Cannot get spell check to work on LyX 2.3.0 and Mac OS 10.13.4 (High Sierra)

[Marshall Feldman]

I'm having a devil of a time trying to get spell check working with LyX 
2.3.0 and Mac OS 10.13.4. I have similar configurations on two other 
computers, and the spell check does seem to work there. But on this one, 
whenever I issue Tools > Spellchecker..., LyX throws the error message, 
"Spell checker has no dictionaries." This happens with all 3 available 
Spellchecker engines:  Native, Aspell, and Hunspell.


Here are some things I've tried:

 * Install the latest version of LibreOffice, which relies on Hunspell.
   I thought reinstalling LO might fix issues with Hunspell, at least.
 * Reinstall Hunspell. Hunspell is supposedly included with recent
   versions of Mac OS, but I followed the OSX and macOS instructions on
   the Hunspell GitHub page  to
   (re)install Hunspell.
 * Downloaded and reinstalled the en_US.aff/dic files as recommended
   here
   
.
   The original post is several years old, and one hopes any corruption
   in the dictionary file would have been corrected by now, but one
   never knows.
 * Test with each of the 3 spell checkers.

FWIW, this testing was done with:

 * LyX > Preferences > Language Settings > Spellchecker always set to
   activate "Spellcheck continuously" and "Spellcheck notes and comments."
 * LyX > Preferences > Language Settings > Spellchecker does not allow
   activation of "Accept compound words," as this option is grayed out.
 * LyX > Preferences > Paths > Hunspell dictionaries set to
   "~/Library/Spelling"

A MWE is attached.

Please help me before I spell again!!!

Thanks.

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This is a spezxxxing error.
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Re: image locations

[Marshall Feldman]

Sure sounds like it.

What's remarkable is that it's replicable (always happens) and, in my 
case, depends on the locations of the graphics files.


The fact that I couldn't replicate the bug on a newer version of Mac OS 
may imply the problem lies with the Yosemite version I'm using.



On 3/28/18 12:19 AM, Richard Kimberly Heck wrote:

On 03/27/2018 01:56 PM, Marshall Feldman wrote:


Hi,

I'll hold off for now, as I may have found the problem by accident, 
and it's the weirdest thing. It seems that when I insert a graphic 
located in the same directory as the document (e.g., ./MyGraphic.png) 
the LyX:Graphics window stays visible. But when the graphic is 
located at, e.g., ../images/MyGraphic.png, as soon as one hits the 
"Open" button on the graphics browser, the little LyX:Graphics window 
scoots behind the currently visible document window, thereby giving 
the impression that the dialog window closed inappropriately.




There have been other reports of this kind of behavior on OSX. Indeed, 
this sounds like a close relative of bug #10047: 
https://www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/10047.


Riki



On 3/26/18 5:09 PM, Richard Kimberly Heck wrote:

On 03/26/2018 04:56 PM, Marshall Feldman wrote:


Sorry, Paul. I usually list version and OS first things, but this 
time it slipped my mind.


I'm using LyX 2.3.0 on a iMac running Mac OS 10.10.5 (Yosemite).

I followed Riki's suggestion and used the window in LyX itself. All 
I did was:


 1. Open my document
 2. Navigate to the figure float I want to use.
 3. Insert a line above the caption
 4. Follow Riki's instructions for turning on the Message Pane and
selecting both debug & graphics messages.



Can you try doing this and selecting JUST graphics messages? The 
general debug messages make it hard to read the log (and all 
TextMetric and focus messages are of that type). It would also help 
if you could do exactly the same thing, but with the image in the 
place that it does work. Then we can compare.


Riki

Re: image locations

[Marshall Feldman]

Hi,

I'll hold off for now, as I may have found the problem by accident, and 
it's the weirdest thing. It seems that when I insert a graphic located 
in the same directory as the document (e.g., ./MyGraphic.png) the 
LyX:Graphics window stays visible. But when the graphic is located at, 
e.g., ../images/MyGraphic.png, as soon as one hits the "Open" button on 
the graphics browser, the little LyX:Graphics window scoots behind the 
currently visible document window, thereby giving the impression that 
the dialog window closed inappropriately.


To make the plot even thicker, I tried this earlier on a laptop running 
MacOS 10.12.6 Sierra with a copy of the document file that was causing 
trouble. Everything worked fine!


I only discovered the little sucker hiding behind the big window showing 
the document because I had two windows open on my screen, side-by-side: 
the document and a browser displaying riki's instructions for viewing 
the trace information. I was in the middle of trying to insert the 
remote version of the graphic when I minimized the browser for some 
reason, and lo and behold there was the little LyX:Graphics scamp hiding 
behind the main document but with one edge sticking out where it was 
visible!


This is something that probably needs looking into. (Dialog windows 
should always display in front of windows that open them).


But for now I'll try living with this. I'll let you know if I run into 
more trouble.


Thank you, thank you so much for your help.

    Marsh


On 3/26/18 5:09 PM, Richard Kimberly Heck wrote:

On 03/26/2018 04:56 PM, Marshall Feldman wrote:


Sorry, Paul. I usually list version and OS first things, but this 
time it slipped my mind.


I'm using LyX 2.3.0 on a iMac running Mac OS 10.10.5 (Yosemite).

I followed Riki's suggestion and used the window in LyX itself. All I 
did was:


 1. Open my document
 2. Navigate to the figure float I want to use.
 3. Insert a line above the caption
 4. Follow Riki's instructions for turning on the Message Pane and
selecting both debug & graphics messages.



Can you try doing this and selecting JUST graphics messages? The 
general debug messages make it hard to read the log (and all 
TextMetric and focus messages are of that type). It would also help if 
you could do exactly the same thing, but with the image in the place 
that it does work. Then we can compare.


Riki

image locations

[Marshall Feldman]

I am writing a paper with using this structure (simplified for explanation):

   paper_root/master_document.lyx

   paper_root/part1/part1.lyx

   paper_root/part2/part2.lyx

   paper_root/part3/part3.lyx

I have it set up so that, for example, I can work on part2.lyx and 
compile it to view only the part2.pdf file.


Now say, I'm working on part2.lyx. If I put an image file in the same 
directory, e.g.:


    paper_root/part2/picture1.png

The compilation works fine. But if I create a top-level directory to 
store my images, both to keep things organized to find files and to be 
able to share/update pictures and have them in a different directory:


   paper_root/images/picture1.png

When I try to insert the image in part2.lyx, Lyx just won't do it. 
Nothing crashes, but the image never shows up in the document. In fact, 
using the Insert > Graphics ... dialog, as soon as I browse to 
../images/picture1.png and select the image, the Insert Graphics window 
closes with nothing inserted in the document.


What am I doing wrong?


Secondary question:

I believe it was in his book on the ggplot2 package for R that Hadley 
Wickham recommended putting this command in the LaTeX preamble:


   \graphicspath{{../images/}{../graphs}}

But this totally screws things up for me when I put it in the preamble 
in LyX. Any thoughts about this?



Thanks for your help.

Is there a way to do this without ERT

[Marshall Feldman]

I just finished laying out my first floating figure with subfloats (in a 
2x2 matrix). But to get it to work the way I want, I had to use ERT, and 
I'm wondering if this is really necessary. If it is necessary, then 
consider this a feature request for LyX to do this automatically.


First, some background. I'm using the Memoir class, which has its own 
methods for handling floats and captions (see Ch. 10 of the Memoir 
Manual ). But 
they stopped working as soon as I started using subfloats in LyX. After 
about a day (!) of detective work, I learned that LyX automatically 
invokes the subfig  package, 
which in turn automatically invokes the caption 
 package. Since the latter conflicts 
with Memoir's methods, Memoir is smart enough to turn off its own 
methods if the caption package is loaded. But LyX doesn't warn you about 
this, much less do something about it, and I did not see documentation 
of this conflict anywhere. At the very least, I'd like to see this 
documented. Even better, if the Memoir class is being used, provide some 
option to allow the user to choose between Memoir's native captioning 
and that of the caption package.


Possibly a similar conflict exists between subfig and the newer (and to 
my mind easier-to-use) subcaption  
package. Again, I'd like to see better documentation and options for 
handling this explicitly, rather than letting users first fail to 
compile their documents as expected, due to conflicts between their 
method of choice and LyX's hidden side-effects, and then have to track 
down the problem and fix it (which in my case eventually meant having no 
choice but to use subfig and caption). (BTW, why doesn't LyX use the 
more recent subcaption package instead of subfig?)


In any case, here's how I want my figure to look. Each subfigure panel 
is labeled with a letter in parentheses, both boldface. (E.g., "*(a)*".) 
The main figure itself is labeled the usual way, except "Figure," the 
number, and the separator are bold-faced (e.g., "*Figure 1:* "). Then, 
immediately following this, there's a short cation to be used in the 
list of figures. The identical text then appears boldfaced at the start 
of the long caption, ending with a period. This is the visible figure 
title. Immediately after this comes the rest of a long, paragraph-like 
caption discussing the four panels in relation to each other. This long 
caption makes repeated reference to the subfigure captions, and each 
reference is set in the same font as the caption itself (in this case 
boldface).


I was able to do most of this by using the caption/subfig commands 
\DeclareSubrefFormat and \captionsetup in the preamble. But the repeated 
short caption (figure title) had to be copied, pasted, period added, and 
boldfaced. And the references in the long caption needed to be done with 
ERT, such as"\textbf{\protect\subref{subfig:MVpct}}" where subfig:MVpct 
is the label used for a panel's subfigure caption. Nothing I tried with 
LyX would make this work as desired, so I resorted to ERT.


So here are some questions:

1. Is there is a way to insert such cross-references in LyX without ERT?
2. If not, then is a feature like this in the works for enhancing LyX?
   (It should be.)
3. Also, since this particular format is common, is there a way to
   automate replication of the short caption as a figure title at the
   start of the long caption? (If not, this should also be a feature
   request. -- computers are good for automating mindless stuff like this).

Still, after the steep learning curve, the current solution is not 
horrible. In fact, it works quite well, which is testimony to how 
powerful LyX is. But there's always room for improvement (in both 
software and user).

Using child documents as appendices (Document > Start_Appendix_Here question)

[Marshall Feldman]

I have a long document that I’ve broken up into child documents. Each 
child resides in a subfolder of the parent, master document. For writing 
purposes, I find it best to compose each child document individually. 
And for proof-reading, to compile the child document I’m working on. 
This poses a question about proper use of LyX’s Start_Appendix_Here feature.
For the master document, the logical place to insert Document > 
Start_Appendix_Here would be just before the appendices begin. However, 
this would not facilitate composing the child documents as appendices. 
OTOH, for each appendix child document, the logical place is at the 
start of the document. So here are my questions:


 * Will including Start_Appendix_Here in two or more child documents
   cause them to interfere with each other when they are simultaneously
   included in the parent docuement?
 * Will including it in both the parent and children cause problems?
 * Is there a better way to get proper references and draft copy for
   the appendix child documents while also getting proper compilation
   of the parent document?

​

Spell check, babel, multiple languages, and undefined control sequence error.

[Marshall Feldman]

I'm using the memoir class to produce a LyX document that's mainly
written in U.S. English but has several quotes that use British (UK)
English. So when I put the document through LyX's spell check and came
to words like "behaviours," I just marked them as UK English. But when I
tried to compile the document, LaTeX threw an error saying the command
"\foreignlanguage{british}{behaviours}" was undefined.

No problem, I thought. I'll just put a command in the document preface
to load babel with both languages: \usepackage[british,american]{babel}.
But this didn't work because LaTeX threw an error saying babel had
already been loaded. But for the life of me, I can't find where babel is
being loaded. The memoir manual says it does not duplicate the
functionality of packages like babel, and babel is not in the list of
packages memoir loads. So by a process of elimination, I can only guess
that LyX is surreptitiously loading babel. But if so, shouldn't it be
doing so with options for all the languages used in the document? (I.e.,
is this a bug in LyX?)

This is happening using LyX 2.2.1 on an iMac running OS X 10.10.5
(Yosemite), with MacTeX 2016 and all packages updated to their latest
version with the TeX Live utility. The Language settings in the LyX file
are "English (USA)," with Encoding set to Unicode (utf8), and Language
package set to "Automatic."

How can I fix this problem?

Thanks.

Biblatex no longer working after upgrade (!?)

[Marshall Feldman]

Hi,

Yesterday I updated my system to use MacTeX 2016 and LyX 2.2.0. After
doing so, I can no longer use biblatex for a relatively simple document
(title page, abstract page, and 1 page of text). Instead, compiling the
pdf throws an error message: "Error: Found biblatex control file version
2.6, expected version 3.1."

After I installed MacTeX 2016, I used TeX Live to make the new
installation the default LaTeX. I also used it to update all my
installed packages. It shows I have biblatex 3.4 and biber 2.5 (biblatex
3.4). So everything seems fine.

The folks over at MacTeX think the problem may be because LyX does not
use the normal MacTeX search path. How can I troubleshoot and fix this?

Marsh

Re: LyX Crashes when attaching a browsed .bib file

[Marshall Feldman]

Layout

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This document develops various flow diagrams describing monetary flows by
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 It begins with simpler diagrams and gradually adds complexity.
 Perhaps the simplest diagram one can draw with TikZ is the one given on
 p.
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\begin_inset CommandInset citation
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:
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Address = {L{\"u}beck, Germany},
Author = {Tantau, Till},
Date-Added = {2013-07-25 19:51:09 +},
Date-Modified = {2013-07-25 19:51:09 +},
Language = {English},
Month = oct,
Title = {The {TikZ} and {PGF} Packages: Manual for version 2.10},
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@incollection{rossi_dynamics_2009,
Address = {London; New York},
Author = {Keen, Steve},
Booktitle = {The Political Economy of Monetary Circuits: Tradition and 
Change in Post-Keynesian Economics},
Date-Added = {2013-07-25 19:44:40 +},
Date-Modified = {2013-07-25 19:44:40 +},
Editor = {Rossi, Sergio and Ponsot, Jean-francois},
Isbn = {{023020337X}},
Month = nov,
Pages = {161--187},
Publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan},
Title = {The Dynamics of the Monetary Circuit},
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Re: Spanners in tables

[Marshall Feldman]

Tanks, John. The second table is almost what I want. The only change is 
to remove the bottom border from the cell to the left of the "Result" 
spanner.


This approach works, but I was hoping there's an easier way in LyX. The 
whole idea of keeping presentation separate from content would imply 
that tables can be formatted according to different styles at the push 
of a button.


Nonetheless, this works.

Marsh

On 4/27/13 9:55 AM, John Kane wrote:

Hi Marshall,

I think that it can be done fairly easily by inserting some extra 
columns and then using the multi-column approach. See the second table 
in the attached file. Is that what you wanted.?



----
*From:* Marshall Feldman 
*To:* lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
*Cc:* Scott Kostyshak 
*Sent:* Friday, April 26, 2013 4:57:01 PM
*Subject:* Re: Spanners in tables


On 4/26/13 4:12 PM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 3:00 PM, Marshall Feldman  
<mailto:ma...@uri.edu>  wrote:

Hello,

The standard format for formal tables uses spanners to indicate columns with
similar, related content. I am using LyX with the "formal" tables option set
to on. But I don't see how to introduce spanners into a table..

For example, suppose a table has two lines of headings. Suppose further that
row 1 has "Revenue" as a heading and that below this the table has two
headings, "Sales" and "Interest." So we would like the line beneath
"Revenue" to span two columns with a solid line, and for there to be enough
space at the edges of the spanned columns for the reader to make out that
the spanner is indeed separate from adjacent columns. See this page for
examples.

So how does one handle spanners in LyX?

Hi Marshall,

If I understand correctly, what you refer to as "spanners" LyX would
refer to as "multi-column". In a table, select a couple of rows and
click on "multi-column" in the table toolbar (which is at the bottom
of the screen and is activated when the cursor is in a table).

Best,

Scott

Thanks, Scott.

Well it's not exactly multicolumn, at least not how I understand this 
term. A cell that's multicolumn spans more than one column. This 
relates to spanners, but it's only part of the issue.


A spanner is a line under the heading for the multicolumn cell. The 
line does not run the full width of the original columns that went 
into the multicolumn cell. Since the spanner typically serves as a 
heading indicating which columns fall under the heading, there has to 
be some way to distinguish the columns falling under the heading from 
other, adjacent columns. This is why the spanner line is shorter than 
the combined widths of the original columns: whitespace on either side 
of the line separates it from lines in adjacent cells.


I'll try to draw a picture:

*Greetings* Century
_Holiday_ ----- <= These 
dashed lines are "spanners"

_Coming_ _Going_ _18_ _19_ _20_ _21_
Mardis GrasWant beads?Happy Mardi Gras  X   X
Xmas  Merry XmasMerry Xmas X X   X


Thanks for your help.

Marsh

Re: Spanners in tables

[Marshall Feldman]

On 4/26/13 4:12 PM, Scott Kostyshak wrote:

On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 3:00 PM, Marshall Feldman  wrote:

Hello,

The standard format for formal tables uses spanners to indicate columns with
similar, related content. I am using LyX with the "formal" tables option set
to on. But I don't see how to introduce spanners into a table..

For example, suppose a table has two lines of headings. Suppose further that
row 1 has "Revenue" as a heading and that below this the table has two
headings, "Sales" and "Interest." So we would like the line beneath
"Revenue" to span two columns with a solid line, and for there to be enough
space at the edges of the spanned columns for the reader to make out that
the spanner is indeed separate from adjacent columns. See this page for
examples.

So how does one handle spanners in LyX?

Hi Marshall,

If I understand correctly, what you refer to as "spanners" LyX would
refer to as "multi-column". In a table, select a couple of rows and
click on "multi-column" in the table toolbar (which is at the bottom
of the screen and is activated when the cursor is in a table).

Best,

Scott

Thanks, Scott.

Well it's not exactly multicolumn, at least not how I understand this 
term. A cell that's multicolumn spans more than one column. This relates 
to spanners, but it's only part of the issue.


A spanner is a line under the heading for the multicolumn cell. The line 
does not run the full width of the original columns that went into the 
multicolumn cell. Since the spanner typically serves as a heading 
indicating which columns fall under the heading, there has to be some 
way to distinguish the columns falling under the heading from other, 
adjacent columns. This is why the spanner line is shorter than the 
combined widths of the original columns: whitespace on either side of 
the line separates it from lines in adjacent cells.


I'll try to draw a picture:

*Greetings*  Century
_Holiday_--- -- 
<= These dashed lines are "spanners"

_Coming_ _Going_ _18_ _19_ _20_ _21_
Mardis GrasWant beads?Happy Mardi Gras X   X
Xmas  Merry XmasMerry Xmas X X   X


Thanks for your help.

Marsh

Re: Multiple LaTeX classes in a layout

[Marshall Feldman]

Thanks for all your help, Richard.

Maybe "limited availability" or even "lacks some packages" would be
more on point than "Unavailable". What threw me was the fact that the
unavailable classes are listed separately. Personally, I'd prefer
colors or font shapes and weights: green (bold) = ready to go, yellow
(plain text) = lacking some packages, and red (italic) = cannot process.

Also, thanks for clarifying LaTeX terminology. I was confused by two
documents I found on the Web. Page 5 of "LaTeX 2e for Authors" says:
In LaTeX2.09,documents had styles, such as article or book,
and options, such as twoside or epsg. ... LaTeX2e differentiates
between built-in options and
packages.These are given by the  new \documentclass and \usepackage
commands 

So I thought .sty files were from 2.09 and .cls files were from 2e.
Additionally, page 5 of LaTeX2e for Class and Package Writers" says:
If the commands could be used with any document class, then
make them a package; and if not, then make them a class.

Since my class only works with letters (and eventually memos), I
treated it as a class. But the class extends the standard letter
document class, so I assumed that \LoadClass was used to load classes,
while \RequirePackage or \usepackage loaded packages. The file
extension for packages remained a mystery for me. Thanks for clarifying
that this is .sty.

BTW, thanks to you and Jean-Marc, my layout file worked this morning!

    Regards,
    Marsh Feldman

On 7/12/2010 12:38 PM, Richard Heck wrote:
On
07/12/2010 11:26 AM, Jean-Marc LASGOUTTES wrote:
  
  Marshall Feldman 
writes:

   
Besides being more clear in the
documentation (a draft of which I'd be
  
glad to offer once I'm sure I understand the command),
  
  
 
  
Help here is always appreciated. I think I may have made some changes
to the 2.0 version already. I don't remember.
  
  
  
one change that
  
LyX developers might consider is to issue a warning message and make
  
the document class available to the user even if the classes in square
  
brackets are not installed.
  
 
I thought we did that already...


   
The problem here may be what you see in the dropdown box, e.g.:
  
    Unavailable: article (REVTeX)
  
That makes it look as if you can't use it, because it is "Unavailable".
But I'm not sure what a better term would be. There are improvements in
2.0, too. If you select such a class, then LyX will tell you precisely
what prerequisites are not satisfied.
  
  
Richard
  
  
  
  JMarc

   
  



-- 
 Dr. Marshall Feldman, PhD
Director of Research and Academic Affairs
  
Center for
Urban Studies and Research
The University of Rhode Island
email: marsh @ uri .edu
(remove spaces)
Contact Information:

Kingston:
 202 Hart House
Charles T. Schmidt Labor
Research Center
The University of Rhode Island
36 Upper College Road
Kingston, RI 02881-0815
tel. (401) 874-5953:
fax: (401) 874-5511



Providence:
 206E Shepard Building
URI Feinstein Providence Campus
80 Washington Street
Providence, RI 02903-1819
tel. (401) 277-5218
fax: (401) 277-5464

Re: Multiple LaTeX classes in a layout

[Marshall Feldman]

Thanks, Jean-Marc.

Please forgive me for being verbose in what follows. I want to be sure I 
correctly understand what's going on.


If I understand you correctly, LyX determines the correspondence between 
the layout and cls files by their common base names: for example, 
x.layout will always associate with x.cls. Furthermore, LaTeX takes care 
of any \RequirePackage, \LoadClass, or similar commands in x.cls, so LyX 
does not need to know about these. This implies that LyX's 
\DeclareLaTeXClass statement simply ties the current LyX layout file to 
a LaTeX cls file with the same name, and the contents of the statement 
play no role in making the association. In particular, the information 
in curly brackets is used ONLY to specify a character string displayed 
in the Document Settings drop-down.


You say that "adding the optional "letter" argument tells (LyX) that 
your document actually starts with \documentclass{letter}." Does this 
imply that when the argument is omitted for a layout file named 
x.layout, LyX will start the document with "\documentclass{x}"?


What if, for some reason the layout designer wants two different layouts 
to use a common LaTeX class? (E.g., using letterhead for both memos and 
letters) Wouldn't this imply two layout files and one class file? How 
would one make the association?


Finally, I have two questions about the argument(s) in square brackets 
on the \DeclareLaTeXClass statement:


  1. I'm assuming that it's just a list of comma-separated class and
 style names. An alternative syntax might be a mandatory first
 argument separated by a comma from an optional second argument,
 but the second argument would be a list of names separated only by
 spaces. (The documentation is not clear on this.) Is my assumption
 that everything is comma-separated correct?
  2. More importantly, the optional square brackets and arguments
 within it are only used to mandate that LyX check that certain
 packages and classes are installed before even allowing the user
 to use the layout to select a document class. Since some LaTeX
 implementations (e.g., MiKTeX) can load packages on the fly, this
 might disallow some document classes that would otherwise run
 perfectly. Also, LaTeX itself should tell the user if a package or
 class is unavailable when the user tries to compile the output
 (dvi, pdf, etc.) file. So the use of the square bracketed
 argument(s) is a rather stringent standard. I can see its utility
 for document classes typically used for large documents: so the
 user does not waste time with something that in the end will not
 work. Are there other uses?

Besides being more clear in the documentation (a draft of which I'd be 
glad to offer once I'm sure I understand the command), one change that 
LyX developers might consider is to issue a warning message and make the 
document class available to the user even if the classes in square 
brackets are not installed. This would allow the LaTeX implementation to 
load missing packages dynamically and make less serious the layout 
designer's decision to check for packages or not.


Thanks again for your help.

    Marsh

On 7/12/2010 6:48 AM, Jean-Marc LASGOUTTES wrote:

Marshall Feldman  writes:
   

I'm writing my first LyX layout and running into trouble. When I use
the following command in the layout file, the document class appears
in the Document Settings drop-down list:

#  \DeclareLaTeXClass[letter,graphix]{letter (mine)}
 

Assuming that the layout is named myletter.layout and you have a class
myletter.cls, the following should be enough:

 #  \DeclareLaTeXClass{letter (mine)}

Adding the optional "letter" argument tells that your document actually
starts with \documentclass{letter}. Adding "graphix" means that you want
"graphix.cls" to be available, which seems very strange to me. Assuming
you want to specify that graphicx.sty (the graphicx package) to be
available, the right command would be

 #  \DeclareLaTeXClass[letter,graphicx.sty]{letter (mine)}

Actually, the extra checks are not needed at all if the class is for
your own use. They have been proposed for the classes that we ship with
LyX and that may rely on `weird' packages.

In general one never tests for graphicx.sty or clac.sty, since they are
part of the `required' packages of LaTeX, i.e. supposed to be always
available.

Hope this helps.

JMarc
   

Re: Multiple LaTeX classes in a layout

[Marshall Feldman]

Thanks Richard, I feel I'm getting closer to understanding what's going on.

How does one know what classes LyX checks for? If, for example, I have 
my own class (myclass), which in turn uses a half dozen other classes, 
will LyX just check for my class? Or are there some classes it checks 
for and others not?


Marsh

P.S. I don't suppose these details are documented anywhere are they?

On 7/11/2010 9:10 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 07/10/2010 09:52 AM, Marshall Feldman wrote:

Hello,

I'm writing my first LyX layout and running into trouble. When I use 
the following command in the layout file, the document class appears 
in the Document Settings drop-down list:


#  \DeclareLaTeXClass[letter,graphix]{letter (mine)}

but the letter does not format correctly yet because I need to be 
using my own letter class name, myletter.cls, but haven't gotten that 
far. When I try the following, LyX no longer displays the class as 
available.


#  \DeclareLaTeXClass[letter,graphix,calc]{letter (mine)}

What am I doing wrong? Is there an example somewhere of a layout that 
requires multiple LaTeX classes?


The classes listed in the optional argument have to be ones LyX checks 
for, if I remember right. So don't put "calc", since LyX doesn't check 
for it. That's the only purpose of putting these things into optional 
arguments.


As for your own class file, just name this layout file 
"myletter.layout", and LyX will automatically use myletter.cls.


Richard

Multiple LaTeX classes in a layout

[Marshall Feldman]

Hello,

I'm writing my first LyX layout and running into trouble. When I use the 
following command in the layout file, the document class appears in the 
Document Settings drop-down list:


   #  \DeclareLaTeXClass[letter,graphix]{letter (mine)}

but the letter does not format correctly yet because I need to be using 
my own letter class name, myletter.cls, but haven't gotten that far. 
When I try the following, LyX no longer displays the class as available.


   #  \DeclareLaTeXClass[letter,graphix,calc]{letter (mine)}

What am I doing wrong? Is there an example somewhere of a layout that 
requires multiple LaTeX classes?


Thanks.

Marsh Feldman

Re: Formatting numbered equations

[Marshall Feldman]

Thanks to everyone. I'll have to look at the Math manual.

I do, however, want to add one thing:

On 4/19/2010 4:09 PM, Uwe Stöhr wrote:


(By the way in English there is no comma before the "and" if the part 
after the "and" is the last enumeration in a sentence; like in

"A, B, C and D are letters.")


The following comes from the /Chicago Manual of Style/, 15th ed., 
section 6.18:


   When a conjunction joins the last two elements in a series, a comma
   -- known as the serial or series comma or the Oxford comma -- should
   appear before the conjunction. Chicago strongly recommends this
   widely practiced usage, blessed by Fowler and other authorities (see
   bibliog. 1.2), since it prevents ambiguity.

Here's an example of what the CMS is talking about:

"The meal consisted of soup, salad, and macaroni and cheese."

Thanks to the commas we know there are three courses, the last being 
"macaroni and cheese," rather than four, including "macaroni" as the 
third and "cheese" as the fourth.


Thanks again!
Marsh Feldman

Formatting numbered equations

[Marshall Feldman]

Hello,

I have several questions regarding numbered equations:

  1. How does one add punctuation to numbered equations?
  2. How does one make the equations be part of a paragraph that begins
 before and continues after them?
  3. How does one continue a numbered equation across multiple lines?

For example:
_

Three of the most often quoted elementary mathematical
   equations are

   2 + 2 = 4(1),
   C = 2 x pi x r  (2), and
   A = (1/2) b x h   (3).

   As you can see, Equation 2 is the most complex.

_
In the above example, I can't figure out how to add the commas, period, 
and conjunction adjacent to the equation numbers. Also notice that the 
sentence beginning with "As" is part of the paragraph beginning with 
"Three." I can't get Lyx to format them right. The sentence beginning 
with "Three" is indented because it starts a paragraph. When I add 
anything after an equation number, LyX automatically treats it as a new 
paragraph. So in the above example, the line beginning with "As you can" 
is treated as the start of a new paragraph and indented.


Regarding my third question, I have a long equation that should span 
multiple lines. Instead, LyX keeps it on one line that runs off the 
right side of the page, when it should look like:


   5 = 1 + 5 = 2 + 3 = 3 + 2 = 4 + 1 = 10/2
  = 50/10 = 100/20   (4)

Thanks for your help.

Marsh Feldman

Re: Spell checker

[Marshall Feldman]

I have the same problem on a Mac (Leopard), and I do have admin. privileges.

Marsh Feldman

On 2:59 PM, Daniel Ng wrote:

Hi all



I have downloaded the latest version of Lyx for windows and having troubles
installing the spell checker function on my windows 7 machine. I installed
Aspell on to my computer and found that the spell checker still fails to
work. I also have obtained the latest English dictionaries and placed them
under Aspell program data under folders data and dictionary and still obtain
errors while using lyx.



The current error that I obtain when trying to use the spell checker is "
Spellchecker cannot be loaded,
C:\programdata\aspell\Dictionaries/en-common.rws cannot be opened for
reading"

I have searched on google, Lyx, Aspell, wiki documents  and found nothing.
During this time of trying to actually solve this problem, there is a clear
lack of documentation for installing Aspell and installing the dictionary
files for windows as the program is more Linux orientated.



As other guides state you should copy the dictionaries into the Aspell
directory, is this correct? Other guides in linux state you should compile
these dictionaries. So I am currently confused on what i am suppose to do.



Is there any chance of someone providing a  step by step instructions for
installing Aspell and dictionaries on to lyx for windows? Or providing
information in correcting my problem.





Thanks



Daniel






   


--
Dr. Marshall Feldman, PhD
Director of Research and Academic Affairs
CUSR Logo
Center for Urban Studies and Research
The University of Rhode Island
email: marsh @ uri .edu (remove spaces)


 Contact Information:


   Kingston:

202 Hart House
Charles T. Schmidt Labor Research Center
The University of Rhode Island
36 Upper College Road
Kingston, RI 02881-0815
tel. (401) 874-5953:
fax: (401) 874-5511


   Providence:

206E Shepard Building
URI Feinstein Providence Campus
80 Washington Street
Providence, RI 02903-1819
tel. (401) 277-5218
fax: (401) 277-5464

BibTeX institutional author

[Marshall Feldman]

Hi,

I've inserted a BibTeX bibliography in my document and have a citation 
to something authored by the National Bureau of Economic Research. So 
far LyX treats this author's name as if the last name is "of Economic 
Research" and the first name is "National Bureau." How does one fix 
this? (P.S. in the bib file, the author is enclosed in brackets.)


Ciao,

Marsh   Feldman

Newbie questions: templates -> Document Settings -> ?

[Marshall Feldman]

Hi,

As a newbie to Lyx, I'm almost there in understanding how to use LyX and 
have a few basic questions. Here's what I think I know:


1. Templates are just LyX documents saved in the place where templates live.

2. Document classes are types of documents (books, articles, etc.)

3. But document classes are not just types of documents. They also can 
come in multiple versions for each document type. (E.g., there can be a 
dozen or more versions of an "article.") The distinction between the 
different versions are largely stylistic, although they also can reflect 
content. For example, a Springer article has a "Conjecture" style, but 
most other article styles do not make conjectures.


4. Modules yet a lower level of granularity, and individual modules may 
correspond to individual styles.


I hope this understanding is correct. Even so, I still can't completely 
connect the dots. Here are two things I still don't understand.


1. I'm writing a conference paper. LyX has a few conference/proceedings 
templates, but none suit my needs. Several document classes could work 
for me, but they're not complete. For example, a conference paper should 
list the conference, location, etc., and most likely this information 
should have a distinct style. How should one handle this? By adding a 
style to the document class? (How?) By manually adjusting the appearance 
of text?


2. I'd like to design a template for a working paper series. The cover 
page would have a few graphics, a title, author, date, institutional 
affiliation, and contact information. The first following right page 
would have a title, abstract, and keywords. The second even page would 
start the actual paper. It would have a title, abstract, and author, 
followed by the text itself. What's the best way to do this?


3. How do the various templates and document classes know when to insert 
a page break? In other words, how do they control front and back matter? 
Can the user customize or override this?


Thanks for your help.

Marsh Feldman

Getting Started with LyX in the social sciences for a substantial project

[Marshall Feldman]

Hi,

I'm starting a project for which LyX appears to be the best choice, but 
I have a few questions related to getting started. I'd prefer to ask 
them now and start doing things the right way rather than find out six 
months from now that I have to go back and change things or, worse, that 
I can't do what I intended to do from the beginning. So here are my 
questions.


  1. My usual work flow is to draft a paper, circulate it as a working
 paper, present it at a conference, and then submit it to a journal
 or as a book chapter. Each of these kinds of documents have
 similar but distinct formats. What's the best way to set up a
 document and work on in, understanding that it will go through
 these stages of evolution and have to be changed along the way?
  2. The templates that come with LyX seem to come overwhelmingly from
 mathematics, computer science, and the natural sciences. I work in
 the social sciences, and in my field virtually all journals and
 books use a version of the /Chicago Manual of Style/ author-date,
 B system. What would be the best way to use this system for
 something like, say, a conference paper? LyX ships with several
 conference paper templates, so should I just try to modify one of
 them? How? Or, would I be better to start with a LaTeX class for
 journal that uses this style and build a template around it?
  3. Similarly, I will need templates for working papers, journal
 articles, and book chapters. Should I roll my own from the start
 or try modifying one that already exists? If the latter, what
 would be the best one to use for my purposes?
  4. Part of the project entails developing software using the R
 statistical package. I've done this before, but never to the
 extent of actually publishing the software, providing
 documentation, etc. Since the papers I will be writing with LyX
 will discuss theoretical issues, empirical studies, and technical
 details of the statistical methods, it makes sense that I should
 also use LyX to draft the documentation for the software as I
 develop it. Are there any packages or templates specifically for
 this purpose, especially for documenting statistical procedures
 written in R?

FWIW, I did read all the posts in response to Jeremy Wells' questions 
about using LyX in the 
humanities. My questions are a bit more specific.


Thanks for your help.