Re: Heretical question?
On Tue, Aug 02, 2005 at 12:00:20PM -0400, Paul A. Rubin wrote: > Michael Wojcik wrote: > >Paul A. Rubin wrote: > > > >>> > >>Can anyone summarize pros/cons of the various options listed in this > >>thread? You're all using (and most are actively developing) LyX, so I > >>assume you see some advantages to LyX, right? > > > > > >[This is late, but Paul's query doesn't seem to have garnered much > >response.] > > > >One LyX advantage: it isn't WYSIWYG. I'm happy to argue that separating > >content and presentation is the right way to go, and that WYSIWYG has > >done tremendous damage to writing. (Yes, some of my friends at MSU's > >WIDE (Writing in Digital Environments) center might disagree with that, > >but if we all agreed on everything we wouldn't have much to talk about > >at parties.) > > > Thanks for the reply. I'm inclined to view WYSIWYG as an enabler of bad > writing more than a cause. In any case, my writing is invariably of the > highest quality :-), and I like to see how the final version looks at > least periodically, especially when I'm embedding figures or tables. > > That said, I'm certainly comfortable working in a WYSIWYM environment, > and I'm not willing to tolerate delays in display updates as I type. So > LyX continues to look pretty good. > > Paul I'll admit to being lazy. I don't use Word unless it's an emergency at work, so I can't comment on the other side of things for myself. I know only that LyX's output is so superior to anything I've seen put out by Word that I gloat silently to myself when we compare syllabi at school, etc. ;-) Despite the times when I have to finagle the output based on undesirable spacing between text and figures (as an example), I basically trust the program and the underlying LaTeX. I often need to check the output when I do want a certain layout, such as not having exam questions flow between pages, but that is easy to do. I simply view the document (ctrl-T) and leave gv open, then later update with ctrl-shift-T. I have gv set up to automatically update itself. My output is thereby refreshed with only the ctrl-shift-T. Also, my gui is set up so a window becomes active when the mouse is over it, wihtout clicking. I can page through gv this way without having it raise up above LyX if they overlap. Kenward -- In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be _teachers_ and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. - Lee Iacocca
Re: Heretical question?
Michael Wojcik wrote: Paul A. Rubin wrote: Can anyone summarize pros/cons of the various options listed in this thread? You're all using (and most are actively developing) LyX, so I assume you see some advantages to LyX, right? [This is late, but Paul's query doesn't seem to have garnered much response.] One LyX advantage: it isn't WYSIWYG. I'm happy to argue that separating content and presentation is the right way to go, and that WYSIWYG has done tremendous damage to writing. (Yes, some of my friends at MSU's WIDE (Writing in Digital Environments) center might disagree with that, but if we all agreed on everything we wouldn't have much to talk about at parties.) Thanks for the reply. I'm inclined to view WYSIWYG as an enabler of bad writing more than a cause. In any case, my writing is invariably of the highest quality :-), and I like to see how the final version looks at least periodically, especially when I'm embedding figures or tables. That said, I'm certainly comfortable working in a WYSIWYM environment, and I'm not willing to tolerate delays in display updates as I type. So LyX continues to look pretty good. Paul
Re: Heretical question?
Paul A. Rubin wrote: Can anyone summarize pros/cons of the various options listed in this thread? You're all using (and most are actively developing) LyX, so I assume you see some advantages to LyX, right? [This is late, but Paul's query doesn't seem to have garnered much response.] One LyX advantage: it isn't WYSIWYG. I'm happy to argue that separating content and presentation is the right way to go, and that WYSIWYG has done tremendous damage to writing. (Yes, some of my friends at MSU's WIDE (Writing in Digital Environments) center might disagree with that, but if we all agreed on everything we wouldn't have much to talk about at parties.) -- Michael Wojcik
Re: Heretical question?
Micha Feigin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> Lyx also aims to be _fast_. Lyx on an ancient computer still let you edit >> effortlessly, with snappy writing and scrolling. Try that with those >> other DTP >> programs. You may have a big computer - some people doesn't. Final output >> will be slow of course, but not the writing process! >> > | Actually I believe that it is partially possible. Have a look at the whizzytex | package for emacs. It shows a DVI window that follows your text to show an | (almost) realtime rendition of the text. A patch to allow preview of single paragraphs in the same way as the math preview will be accepted... Or an "auto-update" patch that keeps the dvi in sync with the document at all times, might also be accepted. -- Lgb
Re: Heretical question?
On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:43:19 +0200 Helge Hafting <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Peter Rockett wrote: > [...] > > So is there any fundamental reason why Yap, say, couldn't be turned > > into a word processor... other then the obvious one of the effort > > involved? Just wondering because Latex is a significant learning curve > > and the tools are really rather rudimentary. WYSIWYG DTP programs exist! > > Lyx also aims to be _fast_. Lyx on an ancient computer still let you edit > effortlessly, with snappy writing and scrolling. Try that with those > other DTP > programs. You may have a big computer - some people doesn't. Final output > will be slow of course, but not the writing process! > Actually I believe that it is partially possible. Have a look at the whizzytex package for emacs. It shows a DVI window that follows your text to show an (almost) realtime rendition of the text. http://pauillac.inria.fr/whizzytex/index.html > > Helge Hafting > > +++ > This Mail Was Scanned By Mail-seCure System > at the Tel-Aviv University CC. > +++ This Mail Was Scanned By Mail-seCure System at the Tel-Aviv University CC.
Re: Heretical question?
Peter Rockett wrote: Thanks to all who responded to my requests for help to get LyX working. It's now functioning fine... but tex2lyx has problems translating my sample file so... Having looked at Latex stuff a lot over the past few weeks as a Latex newbie, could I ask a (heretical!?) question? Why isn't LyX (or something else) a fully fledged WYSIWYG word processor? Two reasons: 1. WYSIWYG is more work, and LyX is made by volunteers. There aren't always enough developers. It is better to have a feature in a non-wysiwyg way, than not to have it at all. Expect some more wysiwyg in each release as volunteers fix such omissions. 2. Some things are _not_ wysiwyg on purpose! Lyx produce very fine output thanks to the latex backend, doing that in real time is not feasible with todays computers and not tomorrows computers either. (Sure, you can get it for some simple cases, but one can make very time-consuming latex.) A strict "what you see is what you get" design tends to result in "what you see is _all_ you get". That is, limitations in the user interface becomes limitations of the output. Msword has fallen into this trap. This is why you'll never see lyx break lines on screen _exactly_ the same way lines get broken in the output. Latex linebreaking uses complicated algorithms that may have to rebreak the entire paragraph when you change a single letter in the text. This is (still) too slow to do in realtime for someone typing in the middle of a big paragraph. Page breaking and float placement use the same kind of heavy algorithms. This ensures that a lyx document almost always breaks nicely, so you don't have to fix a linebreak here and a pagebreak there in a normal text. And therefore you rarely need to see the final layout either - you certainly don't need that when writing - another distraction removed from the writing process. If you really need to see the formatting, use view->dvi or view->pdf menus. Lyx instead uses the wysiwym (what you see is what you _mean_) paradigm. It makes lyx a better fit for book/article writing than any wysiwyg word processor. It also makes lyx less fit for writing something where layout tweaking is important, such as a greeting card. (Greeting cards are doable of course, but cumbersome.) I can see the logic in how Donald Knuth designed things originally but I suspect a lot of that was guided by the fact that computers then were not capable of doing page rendering on the fly. But I don't think that restriction is true anymore. It is true still, although there are some trivial cases where true wysiwyg is possible. Please note that wysiwyg is complicated by the fact that printers and screens have very different resolutions. Try typesetting a 8-column newspaper wysiwyg on an ordinary screen - not funny. So is there any fundamental reason why Yap, say, couldn't be turned into a word processor... other then the obvious one of the effort involved? Just wondering because Latex is a significant learning curve and the tools are really rather rudimentary. WYSIWYG DTP programs exist! Lyx also aims to be _fast_. Lyx on an ancient computer still let you edit effortlessly, with snappy writing and scrolling. Try that with those other DTP programs. You may have a big computer - some people doesn't. Final output will be slow of course, but not the writing process! Helge Hafting
LyX on www.apple.com (was Re: Heretical question?)
On Jul 25, 2005, at 11:35 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 25 Jul 2005, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote: "William" == William F Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: William> John's is much better though and should be enshrined in an William> FAQ or advocacy document or something. What about making a page on the wiki? Sounds like a very good idea. Either make a new page such as http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/ReasonsToUseLyX or add it to one of these http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/ProsAndCons http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/ReasonsToUseLyxInsteadOfLatex if it's short and concise, adding it to this page might also be good http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/AboutLyX Hmm, maybe we should add it here: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/lyxmac.html Congrats to all for the entry there! William -- William Adams, publishing specialist voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708 www.atlis.com
Re: Heretical question?
On Mon, 25 Jul 2005, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote: > > "William" == William F Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > William> John's is much better though and should be enshrined in an > William> FAQ or advocacy document or something. > > What about making a page on the wiki? Sounds like a very good idea. Either make a new page such as http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/ReasonsToUseLyX or add it to one of these http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/ProsAndCons http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/ReasonsToUseLyxInsteadOfLatex if it's short and concise, adding it to this page might also be good http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/AboutLyX cheers /Christian PS. The password for editing a page is LyXers and you can give whatever username you like -- Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44 http://www.md.kth.se/~chr
Re: Heretical question?
> "William" == William F Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: William> John's is much better though and should be enshrined in an William> FAQ or advocacy document or something. What about making a page on the wiki? JMarc
Re: Heretical question?
On Jul 24, 2005, at 9:26 PM, John O'Gorman wrote: excellent discussion of my WYSIWYM is a good view All of the above makes it easier to use LyX. You focus entirely on content. FWIW, I made a similar explanation in the Practical TeX on-line journal recently: http://www.tug.org/pracjourn/2005-3/asknelly/ It was somewhat edited though (I noted that revision tracking &c. were in CVS...) but hopefully is reasonably accurate. John's is much better though and should be enshrined in an FAQ or advocacy document or something. William -- William Adams, publishing specialist voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708 www.atlis.com
Re: Heretical question?
> "John" == John O'Gorman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: John> Sorry I didnot notice the reply-to was not the list. I did not notice at the time that this answer only went to me. It was a pity, since I really enjoyed reading it :) JMarc
Re: Heretical question?
Sorry I didnot notice the reply-to was not the list. John O'Gorman --- Begin Message --- >From - Fri Jul 22 15:39:50 2005 X-Mozilla-Status2: Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 15:39:49 +1200 From: John O'Gorman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020204 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jean-Marc Lasgouttes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Heretical question? References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit IMHO, LyX is better because of WYSIWYM: 1. Even on fast computers it takes a long time to compile a big document. 5 passes are needed if you have TOCs, indexes, citations, and cross-references. 2. Freedom from the constraint of having to match the print output layout allows you to use screen fonts suited to screen resolution limitations (relatively coarse bitmaps). And the LyX layout engine tailors the layout to the screen geometry. You can arbitrarily change the window dimensions - and LyX will re-arrange the layout to fit the changed dimensions. The LateX engine can then deal with high quality print fonts separately. 3. There are things that LyX cannot do in the screen window (like multi columns and mini-pages) and need not try to do. You just trust LaTeX do get it right later. All of the above makes it easier to use LyX. You focus entirely on content. You can literally achieve effortless superiority with total ignorance of the LaTeX language. Effortless superiority and total ignorance are what made the British Empire great! regards John O'Gorman --- End Message ---
Re: Heretical question?
> "JORGE" == JORGE A HERNANDO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: JORGE> I absolutely agree with Mark's arguments and am very happy with JORGE> Lyx and, particularly, with their way of doing mathematics. JORGE> However, I have a question a little off thread: I can't get the JORGE> reasons of creating the lyx format, which is quite similar to JORGE> latex, instead of directly using latex, why was it necessary? It is because LyX only understands a subset of latex, which is precisely defined by its file format. Using a .tex format would give a false impression that LyX knows all of LaTeX. JMarc
Re: Heretical question?
I absolutely agree with Mark's arguments and am very happy with Lyx and, particularly, with their way of doing mathematics. However, I have a question a little off thread: I can't get the reasons of creating the lyx format, which is quite similar to latex, instead of directly using latex, why was it necessary? jorge On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Mark Carroll wrote: > On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Paul A. Rubin wrote: > > > Can anyone summarize pros/cons of the various options listed in this > > thread? You're all using (and most are actively developing) LyX, so I > > assume you see some advantages to LyX, right? > > I like it as a LaTeX front-end with a much shallower learning curve. I > like LaTeX because it does a good job of figuring out the large-scale > typesetting (floats and things). I don't want to manually do typesetting > in a case-specific manner because whenever I modify the document I then > end up having to re-typeset it. > > -- Mark > -- - # # # # Dr. Jorge A. Hernando # e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # Physics Dept., CNEA# phone: 54-11-6772-7106# # Av. Gral Paz 1499 # fax: 54-11-6772-7121# # (1650) San Martin # # # Pcia Buenos Aires # # # Argentina # # -
Re: Heretical question?
Jose' Matos wrote: On Friday 22 July 2005 09:33, Axel Rasche wrote: What I like about LyX is that standard work (typing, structure, basic figures/floats, bibtex/references) is done by an easy editor (although not completely wysiwyG). At the same time the whole LaTeX world is open to you. One can add any particular LaTeX-package. This fortune does not show up, when starting out in LaTeX with an editor like LyX (means LyX does a good job by hiding the compiling stuff). But if you continue, you will see that for any particular issue in typesetting is solved by a particular LaTeX-package. Do not forget also that LyX has also some other requirements that are not shared by any single user. If we support some package we should expect it to be available everywhere or else the same LyX document would not give a printable output if you change your system. Not only that but sometimes different packages have different calls across several versions. All this should be taken into account before providing the LyX support for any package. there is only _one_ rule: every TeX source should give the same output on every system. This depends to the core TeX, but not to the packages. If you want to be _really_ sure, then you shouldn't support any package, otherwise the above rule (from D. Knuth) is senseless. Supporting packages is nowadays appropriate, but always a kind of living on the edge ... because you do not really know, what the package author has in mind. But one is sure, TeX is the same ... Herbert
Re: Heretical question?
On Friday 22 July 2005 09:33, Axel Rasche wrote: > What I like about LyX is that standard work (typing, structure, basic > figures/floats, bibtex/references) is done by an easy editor (although > not completely wysiwyG). At the same time the whole LaTeX world is open > to you. One can add any particular LaTeX-package. > This fortune does not show up, when starting out in LaTeX with an editor > like LyX (means LyX does a good job by hiding the compiling stuff). But > if you continue, you will see that for any particular issue in > typesetting is solved by a particular LaTeX-package. Do not forget also that LyX has also some other requirements that are not shared by any single user. If we support some package we should expect it to be available everywhere or else the same LyX document would not give a printable output if you change your system. Not only that but sometimes different packages have different calls across several versions. All this should be taken into account before providing the LyX support for any package. > Go on guys, Thanks for your feedback, > Axel -- José Abílio
Re: Heretical question?
Most of the mentioned projects seem to be quite young. Let us see how they develop. What I like about LyX is that standard work (typing, structure, basic figures/floats, bibtex/references) is done by an easy editor (although not completely wysiwyG). At the same time the whole LaTeX world is open to you. One can add any particular LaTeX-package. This fortune does not show up, when starting out in LaTeX with an editor like LyX (means LyX does a good job by hiding the compiling stuff). But if you continue, you will see that for any particular issue in typesetting is solved by a particular LaTeX-package. Go on guys, Axel Mark Carroll wrote: On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Paul A. Rubin wrote: Can anyone summarize pros/cons of the various options listed in this thread? You're all using (and most are actively developing) LyX, so I assume you see some advantages to LyX, right? I like it as a LaTeX front-end with a much shallower learning curve. I like LaTeX because it does a good job of figuring out the large-scale typesetting (floats and things). I don't want to manually do typesetting in a case-specific manner because whenever I modify the document I then end up having to re-typeset it. -- Mark
Re: Heretical question?
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Paul A. Rubin wrote: > Can anyone summarize pros/cons of the various options listed in this > thread? You're all using (and most are actively developing) LyX, so I > assume you see some advantages to LyX, right? I like it as a LaTeX front-end with a much shallower learning curve. I like LaTeX because it does a good job of figuring out the large-scale typesetting (floats and things). I don't want to manually do typesetting in a case-specific manner because whenever I modify the document I then end up having to re-typeset it. -- Mark
Re: Heretical question?
Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote: "Juergen" == Juergen Spitzmueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Juergen> Angus Leeming wrote: Perhaps you should check out http://www.texmacs.org/ Juergen> or (if you're on win) Juergen> http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/win32/microimp/ I did not know this one. I guess there is also BaKoMa YeX Word: http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/win32/bakoma/ JMarc Can anyone summarize pros/cons of the various options listed in this thread? You're all using (and most are actively developing) LyX, so I assume you see some advantages to LyX, right? Paul
Re: Heretical question?
On Thursday 21 July 2005 06:59, Herbert Voss wrote: > Juergen Spitzmueller wrote: > > Angus Leeming wrote: > >>Perhaps you should check out http://www.texmacs.org/ > > > > or (if you're on win) > > http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/win32/microimp/ > > works also with wine under *nix and has an own homepage and > is a _real_ wysiwyg TeX > > http://www.microimp.com > > Herbert Angus and Herbert, Thanks for that intro to texmacs though I dont see myself using it for a wysiwyg wordprocessor. Indeed one of the great things I see about Lyx is the assurance that I have that things will look right without my wasting my writing and thinking time on that. However, it did fill a different void as I was intrigued to see that it allowed import of html and export of latex to allow an effective conversion from word to Lyx. Have tried this out with one document which I converted from Word to html using OpenOffice and then imported into texmacs and exported into latex and then imported into Lyx. I found some valuable features which make me think this is the best way I have seen of getting a word document into lyx 1. The graphic appeared in the lyx document but with some ERT around it which was easily dispensed with 2. The sections and subsections which appeared in Word as 5.1) were not entered as subsections but did appear with appropriate bold text and were correctly represented. 3. The title did not appear as a title but as a subsection which had been "renew"ed in the preamble and therefore had to be removed 4. The itemised elements were identically replicated but using the right mixture of itemize and enumerate and indenting 5. It took me about 3 minutes to do all the changes to make it into a respectable pdf file from Lyx. I dont know how general these observations are, having been made on the basis of one conversion, but there certainly seems to be a case for looking into it. samar
Re: Heretical question?
Juergen Spitzmueller wrote: Angus Leeming wrote: Perhaps you should check out http://www.texmacs.org/ or (if you're on win) http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/win32/microimp/ works also with wine under *nix and has an own homepage and is a _real_ wysiwyg TeX http://www.microimp.com Herbert
Re: Heretical question?
> "Juergen" == Juergen Spitzmueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Juergen> Angus Leeming wrote: >> Perhaps you should check out http://www.texmacs.org/ Juergen> or (if you're on win) Juergen> http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/win32/microimp/ I did not know this one. I guess there is also BaKoMa YeX Word: http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/win32/bakoma/ JMarc
Re: Heretical question?
Angus Leeming wrote: > Perhaps you should check out http://www.texmacs.org/ or (if you're on win) http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/win32/microimp/ Jürgen
Re: Heretical question?
Peter Rockett wrote: > tex2lyx has problems translating my sample file Then post your sample so that tex2lyx can be improved. > Why isn't LyX (or something else) a fully fledged WYSIWYG word processor? Perhaps you should check out http://www.texmacs.org/ -- Angus
Re: Heretical question?
Peter Rockett writes: > Why isn't LyX (or > something else) a fully fledged WYSIWYG word processor? Or a structured document processor, etc. Short answer: "if you build it, they'll come" -- i.e. someone has to have the time and inclination and skills to do this. In the meantime, it remains what it is, a useful typesetting tool for books and large documents. (my two cents -- better answers sure to follow) -K -- Kevin Pfeiffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Tiros-Translations
