of the native language of the writer.

I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as
"Well, OK, don't use it."  Or I could have read it as "OK, A$$hole,
go f**k off!"  Or, the feeling behind the words could be something
in between. With such a short reply, and no indicators such as
smilies to let me know the emotion behind the comment, I don't know
how Vincent feels with his reply.

It was this part that made me a bit angry indeed:


I've learned over the years, if I read something that "sets me off", 
it's best not to reply right away.  The odds are very good I've 
misunderstood it.   



 >>You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
 >>developed by *volunteers*, do you?
 >
 > I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do
 >
We do our best, but it's just not possible to be professional when there
is only a handful contibutors who need to find some spare time to
maintain a project like LyX.


I would contend the opposite.  Maybe you would get less done, but doing 
less and doing it "right the first time" is usually a better road to 
travel.  In the long run, I've had fewer problems with that approach.



 > Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were
not LyX specific.
A lof of the "general" comments also do apply to LyX, so it feels a bit
as being critized, even though you say they are not LyX specific.


I can only speak for myself...  Since I've to even get further than step 
1 of the tutorial, I don't know enough about LyX to be able to say 
anything specific.  Except I have trouble typing an uppercase X in LyX! 
  LOL



Last remark: Welcome to LyX as a new user ;


Thanks, Vincent.  I'll likely just be a lurker for quite awhile.  Most, 
if not all, of the subjects currently being discussed are over my head, 
I usually don't have a clue what people are talking about.  But after I 
get Scrivener under some control, I'll catch up.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But I 
did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial 
program for a platform now long gone.


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting 
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by 
fixing the bug?


On 10/24/13 7:57 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do seem to have very strong opinions about open-source, and demand
very high standards. Would you care to tell us how many open-source
projects have you created or at least been an active developer in?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com
<mailto:snowsh...@q.com>> wrote:

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.

I do have some "free" software installed, some open source, some
not. But I get updates and bug fixes from the "free" software, not
so much from the open source software in the way of bug fixes.


On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including
LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com
<mailto:snowsh...@q.com>
<mailto:snowsh...@q.com <mailto:snowsh...@q.com>>> wrote:

 On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

 I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to
produce some
 technical
 manuals quickly that looked good to management and that
didn't
 make me
 deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

 LyX really came through for me.

 Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I
used the
 KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of
intent.
 Looks good!

 Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available.
ModernCV looks
 good,
 under development for seven years.

 Except it won't accept last names much longer than the
author's name
 without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks
to deal
 with this.

 Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example
says, 'The
 moderncv
 class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
 explained in
 the preamble of this document; for more information
look at the
 documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

 Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and
includes
 this:
 'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look
in the
 "examples"
 directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled
into dvi,
 ps or pdf.'

 The example LyX file points to documentation that
doesn't actually
 exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is
explained.
 Seven years
 of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can
use.

 I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself',
'That's how
 open source
 works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
 documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a
document
 NOW, not
 work on the documentation for the tool to produce the
document.

 Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If
you have
 the time
 to produce something that you expect people to use, you
need to
 make the
 time to explain how to use it.

 (Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is
richly
 documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
 generally.)

 -- Rich


 To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to
LyX, but as
 in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source
community in
 general.

 I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he
clearly states
 his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


 When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have
spent.  I got
 into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

 I no lon

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 11:35 AM, Walter van Holst wrote:

On 24/10/2013 07:32, Richard Talley wrote:

I've read good things about Scrivener. It's more a 'book project
management' program than a word processor. I know some people use it for
everything until it's time to print, then they export to LaTeX. Good
luck with it.


A somewhat close analog to Scrivener is CeltX. I prefer Scrivener over
CeltX, but if FOSS is a principle, I'd recommend looking into CeltX.


I wish I had known about this program, I would have tried it.  May 
still, as I've downloaded the Mac and Windows versions.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 5:13 PM, Bryan Baldwin wrote:

On 10/25/2013 05:32 AM, Ken Springer wrote:



We know your argument. Seriously, We've heard it everywhere all the
time...end-less-ly. Everybody wishes that their software was robust with
magic documentation and free specialists that will fix your problem or
tell you what to do on demand. It doesn't always work out that way,
though. Tough.

You think you are owed an explanation of how everything you download and
run works. That could be a mistake. These licenses generally state, "AS
IS WITH NO WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE". Its usually printed all or in part in all captial letters.

If there is something that you want to see happen in free software, and
the developers who are working for free (or paid by someone else to work
on it contrary to your interests) aren't doing it, or aren't doing it
fast enough to suit you, and you cannot or will not do it yourself, you
still have recourse. It works similarly to, but not quite the same as,
the proprietary model.

Pay someone to do it for you. Then you'll have someone obligated to put
up with your whinging.

That is not us.


This is all the time I have for this reply.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 12:55 PM, Richard Talley wrote:




On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com
<mailto:snowsh...@q.com>> wrote:


I can't speak for Rich, but it was not my intent to leave an
impression of "mass exodus".  Just my pulling back from the
potential promise I saw that open source has, but IMO is not doing a
good job of meeting.  I think Canonical is making that effort, but I
have no feel as to their success.  Someday, when I'm rich but not
famous, and have the time, I really want to try Linux.  Personally,
I don't care for the direction MS and Apple are going with the
operating systems.  AKA, I'm not a cloud fan and a devotee of the
cloud idea for personal use.

I see an opportunity for open source to be a real contender/option
to be an alternative to MS and Apple for the users.  I think this
should be obvious with the success of the Android/Linux based
phones.  I am a fan of competition, of which there is little today.
  But I think the attitudes of many in the open source community may
be undermining that opportunity.


The words I wrote that started this thread were a little harsh, but I
was frustrated. My experience with LyX has been excellent - it's gotten
out of my way and allowed me to concentrate on the content and structure
of my documents, just what it was designed to do.

In other circumstances, with no time deadline, I would not have minded
working on the problem. But I was writing from the point of view of the
majority of users to whom computers are not intrinsically interesting,
but just tools to get some work done. The response to this is often an
exhortation to them to learn about their computers, an attitude that
there's something lacking in those who don't. But I've known any number
of intelligent doctors and lawyers and teachers whose cognitive loads
are already high enough that telling them that they need to gain an
intimate of knowledge of computers is just a bar too high. They want
their computers to just work, the way the other appliances in their
lives do. Apple seems to understand this better than the rest of the
industry; it's striking to watch toddlers pick up iPads and just get to
it. (Noting that Apple OSes are based on FOSS and they contribute in
important ways to the community; who would have guessed 25 years ago
that Apple would achieve the apparently impossible - a Unix-style
operating system usable by the average person?)


Your experience with other computer users mirrors mine!  And then, when 
something goes wrong, who do they call?  Me.  When I tell them they need 
to learn more, I get the old "I don't have the time" speech.  We all 
have 24 hours in a day, it's how we choose to spend them.  You can spend 
the time learning how to avoid the bad things, or ultimately spend more 
time dealing with problems a little at a time.


Having the computer just work is why I bought this Mac.  So tired of 
that little yellow shield in Windows telling me there were updates and 
bug fixes waiting.


And as you noted, LyX got out of your way.  That's the way all software 
should work.  You don't expect to have to work on your car, your TV, 
whatever in order to use it.  But you do have to take the time to learn 
to drive and operate your car, TV, whatever.


We are past the days of the Model T and no power tools.


That said, there are two attitudes common in the open source community
that are orthogonal.

The first is that free (in Stallman's senses) and open software is just
better, intrinsically, philosophically and politically. It should take
over the world. The bazaar is better than the cathedral.

But when people complain about how impenetrable, geeky and poorly
documented much of FOSS is, it's often thrown back in their faces (we're
all volunteers, we scratch our own itches, learn about your computer,
learn to code and contribute).


Exactly.  Those responses aren't exactly customer friendly, are they. 
Which is why my respect for the efforts of some has dropped.  In another 
open source program list, I've had people tell me since the program is 
free, that's good enough.  It's not.  Not in computer programs, car 
repair, or anything.  Have some pride in your work.  I'd rather pay for 
something that works than have to fix something that's free.  And I 
have.  I think I've mentioned that somewhere.



FOSS is wonderful, at times. FOSS is terrible, at times (sometimes the
same time it's wonderful).

Proprietary software is wonderful, at times. It's terrible, at times
(sometimes the same time it's wonderful).


True in both cases.


A lot of human technology is old (controlled fire goes back before H.
sapiens!) and we've learned lots of ways to control and cope. Digital
computer technology is less than a century old and we're still in the
early learning phase of controlling and coping with it.

I divide software organizations, not into FOSS vs. proprietar

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 8:32 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:

24/10/2013 15:59, Ken Springer:

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed.  Then the bugs just sit there,
never getting fixed.  If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs.  This is the "non
professional" attitude I'm talking about.  Even worse are the developers
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial
product.


I cannot speak for other free (as in freedom) software, but the deal is
simple: programmers do what they can and scratch their own itches,
either because they need a feature or they want to implement it, and
users do what they want and scratch their own itches by sending bug
reports. Their is nothing more in the implied contract. We do have 10
years old bugs in LyX; it is not only because we do not care about them,
but many of them require work that is difficult to get right. For
example, we will have one of these 10-year-old bugs fixed due to a
Google Summer of Code project, and I can say I am very happy about that.

That said, I have to admit that there are bugs I have no interest in
fixing. The magic of open source is that, if the bug is important
enough, it should annoy one of the developers and it will eventually get
fixed.

About the way bugs are labeled, I can tell you that "regression" is a
very important term for us. We do not let such bugs linger too long.
In the opposite, a bug accompanied by a comment like "OMG LYX IS
WORTHLESS DUE TO THIS BUG" is not likely to get much attention.

That's how it works. We don't owe you anything, you don't owe us
anything either, but by some mystery the ecosystem is viable.


Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in 
the long run?



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: Getting Support: was: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/24/13 1:27 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:32:55 -0600
Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com> wrote:


Product support, customer service, in general, sucks.  Online,
offline, commercial, open source, just about everywhere.  For
software these days, you are supposed to join a forum.  If I went
back through all my forum posts asking for help, I think I'd be lucky
to find 10% of them have had answers to my questions.


I changed the subject line because the old subject line infuriated me...


Fortunately, changing the subject line doesn't break the threading for 
me.  



Getting support is difficult, but luckily there are things you can do
to make solution more likely. Certainly the first step if you're
asking for tech support is to read this and live by it:

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


Skimmed and bookmarked.  Just getting so far behind...


Speaking for myself, when somebody majorly violates the tenants of the
preceding link, I never provide an answer, even if I know the answer by
heart. Life's too short, I'm too busy, and answering questions doesn't
pay the rent, so I have no need to be nice to the vast hoards of
unthinkers.

Next, and this is very pertinent to the LyX list, when submitting an
example of a bug, submit a minimal example. I mean continue to remove
things until anything else you remove makes the symptom disappear. This
accomplishes two things:

1) It probably solves your problem without help. If you can flip a
symptom on and off by adding or removing one sentence, you're
probably in a position to understand the mechanism of the problem.
2) It makes it much easier for anyone responding to you to reproduce
your problem, and to quickly understand what's going on, and either
tell you the answer or tell you where to look next.


I've been in the "fixit" maintenance fields all my life.  This is just 
basic troubleshooting.  One thing I learned is many, if not most, people 
needing a "fix" of some kind didn't know enough about the subject to ask 
the right questions, or even describe the problem.  Just had a 
discussion elsewhere and the words image, copy, and backup were used 
interchangeably causing confusion.


I've also learned, sometimes what should be the obvious solution isn't 
the solution.  And something you just don't believe is the cause, turns 
out to be the cause.


I would contend the same problem exists with computer and software 
users.  They don't know enough about what they are using to be able to 
ask intelligent and clear questions.  :-(



Sometimes, when submitting a Minimum Example for a problem that seems
to be a LaTeX problem (actually my misuse of LaTeX would be more
accurate), I'll go so far as to code it in LaTeX, not LyX, and then
post the question. This rules out LyX, making it easier for the list
inhabitants to 1) Know whether the solution is within their area of
expertise, and 2) Rule out LyX right away. LyX-List inhabitants are
nice enough that they'll answer LaTeX questions, even though
technically LaTeX is not their product.


At this point, I couldn't code anything in LaTeX if our lives depended 
on it!LOL


But, that's the thing.  I want to use this tool called LyX, and by 
extension LaTeX, and others.  Not build it.



Having been on the LyX-Users list since 2001, I've seen a lot of help
requests come with giant LyX files. Does the submitter really expect
*me* to carve up his gigantic document in order to make a Minimum
Example? Well, that's not going to happen, because if it's too much
work for the guy who needs a solution, it's certainly too much work for
me.

Next, if you have an error message, put it in a search engine. You
might find a lot of valuable information.


A common suggestion, but not always the right answer when there is 
nothing specific to work from.  One, if the user doesn't know anything 
about what he/she's doing, how are they supposed to be able to do an 
adequate search of the web?  Two, some people like me, often just never 
seem to use the correct terms.  I can look, sometimes seemingly forever, 
for X in a search.  I tell one of my sisters what I'm looking for, and 
even though she knows little to nothing about what I'm looking for, in a 
few minutes she's got the answer(s).  Bugs the devil out of me.



I've found that the guy who answers a lot of questions for others gets
a lot of detailed and devoted help when he needs it. I've found this on
the LyX list the past 12 years. I help newbies with layouts and light
LaTeX and the like, and then the *big brains* on the list help me when I
have a showstopper problem. Pay it forward, and you'll get lots of
support.

Sometimes you post a concise symptom description and minimal example
and do everything right, and you know *someone* on the list has info,
but you're met with deafening silence. It's time for the patented,
can't miss, Steve Litt Answer-Getting Method (SLAGM). What you do is
make some sort of 

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to produce some technical
manuals quickly that looked good to management and that didn't make me
deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

LyX really came through for me.

Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I used the
KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of intent. Looks good!

Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks good,
under development for seven years.

Except it won't accept last names much longer than the author's name
without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks to deal with this.

Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example says, 'The moderncv
class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are explained in
the preamble of this document; for more information look at the
documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and includes this:
'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look in the examples
directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled into dvi, ps or pdf.'

The example LyX file points to documentation that doesn't actually
exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is explained. Seven years
of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can use.

I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself', 'That's how open source
works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a document NOW, not
work on the documentation for the tool to produce the document.

Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If you have the time
to produce something that you expect people to use, you need to make the
time to explain how to use it.

(Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is richly
documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source generally.)

-- Rich


To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to LyX, but as in 
Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source community in general.


I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he clearly states his 
comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.



When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have spent.  I got 
into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.


I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly moving back 
to commercial software.  A fair question is, why?


There's no universal answer to the question.  I'll just do some quick 
comments, and leave it at that.


1.  Web pages make claims as to the abilities to do a job.  But the 
software is buggy, or some features just don't work.


2.  Some pages ask you to become involved, and file bugs.  You do, and I 
did.  But, after a year and a half, the bugs are not even assigned to 
anyone, much less fixed.  One bug was assigned for awhile, but the 
assignment has been removed.  Both are classed as minor.  Well...  They 
aren't minor to me!!  If the developers don't/won't fix it, then:


a.  Why would I use the program?
b.  Why would I recommend the program?

The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a 
commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features, some 
of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by not fixing 
existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a business, with 
competition, you want tools that work, not tools you spend a lot of time 
finding work arounds.


3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken 
something, they say it's a regression.  Oh, BS!!  That's just 
political spin for not saying they screwed up and didn't catch it.  I 
would appreciate the pure honesty of admitting a mistake than political 
spin.


4.  My impression is, for most open source software I've tried over a 
period of time, the quality assurance/testing program to look for and 
find bugs is seriously flawed.  Some bugs are blatant, and I ask myself, 
How did they miss that?




So, the open source community, as a whole, has lost a supporter.  And 
they have a long, long way to go if they want me to recommend them.


That being said, I've started a small writing project, for fun for now. 
 Part of the writing will be done in a commercial program.  I will give 
LyX a try, 2.06 is installed, but haven't had time to start using it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are 
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.


I do have some free software installed, some open source, some not. 
But I get updates and bug fixes from the free software, not so much 
from the open source software in the way of bug fixes.


On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to produce some
technical
manuals quickly that looked good to management and that didn't
make me
deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

LyX really came through for me.

Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I used the
KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of intent.
Looks good!

Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks
good,
under development for seven years.

Except it won't accept last names much longer than the author's name
without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks to deal
with this.

Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example says, 'The
moderncv
class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
explained in
the preamble of this document; for more information look at the
documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and includes
this:
'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look in the
examples
directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled into dvi,
ps or pdf.'

The example LyX file points to documentation that doesn't actually
exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is explained.
Seven years
of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can use.

I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself', 'That's how
open source
works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a document
NOW, not
work on the documentation for the tool to produce the document.

Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If you have
the time
to produce something that you expect people to use, you need to
make the
time to explain how to use it.

(Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is richly
documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
generally.)

-- Rich


To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to LyX, but as
in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source community in
general.

I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he clearly states
his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have spent.  I got
into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly moving
back to commercial software.  A fair question is, why?

There's no universal answer to the question.  I'll just do some
quick comments, and leave it at that.

1.  Web pages make claims as to the abilities to do a job.  But the
software is buggy, or some features just don't work.

2.  Some pages ask you to become involved, and file bugs.  You do,
and I did.  But, after a year and a half, the bugs are not even
assigned to anyone, much less fixed.  One bug was assigned for
awhile, but the assignment has been removed.  Both are classed as
minor.  Well...  They aren't minor to me!!  If the developers
don't/won't fix it, then:

 a.  Why would I use the program?
 b.  Why would I recommend the program?

The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a
commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features,
some of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by
not fixing existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a
business, with competition, you want tools that work, not tools you
spend a lot of time finding work arounds.

3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken
something, they say it's a regression.  Oh, BS!!  That's just
political spin for not saying they screwed up and didn't catch it.
  I would appreciate the pure honesty of admitting a mistake than
political spin.

4.  My impression is, for most open source software I've tried over
a period of time, the quality assurance/testing program

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 11:24 AM, David L. Johnson wrote:

On 10/23/2013 12:33 PM, Ken Springer wrote:


The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a
commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features,
some of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by not
fixing existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a business,
with competition, you want tools that work, not tools you spend a lot
of time finding work arounds.

3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken
something, they say it's a regression.  Oh, BS!!  That's just
political spin for not saying they screwed up and didn't catch it.  I
would appreciate the pure honesty of admitting a mistake than
political spin.

4.  My impression is, for most open source software I've tried over a
period of time, the quality assurance/testing program to look for and
find bugs is seriously flawed.  Some bugs are blatant, and I ask
myself, How did they miss that?


I look at those complaints, and wonder that you don't see such issues,
and worse, with commercial software as well.


Invariably, there will be bugs in any sophisticated software.  The 
question that arises for me is, are they important to the developer?  I 
think, when the developers are being paid for their work, they are more 
attentive to fixing the bugs, as their next paycheck depends on it.


These days, when I do suggest software, it's often a program that has 
both free and paid versions.  My theory is, that programs developers 
will be more attentive to bugs in the free version as the incentive is 
to get you to purchase the more sophisticated paid version.  I don't 
think very many people, when finding a lot of bugs in the free version, 
will opt to purchase the paid version.



For me, the difference
between commercial software and open-source is that, when you do have a
problem, you have a chance, with open-source software, to actually ask
for help from the person who wrote it.


Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  I think smaller developers are easier to 
get in touch with.



For example, this list is
well-populated by the actual developers of LyX, who are very helpful.


Which is what I'd read online, and why I'm going to try LyX.  Also, 
because it's a typesetting program.  And I want better output than the 
average word processor.



Commercial support will connect you with a call center full of people
reading from scripts.


Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  I've found the smaller vendors to be much 
more helpful than the larger vendors.


I have a file management program on this Mac, and when I found a 
problem, I ended up talking via email about the problem.  We finally 
figured out what triggered the problem, but I'm not checked for an update.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 12:42 PM, Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:

Ken Springer schreef op 23-10-2013 19:41:

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.


Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


Not sure how you feel, so no reply.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 10:34 AM, Les Denham wrote:

On Tue, 22 Oct 2013 22:19:38 -0600
Richard Talley rich.tal...@gmail.com wrote:


Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks good,
under development for seven years.


Richard,

That's what I thought too. The documentation is, as you point out,
rather sketchy. But with a little effort I managed a very nice looking
CV.

Now the really big problem: most, in fact almost all, advertised job
vacancies only accept resumes in MS Word format. So I had to get my
very nice CV into LibreOffice (where it did not look very nice) and
save it in DOCX format.


Pure curiosity, Les, but have you asked to see if they will accept a PDF 
file?  I'd tell them those files are far easier to deal with between 
programs and platforms, and you don't have to buy Word in order to 
create them.


I sometimes think people ask for the Word format out of ignorance of 
anything else.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 2:31 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

Interesting comments. I too have found small vendors to be much more
helpful. Often the developers help with or even do all of the tech
support at small vendors. And they actually read my emails, instead of
replying with canned responses.


Most of the time, you can't get help from the big guys, really pisses me 
off.



My experience with LyX has been mostly excellent. I started using it at
work a number of years ago because I need to produce some technical
manuals quickly. I wanted something that would not lose track of things
in the cross-references and TOC (as Word is wont to do as documents get
longer and more complex). LyX allowed me to get to work right away on
content and produced very professional output.


I'm hoping my experience parallels yours.  And you are right about Word, 
at least the XP and 2003 versions.  The bigger the project, the bigger 
the piece of crap it turned out to be.  The time is long gone when I 
could afford to buy programs to find one that worked, and I had really 
hoped for better performance from open source software.  As I've posted, 
with a few exceptions, that hasn't happened.



I've used the KOMA-script versions of report, article and book, and I've
also used the letter template that comes with LyX. Yesterday was the
first time I ever tried to use one of the examples that come with LyX.


I have no idea what KOMA-script is, but no need to explain it.  I don't 
think I'm ready to absorb the details.  LOL  LyX looks to be rather out 
of the box from you basic office suite thinking, and I want to get that 
under control before getting into any tweaking.


For those reading this, that may be interested in the commercial program 
I'm trying now, it's called Scrivener.  Print output I want will 
probably not be possible, but I really like it's ability to keep 
research info with different file formats withing the Scrivener program 
itself.  So I need only one program running rather than a number of 
programs.



With scant documentation, the only way to figure out how the example
worked was trial and error. I wanted to concentrate on getting the
document done, not futz around with the example.


EXACTLY!!  As I've posted in other open source places, I DON'T	want to 
be their beta tester, I want to use the software.



Something good did come out of this. In searching for information about
moderncv, I chanced upon this site:

http://www.latextemplates.com


Looks very interesting, I've bookmarked it.  Thanks.


They have a template based on moderndv very similar to the example that
comes with LyX, but the TeX source file has complete and detailed
comments. So I switched to TeXShop and got good results right away.
First time I've had to do that.

I like the words of the Kiwi whose site it is:

I am by no means an expert on LaTeX, but I recognize that others are
similar to myself and only want to use LaTeX as a tool to create a
document, without having to dig around in forums for solutions on how to
tweak the document in some small way. There is no reason that LaTeX
cannot be a simple platform for creating documents where little more is
required than to change example text to your own text in a
pre-configured template. To this end, templates on this website have
been carefully pulled apart, cleaned up and made easier to use for the
average person just starting to use LaTeX.


This sounds like the average computer user, we just want to use the 
product, not tweak it, test it, etc.  I like this attitude, compared to 
some attitudes I've seen expressed.


I learned a long time ago, I don't want to program computers.


-- Rich



snip remaining text

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to produce some technical
manuals quickly that looked good to management and that didn't make me
deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

LyX really came through for me.

Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I used the
KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of intent. Looks good!

Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks good,
under development for seven years.

Except it won't accept last names much longer than the author's name
without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks to deal with this.

Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example says, 'The moderncv
class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are explained in
the preamble of this document; for more information look at the
documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and includes this:
'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look in the examples
directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled into dvi, ps or pdf.'

The example LyX file points to documentation that doesn't actually
exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is explained. Seven years
of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can use.

I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself', 'That's how open source
works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a document NOW, not
work on the documentation for the tool to produce the document.

Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If you have the time
to produce something that you expect people to use, you need to make the
time to explain how to use it.

(Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is richly
documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source generally.)

-- Rich


To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to LyX, but as in 
Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source community in general.


I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he clearly states his 
comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.



When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have spent.  I got 
into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.


I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly moving back 
to commercial software.  A fair question is, why?


There's no universal answer to the question.  I'll just do some quick 
comments, and leave it at that.


1.  Web pages make claims as to the abilities to do a job.  But the 
software is buggy, or some features just don't work.


2.  Some pages ask you to become involved, and file bugs.  You do, and I 
did.  But, after a year and a half, the bugs are not even assigned to 
anyone, much less fixed.  One bug was assigned for awhile, but the 
assignment has been removed.  Both are classed as minor.  Well...  They 
aren't minor to me!!  If the developers don't/won't fix it, then:


a.  Why would I use the program?
b.  Why would I recommend the program?

The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a 
commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features, some 
of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by not fixing 
existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a business, with 
competition, you want tools that work, not tools you spend a lot of time 
finding work arounds.


3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken 
something, they say it's a regression.  Oh, BS!!  That's just 
political spin for not saying they screwed up and didn't catch it.  I 
would appreciate the pure honesty of admitting a mistake than political 
spin.


4.  My impression is, for most open source software I've tried over a 
period of time, the quality assurance/testing program to look for and 
find bugs is seriously flawed.  Some bugs are blatant, and I ask myself, 
How did they miss that?




So, the open source community, as a whole, has lost a supporter.  And 
they have a long, long way to go if they want me to recommend them.


That being said, I've started a small writing project, for fun for now. 
 Part of the writing will be done in a commercial program.  I will give 
LyX a try, 2.06 is installed, but haven't had time to start using it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are 
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.


I do have some free software installed, some open source, some not. 
But I get updates and bug fixes from the free software, not so much 
from the open source software in the way of bug fixes.


On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to produce some
technical
manuals quickly that looked good to management and that didn't
make me
deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

LyX really came through for me.

Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I used the
KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of intent.
Looks good!

Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks
good,
under development for seven years.

Except it won't accept last names much longer than the author's name
without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks to deal
with this.

Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example says, 'The
moderncv
class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
explained in
the preamble of this document; for more information look at the
documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and includes
this:
'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look in the
examples
directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled into dvi,
ps or pdf.'

The example LyX file points to documentation that doesn't actually
exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is explained.
Seven years
of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can use.

I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself', 'That's how
open source
works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a document
NOW, not
work on the documentation for the tool to produce the document.

Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If you have
the time
to produce something that you expect people to use, you need to
make the
time to explain how to use it.

(Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is richly
documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
generally.)

-- Rich


To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to LyX, but as
in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source community in
general.

I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he clearly states
his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have spent.  I got
into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly moving
back to commercial software.  A fair question is, why?

There's no universal answer to the question.  I'll just do some
quick comments, and leave it at that.

1.  Web pages make claims as to the abilities to do a job.  But the
software is buggy, or some features just don't work.

2.  Some pages ask you to become involved, and file bugs.  You do,
and I did.  But, after a year and a half, the bugs are not even
assigned to anyone, much less fixed.  One bug was assigned for
awhile, but the assignment has been removed.  Both are classed as
minor.  Well...  They aren't minor to me!!  If the developers
don't/won't fix it, then:

 a.  Why would I use the program?
 b.  Why would I recommend the program?

The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a
commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features,
some of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by
not fixing existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a
business, with competition, you want tools that work, not tools you
spend a lot of time finding work arounds.

3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken
something, they say it's a regression.  Oh, BS!!  That's just
political spin for not saying they screwed up and didn't catch it.
  I would appreciate the pure honesty of admitting a mistake than
political spin.

4.  My impression is, for most open source software I've tried over
a period of time, the quality assurance/testing program

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 11:24 AM, David L. Johnson wrote:

On 10/23/2013 12:33 PM, Ken Springer wrote:


The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a
commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features,
some of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by not
fixing existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a business,
with competition, you want tools that work, not tools you spend a lot
of time finding work arounds.

3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken
something, they say it's a regression.  Oh, BS!!  That's just
political spin for not saying they screwed up and didn't catch it.  I
would appreciate the pure honesty of admitting a mistake than
political spin.

4.  My impression is, for most open source software I've tried over a
period of time, the quality assurance/testing program to look for and
find bugs is seriously flawed.  Some bugs are blatant, and I ask
myself, How did they miss that?


I look at those complaints, and wonder that you don't see such issues,
and worse, with commercial software as well.


Invariably, there will be bugs in any sophisticated software.  The 
question that arises for me is, are they important to the developer?  I 
think, when the developers are being paid for their work, they are more 
attentive to fixing the bugs, as their next paycheck depends on it.


These days, when I do suggest software, it's often a program that has 
both free and paid versions.  My theory is, that programs developers 
will be more attentive to bugs in the free version as the incentive is 
to get you to purchase the more sophisticated paid version.  I don't 
think very many people, when finding a lot of bugs in the free version, 
will opt to purchase the paid version.



For me, the difference
between commercial software and open-source is that, when you do have a
problem, you have a chance, with open-source software, to actually ask
for help from the person who wrote it.


Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  I think smaller developers are easier to 
get in touch with.



For example, this list is
well-populated by the actual developers of LyX, who are very helpful.


Which is what I'd read online, and why I'm going to try LyX.  Also, 
because it's a typesetting program.  And I want better output than the 
average word processor.



Commercial support will connect you with a call center full of people
reading from scripts.


Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  I've found the smaller vendors to be much 
more helpful than the larger vendors.


I have a file management program on this Mac, and when I found a 
problem, I ended up talking via email about the problem.  We finally 
figured out what triggered the problem, but I'm not checked for an update.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 12:42 PM, Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:

Ken Springer schreef op 23-10-2013 19:41:

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.


Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


Not sure how you feel, so no reply.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 10:34 AM, Les Denham wrote:

On Tue, 22 Oct 2013 22:19:38 -0600
Richard Talley rich.tal...@gmail.com wrote:


Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks good,
under development for seven years.


Richard,

That's what I thought too. The documentation is, as you point out,
rather sketchy. But with a little effort I managed a very nice looking
CV.

Now the really big problem: most, in fact almost all, advertised job
vacancies only accept resumes in MS Word format. So I had to get my
very nice CV into LibreOffice (where it did not look very nice) and
save it in DOCX format.


Pure curiosity, Les, but have you asked to see if they will accept a PDF 
file?  I'd tell them those files are far easier to deal with between 
programs and platforms, and you don't have to buy Word in order to 
create them.


I sometimes think people ask for the Word format out of ignorance of 
anything else.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 2:31 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

Interesting comments. I too have found small vendors to be much more
helpful. Often the developers help with or even do all of the tech
support at small vendors. And they actually read my emails, instead of
replying with canned responses.


Most of the time, you can't get help from the big guys, really pisses me 
off.



My experience with LyX has been mostly excellent. I started using it at
work a number of years ago because I need to produce some technical
manuals quickly. I wanted something that would not lose track of things
in the cross-references and TOC (as Word is wont to do as documents get
longer and more complex). LyX allowed me to get to work right away on
content and produced very professional output.


I'm hoping my experience parallels yours.  And you are right about Word, 
at least the XP and 2003 versions.  The bigger the project, the bigger 
the piece of crap it turned out to be.  The time is long gone when I 
could afford to buy programs to find one that worked, and I had really 
hoped for better performance from open source software.  As I've posted, 
with a few exceptions, that hasn't happened.



I've used the KOMA-script versions of report, article and book, and I've
also used the letter template that comes with LyX. Yesterday was the
first time I ever tried to use one of the examples that come with LyX.


I have no idea what KOMA-script is, but no need to explain it.  I don't 
think I'm ready to absorb the details.  LOL  LyX looks to be rather out 
of the box from you basic office suite thinking, and I want to get that 
under control before getting into any tweaking.


For those reading this, that may be interested in the commercial program 
I'm trying now, it's called Scrivener.  Print output I want will 
probably not be possible, but I really like it's ability to keep 
research info with different file formats withing the Scrivener program 
itself.  So I need only one program running rather than a number of 
programs.



With scant documentation, the only way to figure out how the example
worked was trial and error. I wanted to concentrate on getting the
document done, not futz around with the example.


EXACTLY!!  As I've posted in other open source places, I DON'T	want to 
be their beta tester, I want to use the software.



Something good did come out of this. In searching for information about
moderncv, I chanced upon this site:

http://www.latextemplates.com


Looks very interesting, I've bookmarked it.  Thanks.


They have a template based on moderndv very similar to the example that
comes with LyX, but the TeX source file has complete and detailed
comments. So I switched to TeXShop and got good results right away.
First time I've had to do that.

I like the words of the Kiwi whose site it is:

I am by no means an expert on LaTeX, but I recognize that others are
similar to myself and only want to use LaTeX as a tool to create a
document, without having to dig around in forums for solutions on how to
tweak the document in some small way. There is no reason that LaTeX
cannot be a simple platform for creating documents where little more is
required than to change example text to your own text in a
pre-configured template. To this end, templates on this website have
been carefully pulled apart, cleaned up and made easier to use for the
average person just starting to use LaTeX.


This sounds like the average computer user, we just want to use the 
product, not tweak it, test it, etc.  I like this attitude, compared to 
some attitudes I've seen expressed.


I learned a long time ago, I don't want to program computers.


-- Rich



snip remaining text

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to produce some technical
manuals quickly that looked good to management and that didn't make me
deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

LyX really came through for me.

Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I used the
KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of intent. Looks good!

Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks good,
under development for seven years.

Except it won't accept last names much longer than the author's name
without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks to deal with this.

Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example says, 'The moderncv
class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are explained in
the preamble of this document; for more information look at the
documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and includes this:
'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look in the "examples"
directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled into dvi, ps or pdf.'

The example LyX file points to documentation that doesn't actually
exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is explained. Seven years
of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can use.

I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself', 'That's how open source
works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a document NOW, not
work on the documentation for the tool to produce the document.

Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If you have the time
to produce something that you expect people to use, you need to make the
time to explain how to use it.

(Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is richly
documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source generally.)

-- Rich


To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to LyX, but as in 
Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source community in general.


I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he clearly states his 
comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.



When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have spent.  I got 
into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.


I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly moving back 
to commercial software.  A fair question is, why?


There's no universal answer to the question.  I'll just do some quick 
comments, and leave it at that.


1.  Web pages make claims as to the abilities to do a job.  But the 
software is buggy, or some features just don't work.


2.  Some pages ask you to become involved, and file bugs.  You do, and I 
did.  But, after a year and a half, the bugs are not even assigned to 
anyone, much less fixed.  One bug was assigned for awhile, but the 
assignment has been removed.  Both are classed as minor.  Well...  They 
aren't minor to me!!  If the developers don't/won't fix it, then:


a.  Why would I use the program?
b.  Why would I recommend the program?

The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a 
commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features, some 
of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by not fixing 
existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a business, with 
competition, you want tools that work, not tools you spend a lot of time 
finding work arounds.


3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken 
something, they say it's a "regression".  Oh, BS!!  That's just 
political spin for not saying they screwed up and didn't catch it.  I 
would appreciate the pure honesty of admitting a mistake than political 
spin.


4.  My impression is, for most open source software I've tried over a 
period of time, the quality assurance/testing program to look for and 
find bugs is seriously flawed.  Some bugs are blatant, and I ask myself, 
"How did they miss that?"




So, the open source community, as a whole, has lost a supporter.  And 
they have a long, long way to go if they want me to recommend them.


That being said, I've started a small writing project, for fun for now. 
 Part of the writing will be done in a commercial program.  I will give 
LyX a try, 2.06 is installed, but haven't had time to start using it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are 
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.


I do have some "free" software installed, some open source, some not. 
But I get updates and bug fixes from the "free" software, not so much 
from the open source software in the way of bug fixes.


On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com
<mailto:snowsh...@q.com>> wrote:

On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to produce some
technical
manuals quickly that looked good to management and that didn't
make me
deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

LyX really came through for me.

Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I used the
KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of intent.
Looks good!

Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks
good,
under development for seven years.

Except it won't accept last names much longer than the author's name
without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks to deal
with this.

Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example says, 'The
moderncv
class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
explained in
the preamble of this document; for more information look at the
documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and includes
this:
'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look in the
"examples"
directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled into dvi,
ps or pdf.'

The example LyX file points to documentation that doesn't actually
exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is explained.
Seven years
of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can use.

I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself', 'That's how
open source
works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a document
NOW, not
work on the documentation for the tool to produce the document.

Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If you have
the time
to produce something that you expect people to use, you need to
make the
time to explain how to use it.

(Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is richly
documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
generally.)

-- Rich


To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to LyX, but as
in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source community in
general.

I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he clearly states
his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have spent.  I got
into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly moving
back to commercial software.  A fair question is, why?

There's no universal answer to the question.  I'll just do some
quick comments, and leave it at that.

1.  Web pages make claims as to the abilities to do a job.  But the
software is buggy, or some features just don't work.

2.  Some pages ask you to become involved, and file bugs.  You do,
and I did.  But, after a year and a half, the bugs are not even
assigned to anyone, much less fixed.  One bug was assigned for
awhile, but the assignment has been removed.  Both are classed as
minor.  Well...  They aren't minor to me!!  If the developers
don't/won't fix it, then:

 a.  Why would I use the program?
 b.  Why would I recommend the program?

The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a
commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features,
some of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by
not fixing existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a
business, with competition, you want tools that work, not tools you
spend a lot of time finding work arounds.

3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken
something, they say it's a "regression".  Oh, BS!!  That's just
political spin for not saying they screwed up and didn't catch it.
  I would appreciate the pure honesty of admitting a mistake than
political spin.

4.  My impression is, for most open source software I've tried over

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 11:24 AM, David L. Johnson wrote:

On 10/23/2013 12:33 PM, Ken Springer wrote:


The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a
commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features,
some of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by not
fixing existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a business,
with competition, you want tools that work, not tools you spend a lot
of time finding work arounds.

3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken
something, they say it's a "regression".  Oh, BS!!  That's just
political spin for not saying they screwed up and didn't catch it.  I
would appreciate the pure honesty of admitting a mistake than
political spin.

4.  My impression is, for most open source software I've tried over a
period of time, the quality assurance/testing program to look for and
find bugs is seriously flawed.  Some bugs are blatant, and I ask
myself, "How did they miss that?"


I look at those complaints, and wonder that you don't see such issues,
and worse, with commercial software as well.


Invariably, there will be bugs in any sophisticated software.  The 
question that arises for me is, are they important to the developer?  I 
think, when the developers are being paid for their work, they are more 
attentive to fixing the bugs, as their next paycheck depends on it.


These days, when I do suggest software, it's often a program that has 
both free and paid versions.  My theory is, that programs developers 
will be more attentive to bugs in the free version as the incentive is 
to get you to purchase the more sophisticated paid version.  I don't 
think very many people, when finding a lot of bugs in the free version, 
will opt to purchase the paid version.



For me, the difference
between commercial software and open-source is that, when you do have a
problem, you have a chance, with open-source software, to actually ask
for help from the person who wrote it.


Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  I think smaller developers are easier to 
get in touch with.



For example, this list is
well-populated by the actual developers of LyX, who are very helpful.


Which is what I'd read online, and why I'm going to try LyX.  Also, 
because it's a typesetting program.  And I want better output than the 
average word processor.



Commercial support will connect you with a call center full of people
reading from scripts.


Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  I've found the smaller vendors to be much 
more helpful than the larger vendors.


I have a file management program on this Mac, and when I found a 
problem, I ended up talking via email about the problem.  We finally 
figured out what triggered the problem, but I'm not checked for an update.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 12:42 PM, Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:

Ken Springer schreef op 23-10-2013 19:41:

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.


Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


Not sure how you feel, so no reply.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 10:34 AM, Les Denham wrote:

On Tue, 22 Oct 2013 22:19:38 -0600
Richard Talley  wrote:


Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks good,
under development for seven years.


Richard,

That's what I thought too. The documentation is, as you point out,
rather sketchy. But with a little effort I managed a very nice looking
CV.

Now the really big problem: most, in fact almost all, advertised job
vacancies only accept resumes in MS Word format. So I had to get my
very nice CV into LibreOffice (where it did not look very nice) and
save it in DOCX format.


Pure curiosity, Les, but have you asked to see if they will accept a PDF 
file?  I'd tell them those files are far easier to deal with between 
programs and platforms, and you don't have to buy Word in order to 
create them.


I sometimes think people ask for the Word format out of ignorance of 
anything else.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

[Ken Springer]

On 10/23/13 2:31 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

Interesting comments. I too have found small vendors to be much more
helpful. Often the developers help with or even do all of the tech
support at small vendors. And they actually read my emails, instead of
replying with canned responses.


Most of the time, you can't get help from the big guys, really pisses me 
off.



My experience with LyX has been mostly excellent. I started using it at
work a number of years ago because I need to produce some technical
manuals quickly. I wanted something that would not lose track of things
in the cross-references and TOC (as Word is wont to do as documents get
longer and more complex). LyX allowed me to get to work right away on
content and produced very professional output.


I'm hoping my experience parallels yours.  And you are right about Word, 
at least the XP and 2003 versions.  The bigger the project, the bigger 
the piece of crap it turned out to be.  The time is long gone when I 
could afford to buy programs to find one that worked, and I had really 
hoped for better performance from open source software.  As I've posted, 
with a few exceptions, that hasn't happened.



I've used the KOMA-script versions of report, article and book, and I've
also used the letter template that comes with LyX. Yesterday was the
first time I ever tried to use one of the examples that come with LyX.


I have no idea what KOMA-script is, but no need to explain it.  I don't 
think I'm ready to absorb the details.  LOL  LyX looks to be rather out 
of the box from you basic office suite thinking, and I want to get that 
under control before getting into any tweaking.


For those reading this, that may be interested in the commercial program 
I'm trying now, it's called Scrivener.  Print output I want will 
probably not be possible, but I really like it's ability to keep 
research info with different file formats withing the Scrivener program 
itself.  So I need only one program running rather than a number of 
programs.



With scant documentation, the only way to figure out how the example
worked was trial and error. I wanted to concentrate on getting the
document done, not futz around with the example.


EXACTLY!!  As I've posted in other open source places, I DON'T	want to 
be their beta tester, I want to use the software.



Something good did come out of this. In searching for information about
moderncv, I chanced upon this site:

http://www.latextemplates.com


Looks very interesting, I've bookmarked it.  Thanks.


They have a template based on moderndv very similar to the example that
comes with LyX, but the TeX source file has complete and detailed
comments. So I switched to TeXShop and got good results right away.
First time I've had to do that.

I like the words of the Kiwi whose site it is:

"I am by no means an expert on LaTeX, but I recognize that others are
similar to myself and only want to use LaTeX as a tool to create a
document, without having to dig around in forums for solutions on how to
tweak the document in some small way. There is no reason that LaTeX
cannot be a simple platform for creating documents where little more is
required than to change example text to your own text in a
pre-configured template. To this end, templates on this website have
been carefully pulled apart, cleaned up and made easier to use for the
average person just starting to use LaTeX."


This sounds like the average computer user, we just want to use the 
product, not tweak it, test it, etc.  I like this attitude, compared to 
some attitudes I've seen expressed.


I learned a long time ago, I don't want to program computers.


-- Rich





--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Font tables/charts, a tad OT, IMO :-)

[Ken Springer]

My apologies if anyone is offended by this post, but I don't know 
another place to ask.


Back in the 8-bit days, my computer actually came with an ASCII chart 
somewhat like this:


http://www.asciitable.com/

Does anyone know where a similar, but simple, chart can be found for 
modern systems and fonts?  My Google-type searches (I avoid Google, 
personally) have yielded more sophisticated and complex charts, but 
that's not a good starting place for me.  (At least, I'm smart enough to 
know *that*!   LOL)


A part of this is to see if my word processor's autocorrect feature, 
currently Libre Office Writer, can be made to substitute ligatures as I 
type.  I think it should work, but have never tried something like this.


Any help would be appreciated.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.0.4

Re: Font tables/charts, a tad OT, IMO :-)

[Ken Springer]

On 10/13/13 8:52 AM, stefano franchi wrote:




On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 9:42 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

My apologies if anyone is offended by this post, but I don't know
another place to ask.

Back in the 8-bit days, my computer actually came with an ASCII
chart somewhat like this:

http://www.asciitable.com/

Does anyone know where a similar, but simple, chart can be found for
modern systems and fonts?  My Google-type searches (I avoid Google,
personally) have yielded more sophisticated and complex charts, but
that's not a good starting place for me.  (At least, I'm smart
enough to know *that*!   LOL)

A part of this is to see if my word processor's autocorrect feature,
currently Libre Office Writer, can be made to substitute ligatures
as I type.  I think it should work, but have never tried something
like this.



Hi Ken,

have you tried wikipedia's page on ligatures [1] or the even more
extened table it links to [2]? It gives you unicode codes for the most
common ligatures (ff, etc.). Can you use Unicode in Libreoffice's
autocorrect?


Cheers,

Stefano


[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature#Ligatures_in_Unicode_.28Latin-derived_alphabets.29
[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_precomposed_Latin_characters_in_Unicode#Digraphs_and_ligatures


Thanks for the links, I've bookmarked them for later.

My approach to learning LyX is going to be learning some font basics 
first.  It is a typography program, after all!LOL


Then find fonts that I like, and that hopefully will install and be 
available for all software, not just LyX, or LO.


I don't know if LO supports Unicode or not, Apple does.  I have to 
figure out how to use Apple's font system, it has always confused me. 
But I just found a long PDF from Adobe, written in the Tiger (10.4?) era 
that I need to read for this.  It looks the same in Mountain Lion, so 
there should be some common ground.


I'm no longer too happy with LO, but haven't found a replacement as of yet.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.0.4

Font tables/charts, a tad OT, IMO :-)

[Ken Springer]

My apologies if anyone is offended by this post, but I don't know 
another place to ask.


Back in the 8-bit days, my computer actually came with an ASCII chart 
somewhat like this:


http://www.asciitable.com/

Does anyone know where a similar, but simple, chart can be found for 
modern systems and fonts?  My Google-type searches (I avoid Google, 
personally) have yielded more sophisticated and complex charts, but 
that's not a good starting place for me.  (At least, I'm smart enough to 
know *that*!   LOL)


A part of this is to see if my word processor's autocorrect feature, 
currently Libre Office Writer, can be made to substitute ligatures as I 
type.  I think it should work, but have never tried something like this.


Any help would be appreciated.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.0.4

Re: Font tables/charts, a tad OT, IMO :-)

[Ken Springer]

On 10/13/13 8:52 AM, stefano franchi wrote:




On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 9:42 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

My apologies if anyone is offended by this post, but I don't know
another place to ask.

Back in the 8-bit days, my computer actually came with an ASCII
chart somewhat like this:

http://www.asciitable.com/

Does anyone know where a similar, but simple, chart can be found for
modern systems and fonts?  My Google-type searches (I avoid Google,
personally) have yielded more sophisticated and complex charts, but
that's not a good starting place for me.  (At least, I'm smart
enough to know *that*!   LOL)

A part of this is to see if my word processor's autocorrect feature,
currently Libre Office Writer, can be made to substitute ligatures
as I type.  I think it should work, but have never tried something
like this.



Hi Ken,

have you tried wikipedia's page on ligatures [1] or the even more
extened table it links to [2]? It gives you unicode codes for the most
common ligatures (ff, etc.). Can you use Unicode in Libreoffice's
autocorrect?


Cheers,

Stefano


[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature#Ligatures_in_Unicode_.28Latin-derived_alphabets.29
[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_precomposed_Latin_characters_in_Unicode#Digraphs_and_ligatures


Thanks for the links, I've bookmarked them for later.

My approach to learning LyX is going to be learning some font basics 
first.  It is a typography program, after all!LOL


Then find fonts that I like, and that hopefully will install and be 
available for all software, not just LyX, or LO.


I don't know if LO supports Unicode or not, Apple does.  I have to 
figure out how to use Apple's font system, it has always confused me. 
But I just found a long PDF from Adobe, written in the Tiger (10.4?) era 
that I need to read for this.  It looks the same in Mountain Lion, so 
there should be some common ground.


I'm no longer too happy with LO, but haven't found a replacement as of yet.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.0.4

Font tables/charts, a tad OT, IMO :-)

[Ken Springer]

My apologies if anyone is offended by this post, but I don't know 
another place to ask.


Back in the 8-bit days, my computer actually came with an ASCII chart 
somewhat like this:


http://www.asciitable.com/

Does anyone know where a similar, but simple, chart can be found for 
modern systems and fonts?  My Google-type searches (I avoid Google, 
personally) have yielded more sophisticated and complex charts, but 
that's not a good starting place for me.  (At least, I'm smart enough to 
know *that*!   LOL)


A part of this is to see if my word processor's autocorrect feature, 
currently Libre Office Writer, can be made to substitute ligatures as I 
type.  I think it should work, but have never tried something like this.


Any help would be appreciated.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.0.4

Re: Font tables/charts, a tad OT, IMO :-)

[Ken Springer]

On 10/13/13 8:52 AM, stefano franchi wrote:




On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 9:42 AM, Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com
<mailto:snowsh...@q.com>> wrote:

My apologies if anyone is offended by this post, but I don't know
another place to ask.

Back in the 8-bit days, my computer actually came with an ASCII
chart somewhat like this:

http://www.asciitable.com/

Does anyone know where a similar, but simple, chart can be found for
modern systems and fonts?  My Google-type searches (I avoid Google,
personally) have yielded more sophisticated and complex charts, but
that's not a good starting place for me.  (At least, I'm smart
enough to know *that*!   LOL)

A part of this is to see if my word processor's autocorrect feature,
currently Libre Office Writer, can be made to substitute ligatures
as I type.  I think it should work, but have never tried something
like this.



Hi Ken,

have you tried wikipedia's page on ligatures [1] or the even more
extened table it links to [2]? It gives you unicode codes for the most
common ligatures (ff, etc.). Can you use Unicode in Libreoffice's
autocorrect?


Cheers,

Stefano


[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typographic_ligature#Ligatures_in_Unicode_.28Latin-derived_alphabets.29
[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_precomposed_Latin_characters_in_Unicode#Digraphs_and_ligatures


Thanks for the links, I've bookmarked them for later.

My approach to learning LyX is going to be learning some font basics 
first.  It is a typography program, after all!LOL


Then find fonts that I like, and that hopefully will install and be 
available for all software, not just LyX, or LO.


I don't know if LO supports Unicode or not, Apple does.  I have to 
figure out how to use Apple's font system, it has always confused me. 
But I just found a long PDF from Adobe, written in the Tiger (10.4?) era 
that I need to read for this.  It looks the same in Mountain Lion, so 
there should be some common ground.


I'm no longer too happy with LO, but haven't found a replacement as of yet.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.0.4

Re: LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

I've know RTFM for years, and have often used it.

You missed the point of my post, but I don't have time to explain at the 
moment.  Work calls.  :-(



On 9/9/13 12:47 AM, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:

Please google what RTFM measn :-)-O

el

On 2013-09-07 15:12 , Ken Springer wrote:

On 9/7/13 3:33 AM, Stephan Witt wrote:

Am 07.09.2013 um 03:19 schrieb Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com:


Having resolved my issue with the LyX installation on my Mac, I also
have installed it under Windows 7.  Also appears to work fine.

This has left me wondering about installation packages for different
OS's.

Why is it, that if it's a Windows program, if a supporting program is
needed to make the program run, in this case, the supporting program
is also included in the program's installation package.  But, when
the program goes into OS X, the supporting program isn't included in
the installation package.

If the Mac LyX package for OS X had included the supporting program,
I would never have had a problem.LOL


What support do you have in mind? The installation of a usable TeX
system?


Exactly.  When you install the Windows bundle, it includes MikTeX and
JabRef(?), not sure if that's exactly right.  Isn't JabRef a
bibliography thing?  (This is new to me.)  So a new user like me doesn't
have to worry about making sure that when LyX is installed on Windows
for the first time, it's a fully functional system.  But on the Mac,
that doesn't happen.  The Mac LyX package does not include a TeX system,
and I'm guessing no bibliography option.  So if a new user got a copy of
LyX from some free software place, it's not going to work right out of
the box, and the user isn't going to be happy.  I don't know what the
user gets if it's for Linux.

I just now looked a bit more at the LyX site, and it's intimidating to a
new user, lots of things there that may as well be written in a foreign
language if you are completely new to typography and the LyX world. Even
more so if you are relatively new to computers.  (Something every site
for every platform has become.  They totally ignore the newbie
concept, and I'd bet turn off a lot of potential new users/converts.)



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

Eberhard, Charlie, and Anders,

I think my reply works better if I answer all of you with just the one 
reply, otherwise there would be a lot of duplication of effort on my part.


On 9/9/13 8:34 AM, Anders Ekberg wrote:

On 2013-09-09 15:23, Charlie aries...@skymesh.com.au wrote:


On Mon, 09 Sep 2013 06:54:39 -0600 Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com sent
this:

I've know RTFM for years, and have often used it.

snip

  With the risk that I also might have missed the point. I think it was
  suggested that if you RTFM. Your question will be answered and there
  would be no need to post to the list.


If I understood it correctly, the point was bundling TeX and LyX. This
would probably make it easier for first-timers. But the download would be
massive, which persons who just update LyX probably would not like.
Downloading if needed would require a script that someone would need to
create and (not the least) maintain.

As for documentation I personally think the wiki, Tutorial and User's
guide are excellent. But I am probably blind for difficulties a beginner
faces. Unfortunately I think those that have the difficulties fresh in
mind, and are the ones that I think should update
http://wiki.lyx.org/Mac/Mac (or create a Beginner's video guide or
whatever they find would be helpful and is currently missing for a
beginner) are often hesitant to do this since they think they are not
experienced enough. So we have a bit of a catch 22Š


A lot of my original message, Message-ID: l0f8nq$iib$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
was intended to refer to the true newbie/beginner.  I'm just too damned 
old to be a newbie! LOL


And a lot was meant to refer to the website itself, not the program or 
documentation.


Anders is correct, I was talking about the bundling of LyX and some kind 
of TeX program.  Anders brings up a point about folks who only need the 
update to LyX as opposed to someone needing the whole package.  If you 
use Windows, that's an option already.  There are two packages 
available, one for the person needing everything, like me, and one who 
only needs to update LyX.  If it can be done for Windows, why can't it 
be done for the Mac?  I don't know about any Linux versions, but I'd 
still have the same question.


I've not had the chance to check the documentation for LyX, but my 
experiences with documentation, especially on the web, is it's 
incomplete and disjointed.  There's no organization.  No index.  And my 
questions are never answered.  Neither do I get answers from forums, 
from almost anyone.  Commercial or open source.  I've been trying to get 
a networking question between OS X and Windows answered for 3 months.  I 
finally have some thing that's workable, but it's a kludge and ignores 
any and all sharing restrictions.


As for the website, or documentation for that matter, my mind always 
defaults to the lowest common denominator.  How would a person who 
doesn't know how to spell LyX respond to what is on the site?  With the 
people in my past, I'd say they would look at the site, and walk away 
from LyX.  I doubt that is what the developers would like.


If the truly new person, who found LyX using search engine, walks away 
from LyX because nothing makes any sense to them, LyX has possibly lost 
a convert.


One problem I've found with documentation is, it's almost always 
incomplete and out of date.  (Remember, this is a general impression, 
I've not had the time to read the LyX documentation.)  Even the LyX site 
appears to be out of date regarding installation under Mountain Lion. 
The site mentions ML's Gatekeeper, and how to get around it.  But the 
Gatekeeper wasn't a problem for me.  Somebody apparently fixed the 
issue, but the site is out of date on that.


I don't know if this has made anything more understandable or not, but 
I'm out of time for today.   :-(



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

I've know RTFM for years, and have often used it.

You missed the point of my post, but I don't have time to explain at the 
moment.  Work calls.  :-(



On 9/9/13 12:47 AM, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:

Please google what RTFM measn :-)-O

el

On 2013-09-07 15:12 , Ken Springer wrote:

On 9/7/13 3:33 AM, Stephan Witt wrote:

Am 07.09.2013 um 03:19 schrieb Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com:


Having resolved my issue with the LyX installation on my Mac, I also
have installed it under Windows 7.  Also appears to work fine.

This has left me wondering about installation packages for different
OS's.

Why is it, that if it's a Windows program, if a supporting program is
needed to make the program run, in this case, the supporting program
is also included in the program's installation package.  But, when
the program goes into OS X, the supporting program isn't included in
the installation package.

If the Mac LyX package for OS X had included the supporting program,
I would never have had a problem.LOL


What support do you have in mind? The installation of a usable TeX
system?


Exactly.  When you install the Windows bundle, it includes MikTeX and
JabRef(?), not sure if that's exactly right.  Isn't JabRef a
bibliography thing?  (This is new to me.)  So a new user like me doesn't
have to worry about making sure that when LyX is installed on Windows
for the first time, it's a fully functional system.  But on the Mac,
that doesn't happen.  The Mac LyX package does not include a TeX system,
and I'm guessing no bibliography option.  So if a new user got a copy of
LyX from some free software place, it's not going to work right out of
the box, and the user isn't going to be happy.  I don't know what the
user gets if it's for Linux.

I just now looked a bit more at the LyX site, and it's intimidating to a
new user, lots of things there that may as well be written in a foreign
language if you are completely new to typography and the LyX world. Even
more so if you are relatively new to computers.  (Something every site
for every platform has become.  They totally ignore the newbie
concept, and I'd bet turn off a lot of potential new users/converts.)



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

Eberhard, Charlie, and Anders,

I think my reply works better if I answer all of you with just the one 
reply, otherwise there would be a lot of duplication of effort on my part.


On 9/9/13 8:34 AM, Anders Ekberg wrote:

On 2013-09-09 15:23, Charlie aries...@skymesh.com.au wrote:


On Mon, 09 Sep 2013 06:54:39 -0600 Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com sent
this:

I've know RTFM for years, and have often used it.

snip

  With the risk that I also might have missed the point. I think it was
  suggested that if you RTFM. Your question will be answered and there
  would be no need to post to the list.


If I understood it correctly, the point was bundling TeX and LyX. This
would probably make it easier for first-timers. But the download would be
massive, which persons who just update LyX probably would not like.
Downloading if needed would require a script that someone would need to
create and (not the least) maintain.

As for documentation I personally think the wiki, Tutorial and User's
guide are excellent. But I am probably blind for difficulties a beginner
faces. Unfortunately I think those that have the difficulties fresh in
mind, and are the ones that I think should update
http://wiki.lyx.org/Mac/Mac (or create a Beginner's video guide or
whatever they find would be helpful and is currently missing for a
beginner) are often hesitant to do this since they think they are not
experienced enough. So we have a bit of a catch 22Š


A lot of my original message, Message-ID: l0f8nq$iib$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
was intended to refer to the true newbie/beginner.  I'm just too damned 
old to be a newbie! LOL


And a lot was meant to refer to the website itself, not the program or 
documentation.


Anders is correct, I was talking about the bundling of LyX and some kind 
of TeX program.  Anders brings up a point about folks who only need the 
update to LyX as opposed to someone needing the whole package.  If you 
use Windows, that's an option already.  There are two packages 
available, one for the person needing everything, like me, and one who 
only needs to update LyX.  If it can be done for Windows, why can't it 
be done for the Mac?  I don't know about any Linux versions, but I'd 
still have the same question.


I've not had the chance to check the documentation for LyX, but my 
experiences with documentation, especially on the web, is it's 
incomplete and disjointed.  There's no organization.  No index.  And my 
questions are never answered.  Neither do I get answers from forums, 
from almost anyone.  Commercial or open source.  I've been trying to get 
a networking question between OS X and Windows answered for 3 months.  I 
finally have some thing that's workable, but it's a kludge and ignores 
any and all sharing restrictions.


As for the website, or documentation for that matter, my mind always 
defaults to the lowest common denominator.  How would a person who 
doesn't know how to spell LyX respond to what is on the site?  With the 
people in my past, I'd say they would look at the site, and walk away 
from LyX.  I doubt that is what the developers would like.


If the truly new person, who found LyX using search engine, walks away 
from LyX because nothing makes any sense to them, LyX has possibly lost 
a convert.


One problem I've found with documentation is, it's almost always 
incomplete and out of date.  (Remember, this is a general impression, 
I've not had the time to read the LyX documentation.)  Even the LyX site 
appears to be out of date regarding installation under Mountain Lion. 
The site mentions ML's Gatekeeper, and how to get around it.  But the 
Gatekeeper wasn't a problem for me.  Somebody apparently fixed the 
issue, but the site is out of date on that.


I don't know if this has made anything more understandable or not, but 
I'm out of time for today.   :-(



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

I've know RTFM for years, and have often used it.

You missed the point of my post, but I don't have time to explain at the 
moment.  Work calls.  :-(



On 9/9/13 12:47 AM, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:

Please google what RTFM measn :-)-O

el

On 2013-09-07 15:12 , Ken Springer wrote:

On 9/7/13 3:33 AM, Stephan Witt wrote:

Am 07.09.2013 um 03:19 schrieb Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com>:


Having resolved my issue with the LyX installation on my Mac, I also
have installed it under Windows 7.  Also appears to work fine.

This has left me wondering about installation packages for different
OS's.

Why is it, that if it's a Windows program, if a supporting program is
needed to make the program run, in this case, the supporting program
is also included in the program's installation package.  But, when
the program goes into OS X, the supporting program isn't included in
the installation package.

If the Mac LyX package for OS X had included the supporting program,
I would never have had a problem.LOL


What support do you have in mind? The installation of a usable TeX
system?


Exactly.  When you install the Windows "bundle", it includes MikTeX and
JabRef(?), not sure if that's exactly right.  Isn't JabRef a
bibliography thing?  (This is new to me.)  So a new user like me doesn't
have to worry about making sure that when LyX is installed on Windows
for the first time, it's a fully functional system.  But on the Mac,
that doesn't happen.  The Mac LyX package does not include a TeX system,
and I'm guessing no bibliography option.  So if a new user got a copy of
LyX from some free software place, it's not going to work "right out of
the box", and the user isn't going to be happy.  I don't know what the
user gets if it's for Linux.

I just now looked a bit more at the LyX site, and it's intimidating to a
new user, lots of things there that may as well be written in a foreign
language if you are completely new to typography and the LyX world. Even
more so if you are relatively new to computers.  (Something every site
for every platform has become.  They totally ignore the "newbie"
concept, and I'd bet turn off a lot of potential new users/converts.)



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

Eberhard, Charlie, and Anders,

I think my reply works better if I answer all of you with just the one 
reply, otherwise there would be a lot of duplication of effort on my part.


On 9/9/13 8:34 AM, Anders Ekberg wrote:

On 2013-09-09 15:23, "Charlie" <aries...@skymesh.com.au> wrote:


On Mon, 09 Sep 2013 06:54:39 -0600 "Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com" sent
this:

>I've know RTFM for years, and have often used it.



  With the risk that I also might have missed the point. I think it was
  suggested that if you RTFM. Your question will be answered and there
  would be no need to post to the list.


If I understood it correctly, the point was bundling TeX and LyX. This
would probably make it easier for first-timers. But the download would be
massive, which persons who just update LyX probably would not like.
Downloading "if needed" would require a script that someone would need to
create and (not the least) maintain.

As for documentation I personally think the wiki, Tutorial and User's
guide are excellent. But I am probably blind for difficulties a beginner
faces. Unfortunately I think those that have the difficulties fresh in
mind, and are the ones that I think should update
http://wiki.lyx.org/Mac/Mac (or create a "Beginner's video guide" or
whatever they find would be helpful and is currently missing for a
beginner) are often hesitant to do this since they think they are not
experienced enough. So we have a bit of a catch 22Š


A lot of my original message, Message-ID: <l0f8nq$iib$1...@ger.gmane.org>, 
was intended to refer to the true newbie/beginner.  I'm just too damned 
old to be a newbie! LOL


And a lot was meant to refer to the website itself, not the program or 
documentation.


Anders is correct, I was talking about the bundling of LyX and some kind 
of TeX program.  Anders brings up a point about folks who only need the 
update to LyX as opposed to someone needing the whole package.  If you 
use Windows, that's an option already.  There are two packages 
available, one for the person needing everything, like me, and one who 
only needs to update LyX.  If it can be done for Windows, why can't it 
be done for the Mac?  I don't know about any Linux versions, but I'd 
still have the same question.


I've not had the chance to check the documentation for LyX, but my 
experiences with documentation, especially on the web, is it's 
incomplete and disjointed.  There's no organization.  No index.  And my 
questions are never answered.  Neither do I get answers from forums, 
from almost anyone.  Commercial or open source.  I've been trying to get 
a networking question between OS X and Windows answered for 3 months.  I 
finally have some thing that's workable, but it's a kludge and ignores 
any and all sharing restrictions.


As for the website, or documentation for that matter, my mind always 
defaults to the lowest common denominator.  How would a person who 
doesn't know how to spell LyX respond to what is on the site?  With the 
people in my past, I'd say they would look at the site, and walk away 
from LyX.  I doubt that is what the developers would like.


If the truly new person, who found LyX using search engine, walks away 
from LyX because nothing makes any sense to them, LyX has possibly lost 
a convert.


One problem I've found with documentation is, it's almost always 
incomplete and out of date.  (Remember, this is a general impression, 
I've not had the time to read the LyX documentation.)  Even the LyX site 
appears to be out of date regarding installation under Mountain Lion. 
The site mentions ML's Gatekeeper, and how to get around it.  But the 
Gatekeeper wasn't a problem for me.  Somebody apparently fixed the 
issue, but the site is out of date on that.


I don't know if this has made anything more understandable or not, but 
I'm out of time for today.   :-(



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

On 9/7/13 3:33 AM, Stephan Witt wrote:

Am 07.09.2013 um 03:19 schrieb Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com:


Having resolved my issue with the LyX installation on my Mac, I also have 
installed it under Windows 7.  Also appears to work fine.

This has left me wondering about installation packages for different OS's.

Why is it, that if it's a Windows program, if a supporting program is needed to 
make the program run, in this case, the supporting program is also included in 
the program's installation package.  But, when the program goes into OS X, the 
supporting program isn't included in the installation package.

If the Mac LyX package for OS X had included the supporting program, I would 
never have had a problem.LOL


What support do you have in mind? The installation of a usable TeX system?


Exactly.  When you install the Windows bundle, it includes MikTeX and 
JabRef(?), not sure if that's exactly right.  Isn't JabRef a 
bibliography thing?  (This is new to me.)  So a new user like me doesn't 
have to worry about making sure that when LyX is installed on Windows 
for the first time, it's a fully functional system.  But on the Mac, 
that doesn't happen.  The Mac LyX package does not include a TeX system, 
and I'm guessing no bibliography option.  So if a new user got a copy of 
LyX from some free software place, it's not going to work right out of 
the box, and the user isn't going to be happy.  I don't know what the 
user gets if it's for Linux.


I just now looked a bit more at the LyX site, and it's intimidating to a 
new user, lots of things there that may as well be written in a foreign 
language if you are completely new to typography and the LyX world. 
Even more so if you are relatively new to computers.  (Something every 
site for every platform has become.  They totally ignore the newbie 
concept, and I'd bet turn off a lot of potential new users/converts.)



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

On 9/7/13 3:33 AM, Stephan Witt wrote:

Am 07.09.2013 um 03:19 schrieb Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com:


Having resolved my issue with the LyX installation on my Mac, I also have 
installed it under Windows 7.  Also appears to work fine.

This has left me wondering about installation packages for different OS's.

Why is it, that if it's a Windows program, if a supporting program is needed to 
make the program run, in this case, the supporting program is also included in 
the program's installation package.  But, when the program goes into OS X, the 
supporting program isn't included in the installation package.

If the Mac LyX package for OS X had included the supporting program, I would 
never have had a problem.LOL


What support do you have in mind? The installation of a usable TeX system?


Exactly.  When you install the Windows bundle, it includes MikTeX and 
JabRef(?), not sure if that's exactly right.  Isn't JabRef a 
bibliography thing?  (This is new to me.)  So a new user like me doesn't 
have to worry about making sure that when LyX is installed on Windows 
for the first time, it's a fully functional system.  But on the Mac, 
that doesn't happen.  The Mac LyX package does not include a TeX system, 
and I'm guessing no bibliography option.  So if a new user got a copy of 
LyX from some free software place, it's not going to work right out of 
the box, and the user isn't going to be happy.  I don't know what the 
user gets if it's for Linux.


I just now looked a bit more at the LyX site, and it's intimidating to a 
new user, lots of things there that may as well be written in a foreign 
language if you are completely new to typography and the LyX world. 
Even more so if you are relatively new to computers.  (Something every 
site for every platform has become.  They totally ignore the newbie 
concept, and I'd bet turn off a lot of potential new users/converts.)



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

On 9/7/13 3:33 AM, Stephan Witt wrote:

Am 07.09.2013 um 03:19 schrieb Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com>:


Having resolved my issue with the LyX installation on my Mac, I also have 
installed it under Windows 7.  Also appears to work fine.

This has left me wondering about installation packages for different OS's.

Why is it, that if it's a Windows program, if a supporting program is needed to 
make the program run, in this case, the supporting program is also included in 
the program's installation package.  But, when the program goes into OS X, the 
supporting program isn't included in the installation package.

If the Mac LyX package for OS X had included the supporting program, I would 
never have had a problem.LOL


What support do you have in mind? The installation of a usable TeX system?


Exactly.  When you install the Windows "bundle", it includes MikTeX and 
JabRef(?), not sure if that's exactly right.  Isn't JabRef a 
bibliography thing?  (This is new to me.)  So a new user like me doesn't 
have to worry about making sure that when LyX is installed on Windows 
for the first time, it's a fully functional system.  But on the Mac, 
that doesn't happen.  The Mac LyX package does not include a TeX system, 
and I'm guessing no bibliography option.  So if a new user got a copy of 
LyX from some free software place, it's not going to work "right out of 
the box", and the user isn't going to be happy.  I don't know what the 
user gets if it's for Linux.


I just now looked a bit more at the LyX site, and it's intimidating to a 
new user, lots of things there that may as well be written in a foreign 
language if you are completely new to typography and the LyX world. 
Even more so if you are relatively new to computers.  (Something every 
site for every platform has become.  They totally ignore the "newbie" 
concept, and I'd bet turn off a lot of potential new users/converts.)



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: New LyX install problems... apparently minor :-)

[Ken Springer]

snip

My apologies to everyone, I screwed up.  I had installed and then 
uninstalled LyX once before, just for a quick look at the LyX window. 
But didn't use it.


But I had downloaded MetaTeX, but I don't remember if A) I didn't 
install it then, or B) I installed it and then uninstalled it at the 
same time I uninstalled it this time.


At any rate, I started all over from scratch, and it works fine.  Can't 
wait to get started with it, have a project in mind already! LOL

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

Having resolved my issue with the LyX installation on my Mac, I also 
have installed it under Windows 7.  Also appears to work fine.


This has left me wondering about installation packages for different OS's.

Why is it, that if it's a Windows program, if a supporting program is 
needed to make the program run, in this case, the supporting program is 
also included in the program's installation package.  But, when the 
program goes into OS X, the supporting program isn't included in the 
installation package.


If the Mac LyX package for OS X had included the supporting program, I 
would never have had a problem.LOL




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: New LyX install problems... apparently minor :-)

[Ken Springer]

snip

My apologies to everyone, I screwed up.  I had installed and then 
uninstalled LyX once before, just for a quick look at the LyX window. 
But didn't use it.


But I had downloaded MetaTeX, but I don't remember if A) I didn't 
install it then, or B) I installed it and then uninstalled it at the 
same time I uninstalled it this time.


At any rate, I started all over from scratch, and it works fine.  Can't 
wait to get started with it, have a project in mind already! LOL

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

Having resolved my issue with the LyX installation on my Mac, I also 
have installed it under Windows 7.  Also appears to work fine.


This has left me wondering about installation packages for different OS's.

Why is it, that if it's a Windows program, if a supporting program is 
needed to make the program run, in this case, the supporting program is 
also included in the program's installation package.  But, when the 
program goes into OS X, the supporting program isn't included in the 
installation package.


If the Mac LyX package for OS X had included the supporting program, I 
would never have had a problem.LOL




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: New LyX install problems... apparently minor :-)

[Ken Springer]

My apologies to everyone, I screwed up.  I had installed and then 
uninstalled LyX once before, just for a quick look at the LyX window. 
But didn't use it.


But I had downloaded MetaTeX, but I don't remember if A) I didn't 
install it then, or B) I installed it and then uninstalled it at the 
same time I uninstalled it this time.


At any rate, I started all over from scratch, and it works fine.  Can't 
wait to get started with it, have a project in mind already! LOL

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

LyX installation packages, possibly OT

[Ken Springer]

Having resolved my issue with the LyX installation on my Mac, I also 
have installed it under Windows 7.  Also appears to work fine.


This has left me wondering about installation packages for different OS's.

Why is it, that if it's a Windows program, if a supporting program is 
needed to make the program run, in this case, the supporting program is 
also included in the program's installation package.  But, when the 
program goes into OS X, the supporting program isn't included in the 
installation package.


If the Mac LyX package for OS X had included the supporting program, I 
would never have had a problem.LOL




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

New LyX install problems... apparently minor :-)

[Ken Springer]

From http://www.lyx.org/Download, I downloaded 
ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/bin/2.0.6/LyX-2.0.6+qt4.dmg and used the 
MacTeX link to download MacTeX.  Installation of both went without a 
problem.  I'm running OS X 10.8.4 but the Gatekeeper wasn't a problem, 
although the web site says it may be.


Lyx appears to start and run without problem.  I get a LyX window that 
appears to be waiting for me to select a document to open, or create a 
New document.


The problem(s) come when I try to access the Tutorial and User's Guide. 
 I get a warning message similar to this: 
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pm293kcbng0l3hs/zPnablGaEy


The link above says I need (I think) a file named book.cls before I can 
print the what eventually displays on the screen.  Other files I get 
asked about are scrbook.cls, fancyhdr.sty, and enumitem.sty.


Questions:

1.  Shouldn't these files be included in the .dmg file, and be installed 
where they belong?  Could they have been left out by simple omission?


2.  Where do I find these files to install them?

After going through all the warning messages, the Tutorial and User 
Guide open fine.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: New LyX install problems... apparently minor :-)

[Ken Springer]

Same messages, Scott.

After posting, I thought it might be tied to the fact I have LyX set to 
use a specific desktop.  I have another application for which that seems 
to expose a bug.  But it didn't make any difference for LyX, apparently.





On 9/4/13 5:11 PM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

Can you try going to LyX  Reconfigure and then restart LyX? Do you
get the same message?

Scott

On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 6:47 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 From http://www.lyx.org/Download, I downloaded
ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/bin/2.0.6/LyX-2.0.6+qt4.dmg and used the MacTeX
link to download MacTeX.  Installation of both went without a problem.  I'm
running OS X 10.8.4 but the Gatekeeper wasn't a problem, although the web
site says it may be.

Lyx appears to start and run without problem.  I get a LyX window that
appears to be waiting for me to select a document to open, or create a New
document.

The problem(s) come when I try to access the Tutorial and User's Guide.  I
get a warning message similar to this:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pm293kcbng0l3hs/zPnablGaEy

The link above says I need (I think) a file named book.cls before I can
print the what eventually displays on the screen.  Other files I get asked
about are scrbook.cls, fancyhdr.sty, and enumitem.sty.

Questions:

1.  Shouldn't these files be included in the .dmg file, and be installed
where they belong?  Could they have been left out by simple omission?

2.  Where do I find these files to install them?

After going through all the warning messages, the Tutorial and User Guide
open fine.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

New LyX install problems... apparently minor :-)

[Ken Springer]

From http://www.lyx.org/Download, I downloaded 
ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/bin/2.0.6/LyX-2.0.6+qt4.dmg and used the 
MacTeX link to download MacTeX.  Installation of both went without a 
problem.  I'm running OS X 10.8.4 but the Gatekeeper wasn't a problem, 
although the web site says it may be.


Lyx appears to start and run without problem.  I get a LyX window that 
appears to be waiting for me to select a document to open, or create a 
New document.


The problem(s) come when I try to access the Tutorial and User's Guide. 
 I get a warning message similar to this: 
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pm293kcbng0l3hs/zPnablGaEy


The link above says I need (I think) a file named book.cls before I can 
print the what eventually displays on the screen.  Other files I get 
asked about are scrbook.cls, fancyhdr.sty, and enumitem.sty.


Questions:

1.  Shouldn't these files be included in the .dmg file, and be installed 
where they belong?  Could they have been left out by simple omission?


2.  Where do I find these files to install them?

After going through all the warning messages, the Tutorial and User 
Guide open fine.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: New LyX install problems... apparently minor :-)

[Ken Springer]

Same messages, Scott.

After posting, I thought it might be tied to the fact I have LyX set to 
use a specific desktop.  I have another application for which that seems 
to expose a bug.  But it didn't make any difference for LyX, apparently.





On 9/4/13 5:11 PM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

Can you try going to LyX  Reconfigure and then restart LyX? Do you
get the same message?

Scott

On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 6:47 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 From http://www.lyx.org/Download, I downloaded
ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/bin/2.0.6/LyX-2.0.6+qt4.dmg and used the MacTeX
link to download MacTeX.  Installation of both went without a problem.  I'm
running OS X 10.8.4 but the Gatekeeper wasn't a problem, although the web
site says it may be.

Lyx appears to start and run without problem.  I get a LyX window that
appears to be waiting for me to select a document to open, or create a New
document.

The problem(s) come when I try to access the Tutorial and User's Guide.  I
get a warning message similar to this:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pm293kcbng0l3hs/zPnablGaEy

The link above says I need (I think) a file named book.cls before I can
print the what eventually displays on the screen.  Other files I get asked
about are scrbook.cls, fancyhdr.sty, and enumitem.sty.

Questions:

1.  Shouldn't these files be included in the .dmg file, and be installed
where they belong?  Could they have been left out by simple omission?

2.  Where do I find these files to install them?

After going through all the warning messages, the Tutorial and User Guide
open fine.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

New LyX install problems... apparently minor :-)

[Ken Springer]

From http://www.lyx.org/Download, I downloaded 
ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/bin/2.0.6/LyX-2.0.6+qt4.dmg and used the 
MacTeX link to download MacTeX.  Installation of both went without a 
problem.  I'm running OS X 10.8.4 but the Gatekeeper wasn't a problem, 
although the web site says it may be.


Lyx appears to start and run without problem.  I get a LyX window that 
appears to be waiting for me to select a document to open, or create a 
New document.


The problem(s) come when I try to access the Tutorial and User's Guide. 
 I get a warning message similar to this: 
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pm293kcbng0l3hs/zPnablGaEy


The link above says I need (I think) a file named book.cls before I can 
print the what eventually displays on the screen.  Other files I get 
asked about are scrbook.cls, fancyhdr.sty, and enumitem.sty.


Questions:

1.  Shouldn't these files be included in the .dmg file, and be installed 
where they belong?  Could they have been left out by simple omission?


2.  Where do I find these files to install them?

After going through all the warning messages, the Tutorial and User 
Guide open fine.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: New LyX install problems... apparently minor :-)

[Ken Springer]

Same messages, Scott.

After posting, I thought it might be tied to the fact I have LyX set to 
use a specific desktop.  I have another application for which that seems 
to expose a bug.  But it didn't make any difference for LyX, apparently.





On 9/4/13 5:11 PM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

Can you try going to LyX > Reconfigure and then restart LyX? Do you
get the same message?

Scott

On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 6:47 PM, Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com> wrote:

 From http://www.lyx.org/Download, I downloaded
ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/bin/2.0.6/LyX-2.0.6+qt4.dmg and used the MacTeX
link to download MacTeX.  Installation of both went without a problem.  I'm
running OS X 10.8.4 but the Gatekeeper wasn't a problem, although the web
site says it may be.

Lyx appears to start and run without problem.  I get a LyX window that
appears to be waiting for me to select a document to open, or create a New
document.

The problem(s) come when I try to access the Tutorial and User's Guide.  I
get a warning message similar to this:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pm293kcbng0l3hs/zPnablGaEy

The link above says I need (I think) a file named book.cls before I can
print the what eventually displays on the screen.  Other files I get asked
about are scrbook.cls, fancyhdr.sty, and enumitem.sty.

Questions:

1.  Shouldn't these files be included in the .dmg file, and be installed
where they belong?  Could they have been left out by simple omission?

2.  Where do I find these files to install them?

After going through all the warning messages, the Tutorial and User Guide
open fine.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX

[Ken Springer]

On 9/1/13 11:06 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Sun, 1 Sep 2013 08:29:23 +0200
Liviu Andronic landronim...@gmail.com wrote:


snip

It sounds as if Lyx/LaTeX has a higher learning curve than I was hoping for.

But it intrigues me.   :-)  I've got some simple help documents I want 
to create, and I want them to look as best as I can.  So, I think, in 
about a month when I'm out of work again, I'll download LaTeX and work 
with it, then get into LyX.


Thanks to everyone for all the advice offered.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX

[Ken Springer]

On 9/1/13 11:06 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Sun, 1 Sep 2013 08:29:23 +0200
Liviu Andronic landronim...@gmail.com wrote:


snip

It sounds as if Lyx/LaTeX has a higher learning curve than I was hoping for.

But it intrigues me.   :-)  I've got some simple help documents I want 
to create, and I want them to look as best as I can.  So, I think, in 
about a month when I'm out of work again, I'll download LaTeX and work 
with it, then get into LyX.


Thanks to everyone for all the advice offered.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX

[Ken Springer]

On 9/1/13 11:06 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Sun, 1 Sep 2013 08:29:23 +0200
Liviu Andronic  wrote:




It sounds as if Lyx/LaTeX has a higher learning curve than I was hoping for.

But it intrigues me.   :-)  I've got some simple help documents I want 
to create, and I want them to look as best as I can.  So, I think, in 
about a month when I'm out of work again, I'll download LaTeX and work 
with it, then get into LyX.


Thanks to everyone for all the advice offered.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX

[Ken Springer]

First, another thanks for all the replies to my thread about using LyX 
as a word processor.


In reading some of those replies, I'm left wondering a bit about LyX and 
LaTeX and their relationship.  As well as TeX, for that matter.


When I was really into learning a bit about desktop publishing, I bought 
a copy of Donald Knuth's books, The TeXbook and The METAfontbook, but 
never read them.


If I'm going to try out LyX in the end, would it be of any value to me 
to do a little experimenting with LaTeX and Tex first, or just jump in 
the pool?LOL


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX

[Ken Springer]

First, another thanks for all the replies to my thread about using LyX 
as a word processor.


In reading some of those replies, I'm left wondering a bit about LyX and 
LaTeX and their relationship.  As well as TeX, for that matter.


When I was really into learning a bit about desktop publishing, I bought 
a copy of Donald Knuth's books, The TeXbook and The METAfontbook, but 
never read them.


If I'm going to try out LyX in the end, would it be of any value to me 
to do a little experimenting with LaTeX and Tex first, or just jump in 
the pool?LOL


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Question #3: LyX and LaTeX and TeX

[Ken Springer]

First, another thanks for all the replies to my thread about using LyX 
as a word processor.


In reading some of those replies, I'm left wondering a bit about LyX and 
LaTeX and their relationship.  As well as TeX, for that matter.


When I was really into learning a bit about desktop publishing, I bought 
a copy of Donald Knuth's books, The TeXbook and The METAfontbook, but 
never read them.


If I'm going to try out LyX in the end, would it be of any value to me 
to do a little experimenting with LaTeX and Tex first, or just jump in 
the pool?LOL


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 12:23 AM, Stephen George wrote:

On 30/08/2013 1:49 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

When doing stochastic screening, the ideal is to screen at the same
dpi as the final printing device.  Next best is an even multiple.
I.E. screen at 300 dpi for printing on a 600 dpi printer.  You also
have to decide on the finished physical size of the graphic before you
start.

I used to use the regular graphic in all the drafts.  When I was
satisfied with everything, then I applied the stochastic screen.


I just searched Inscape+stochastic screening and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with Computer monitors. One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.


I suspect all home printers and laser printers now have some kind of
stochastic screening routines in their printer drivers.  But, I've not
tested the idea.



An interesting discussion, but a question about Stochastic screening
from someone who has only just heard of it.

Is this screening  something done at print driver level, and not a
screen applied to the graphic itself prior to importing? ... therefore
the same pdf file could be printed both with and without stochastic
screening if the printer/driver support it?


When I started with stochastic screening, printer drivers didn't have 
that ability.  To write my reply, I had to do a bit of research, it's 
amazing how much you forget when you don't work with things for a long 
time.  I found out that stochastic screening is also called frequency 
modulated screening, and error diffusion screening.  After I started 
using stochastic screening on the image itself, HP started having error 
diffusion features of printing.


I never applied the screening to the entire document, only to images. 
Then I placed the screened image into the document, and printed.


Personally, I doubt that doing the screening to text is even worth the 
effort.


My guess would be you could do either or both.  But I know there are 
expensive screening software out there, or so it seemed with just a 10 
minute investigation.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:25 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:41 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springersnowsh...@q.com  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the
quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would
have to have that would show the difference in the quality of the
final print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would
possibly own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.


No, I don't know enough about this, and obviously not as much as you.
But even most home laser printers nowadays have enormous resolution. The
pages I printed myself to test looked really good to my eyes.


Admittedly, I've not had the time nor resources (meaning software) to 
test how things work today.  I was looking for free stochastic screening 
software when I found the expensive stuff.


But this has got me to wondering if the end result may end up being 
likened to the output of word processing software compared to 
typesetting software.  Maybe you won't notice the difference until you 
have them side by side.


This is something I won't be able to pursue at my end for at least two 
months.  Just no time.  :-(



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:22 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual
quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality
of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export
from the print dialog for some time.


You don't need to use anything like that. LyX exports directly to PDF
(which, if I remember correctly, is really a variety of PostScript,
tuned for the web).


This is good to know about exporting to PDF.

AFAIK, PostScript is a printer language, where a PDF is supposed to be a 
cross platform, software independent document format.  And the web has 
nothing to do with it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 12:23 AM, Stephen George wrote:

On 30/08/2013 1:49 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

When doing stochastic screening, the ideal is to screen at the same
dpi as the final printing device.  Next best is an even multiple.
I.E. screen at 300 dpi for printing on a 600 dpi printer.  You also
have to decide on the finished physical size of the graphic before you
start.

I used to use the regular graphic in all the drafts.  When I was
satisfied with everything, then I applied the stochastic screen.


I just searched Inscape+stochastic screening and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with Computer monitors. One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.


I suspect all home printers and laser printers now have some kind of
stochastic screening routines in their printer drivers.  But, I've not
tested the idea.



An interesting discussion, but a question about Stochastic screening
from someone who has only just heard of it.

Is this screening  something done at print driver level, and not a
screen applied to the graphic itself prior to importing? ... therefore
the same pdf file could be printed both with and without stochastic
screening if the printer/driver support it?


When I started with stochastic screening, printer drivers didn't have 
that ability.  To write my reply, I had to do a bit of research, it's 
amazing how much you forget when you don't work with things for a long 
time.  I found out that stochastic screening is also called frequency 
modulated screening, and error diffusion screening.  After I started 
using stochastic screening on the image itself, HP started having error 
diffusion features of printing.


I never applied the screening to the entire document, only to images. 
Then I placed the screened image into the document, and printed.


Personally, I doubt that doing the screening to text is even worth the 
effort.


My guess would be you could do either or both.  But I know there are 
expensive screening software out there, or so it seemed with just a 10 
minute investigation.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:25 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:41 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springersnowsh...@q.com  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the
quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would
have to have that would show the difference in the quality of the
final print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would
possibly own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.


No, I don't know enough about this, and obviously not as much as you.
But even most home laser printers nowadays have enormous resolution. The
pages I printed myself to test looked really good to my eyes.


Admittedly, I've not had the time nor resources (meaning software) to 
test how things work today.  I was looking for free stochastic screening 
software when I found the expensive stuff.


But this has got me to wondering if the end result may end up being 
likened to the output of word processing software compared to 
typesetting software.  Maybe you won't notice the difference until you 
have them side by side.


This is something I won't be able to pursue at my end for at least two 
months.  Just no time.  :-(



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:22 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual
quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality
of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export
from the print dialog for some time.


You don't need to use anything like that. LyX exports directly to PDF
(which, if I remember correctly, is really a variety of PostScript,
tuned for the web).


This is good to know about exporting to PDF.

AFAIK, PostScript is a printer language, where a PDF is supposed to be a 
cross platform, software independent document format.  And the web has 
nothing to do with it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 12:23 AM, Stephen George wrote:

On 30/08/2013 1:49 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

When doing stochastic screening, the ideal is to screen at the same
dpi as the final printing device.  Next best is an even multiple.
I.E. screen at 300 dpi for printing on a 600 dpi printer.  You also
have to decide on the finished physical size of the graphic before you
start.

I used to use the regular graphic in all the drafts.  When I was
satisfied with everything, then I applied the stochastic screen.


I just searched Inscape+"stochastic screening" and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with "Computer monitors". One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.


I suspect all home printers and laser printers now have some kind of
stochastic screening routines in their printer drivers.  But, I've not
tested the idea.



An interesting discussion, but a question about Stochastic screening
from someone who has only just heard of it.

Is this screening  something done at print driver level, and not a
screen applied to the graphic itself prior to importing? ... therefore
the same pdf file could be printed both with and without stochastic
screening if the printer/driver support it?


When I started with stochastic screening, printer drivers didn't have 
that ability.  To write my reply, I had to do a bit of research, it's 
amazing how much you forget when you don't work with things for a long 
time.  I found out that stochastic screening is also called frequency 
modulated screening, and error diffusion screening.  After I started 
using stochastic screening on the image itself, HP started having error 
diffusion features of printing.


I never applied the screening to the entire document, only to images. 
Then I placed the screened image into the document, and printed.


Personally, I doubt that doing the screening to text is even worth the 
effort.


My guess would be you could do either or both.  But I know there are 
expensive screening software out there, or so it seemed with just a 10 
minute investigation.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:25 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:41 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer<snowsh...@q.com>  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the
quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would
have to have that would show the difference in the quality of the
final print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would
possibly own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.


No, I don't know enough about this, and obviously not as much as you.
But even most home laser printers nowadays have enormous resolution. The
pages I printed myself to test looked really good to my eyes.


Admittedly, I've not had the time nor resources (meaning software) to 
test how things work today.  I was looking for free stochastic screening 
software when I found the expensive stuff.


But this has got me to wondering if the end result may end up being 
likened to the output of word processing software compared to 
typesetting software.  Maybe you won't notice the difference until you 
have them side by side.


This is something I won't be able to pursue at my end for at least two 
months.  Just no time.  :-(



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:22 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com> wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual
quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality
of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export
from the print dialog for some time.


You don't need to use anything like that. LyX exports directly to PDF
(which, if I remember correctly, is really a variety of PostScript,
tuned for the web).


This is good to know about exporting to PDF.

AFAIK, PostScript is a printer language, where a PDF is supposed to be a 
cross platform, software independent document format.  And the web has 
nothing to do with it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF 
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export from 
the print dialog for some time.


I'm toying with, and working on, the beginnings of a couple of projects 
that will end with printing, and I want them to look good.


I'd thought about a desktop publishing program for the final setup, but 
I won't need the power of placing frames and such.  But want something 
better that the average word processor that will also work for me on a 
daily basis.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04