Re: user interface study of lyx
On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:44:20 +0200 Helge Hafting <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Wolfgang Engelmann wrote: > >> In preparation for the class, I plan to post a separate > >> questionnaire to the lyx-users and lyx-devel lists. > >> > >> I welcome any comments about this. Again, my intent is to > >> have this be a contribution to the lyx project. > >> > > > > I am currently working with a colleague on a book chapter using lyx, me on > > linux platform, he on microsoft. There are some problems on his side (e.g. > > exporting to pdf) with which I can´t help him. > > > > I think, it would be very helpful in such and similar cases to have a linux > > livesystem on CD which contains all the necessary programs needed for > > writing > > documents with lyx such as tex stuff, spellchecker, vector and pixel > > oriented > > graphics (xfig, PyX, PStricks..), chemical formulas, bibtex related things > > such as JabRef or Pybliographer, presentations (beamer..). There is a nice > > book by Rainer Hattenhauer (2005), Linux-Livesysteme (published by Galileo > > Computing) - alas in German (perhaps translated in the meantime?) which > > gives > > detailed instructions and could serve as a basis. > > > > One could just insert this CD in the computer, start the system, work with > > it, > > save the produced documents on the computer, and thats it. I think this > > would > > be a nice project also for your students ... > > > A LyX liveCD would be nice, sure. Be aware that linux doesn't > write very well to NTFS filesystems though - so it may be necessary > to save on FAT/FAT32 formatted usb thing if the disk filesystem is NTFS. There is now another ntfs driver for ext3 which looks promising. http://www.linux-ntfs.org/ This Ubuntu Dapper laptop has this in the ability from right at the start. So far it can read/write to NTFS with out errors. from /etc/fstab /dev/sda1 /mnt/windowsntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1 There is a driver to read/right ext3 from ntfs. http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html I usually use this to read Ext3 from ntfs so I can install Windows software I have downloaded while in Linux session. Both work, though I only use it read from the other partition, and too cautious to write back cheers Russell > > As for making pdf on windows - pdflatex is supposed to work > there too. > > Helge Hafting
Re: user interface study of lyx
On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 10:44:20AM +0200, Helge Hafting wrote: > A LyX liveCD would be nice, sure. Be aware that linux doesn't > write very well to NTFS filesystems though - so it may be necessary > to save on FAT/FAT32 formatted usb thing if the disk filesystem is NTFS. At least the Knoppix DVD Image containts lyx but only the ancient 1.3.6 version. Looks like Klaus is still using parts from Debian/sarge. Sven -- If you won't forgive me the rest of my life Let me apologize while I'm still alive I know it's time to face all of my past mistakes [Less than Jake - Rest Of My Life]
Re: user interface study of lyx
Wolfgang Engelmann wrote: In preparation for the class, I plan to post a separate questionnaire to the lyx-users and lyx-devel lists. I welcome any comments about this. Again, my intent is to have this be a contribution to the lyx project. I am currently working with a colleague on a book chapter using lyx, me on linux platform, he on microsoft. There are some problems on his side (e.g. exporting to pdf) with which I can´t help him. I think, it would be very helpful in such and similar cases to have a linux livesystem on CD which contains all the necessary programs needed for writing documents with lyx such as tex stuff, spellchecker, vector and pixel oriented graphics (xfig, PyX, PStricks..), chemical formulas, bibtex related things such as JabRef or Pybliographer, presentations (beamer..). There is a nice book by Rainer Hattenhauer (2005), Linux-Livesysteme (published by Galileo Computing) - alas in German (perhaps translated in the meantime?) which gives detailed instructions and could serve as a basis. One could just insert this CD in the computer, start the system, work with it, save the produced documents on the computer, and thats it. I think this would be a nice project also for your students ... A LyX liveCD would be nice, sure. Be aware that linux doesn't write very well to NTFS filesystems though - so it may be necessary to save on FAT/FAT32 formatted usb thing if the disk filesystem is NTFS. As for making pdf on windows - pdflatex is supposed to work there too. Helge Hafting
Re: user interface study of lyx
Daryl Hepting wrote: Hello; I am about to start teaching an undergraduate course in human computer interaction for the fall semester (about a week away now) and I will be asking my students to look at lyx. I have been using LaTeX for years and I've had a bit of experience with lyx. I'm interested in how well (new) users can work with lyx. I joined the e-mail lists last week and I am impressed by the amount of traffic on both the user and development lists. What do I hope to come up with at the end of the semester? I expect that students will come up with some design alternatives for various aspects of the lyx interface. Interesting! Some things to consider about user interface design: * The mouse is nice, but the (expert) user should be able to get around with the keyboard only too. Not because the mouse gets lost, but the keyboard is so much faster when you know all the shortcuts. In LyX, you may want to have a look at how the paragraph types (standard, bullet list, sectioning, and so on) can be set without the mouse. This is a huge timesaver - the paragraph type list is just a single mouse click away. Still, Typing ALT P B to get a bullet list or ALT P 3 for the third level of sectioning is so much faster. Also, all the math can be typed as latex commands. Typing \frac is much faster than looking up fractions in the math menus. * Small popup windows is considered bad. A big dialog is ok, when there is lots of information to fill in. But most of the time you spend on the small popups is spent on the "OK" button - and that is wasted time. LyX have a status line at the bottom where it is possible to show small messages without requiring the user to click anything at all. Of course LyX has its share of annoying small popups, so this is a field where your students may make improvements. * The worst "annoying popup" is the search & replace dialog. Search, and often enough the word you search for will be found - UNDER the stupid dialog. And sometimes you search just to get to a certain place in a big document, but then you have to get rid of the search popup before you can type. Now, there are occations when the search dialog is useful, it contains some options that sometimes are useful. And it may be extended to do more complicated searches - regexps or searching/replacing formatted text. What many want, but can't find time to code, is an alternative search - a simple search that use no popup, just a text entry field that shows up in the status area when some "search hotkey" is pressed. I.e. a firefox/emacs/vi style search, instead of a dialog. The existing dialog should be preserved though, as it have more options. * The LyX editor and file format supports some operations and insets that currently cannot be entered - because the menus and keybindings are behind LyX capabilities. Adding interfaces for such things should be nice student work. I would like these to be contributions to the lyx project. We are very interested in open source software development here at my university and if all goes well, we might even have a class in winter 2007, that could work at implementing these alternatives -- again, as a contribution to the project. In preparation for the class, I plan to post a separate questionnaire to the lyx-users and lyx-devel lists. All responses will be carefully reviewed. For those who are interested, I will also post details of the study that the students will conduct here, using participants from the participant pool that we have here. Basically, we will be recruiting people who self-report proficiency in either LaTeX or MS Word and then ask them to format a sample document using their preferred of those 2 tools and lyx. Now that could be an interesting test, especially the comparison with word. How do you plan on doing this? I suggest handing them a large document that is entirely in ascii. Then they can turn headings into real headings, add a TOC, perhaps a small index, perhaps some tables, figures, and lists of tables & figures, and things like title and author. For a formatting test you want a really large document, because some oddities don't happen all that often. For example, some word processors will happily put a heading at the bottom of the page sometimes. LyX and Latex won't do that, but you need quite a few pages for it to happen by accident. You can increase chances by setting up for a small format like A5 or A6 or other custom small paper. I believe that the word user will have to go through the document carefully looking for such things, while latex simply avoids them. And when they are done, ask them to change the margins a bit and resubmit the PDF. See how much time that takes . . . Look both at the time invested, and the quality of final results. I welcome any comments about this. Again, my intent is to have this be a contribution to the lyx proje
Re: user interface study of lyx
> In preparation for the class, I plan to post a separate > questionnaire to the lyx-users and lyx-devel lists. > > I welcome any comments about this. Again, my intent is to > have this be a contribution to the lyx project. I am currently working with a colleague on a book chapter using lyx, me on linux platform, he on microsoft. There are some problems on his side (e.g. exporting to pdf) with which I can´t help him. I think, it would be very helpful in such and similar cases to have a linux livesystem on CD which contains all the necessary programs needed for writing documents with lyx such as tex stuff, spellchecker, vector and pixel oriented graphics (xfig, PyX, PStricks..), chemical formulas, bibtex related things such as JabRef or Pybliographer, presentations (beamer..). There is a nice book by Rainer Hattenhauer (2005), Linux-Livesysteme (published by Galileo Computing) - alas in German (perhaps translated in the meantime?) which gives detailed instructions and could serve as a basis. One could just insert this CD in the computer, start the system, work with it, save the produced documents on the computer, and thats it. I think this would be a nice project also for your students ... Wolfgang
user interface study of lyx
Hello; I am about to start teaching an undergraduate course in human computer interaction for the fall semester (about a week away now) and I will be asking my students to look at lyx. I have been using LaTeX for years and I've had a bit of experience with lyx. I'm interested in how well (new) users can work with lyx. I joined the e-mail lists last week and I am impressed by the amount of traffic on both the user and development lists. What do I hope to come up with at the end of the semester? I expect that students will come up with some design alternatives for various aspects of the lyx interface. I would like these to be contributions to the lyx project. We are very interested in open source software development here at my university and if all goes well, we might even have a class in winter 2007, that could work at implementing these alternatives -- again, as a contribution to the project. In preparation for the class, I plan to post a separate questionnaire to the lyx-users and lyx-devel lists. All responses will be carefully reviewed. For those who are interested, I will also post details of the study that the students will conduct here, using participants from the participant pool that we have here. Basically, we will be recruiting people who self-report proficiency in either LaTeX or MS Word and then ask them to format a sample document using their preferred of those 2 tools and lyx. I welcome any comments about this. Again, my intent is to have this be a contribution to the lyx project. Best regards, Daryl -- Daryl H. Hepting, Ph.D. Associate Professor * Computer Science Department * CW 308.22 University of Regina * Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada S4S 0A2 [EMAIL PROTECTED]* http://www.cs.uregina.ca/~hepting tel: (306) 585-5210 * fax: (306) 585-4745
