On Wed, Jan 13, 1999 at 07:02:57PM +0200, Martin Vermeer wrote:
> > Martin (whom we all know by now is a famous linux writer)
>
> Those that can, do. Those that don't, write...
Garst would probably say that it works better poetically (or mathematically)
if you say "those that can't, write". :)
Of course, I wrote the tutorial with just this motto in mind. Later on,
though, I came to the conclusion that "those that can't, do it in Perl"
(oops. This isn't perl.advocacy, is it?)
> > (at least, I get the impression neither of you *really* wants to do it)
>
> Still it might be fun. But if Allan has something done already, we should use
> it. I don't (yet) have my ego invested in this ;-)
Right. If Allan isn't available I guess you get to do a bit more directing.
His latest message implied that he'd be back by now, and that he wouldn't have
much time to do LyX work. I don't know whether that means he won't have time
for coding, or he won't even have time for PR. Allan, feel free to comment at
any time :)
> What I did just now was to go back two months in the devel list and pluck a
> proposal I found there, with comments on it, and sort of re-integrated the
> ideas floating in the thread. (I believe what I ended up with is a consensus
> text, more or less).
OK. I never tire of making comments. See below.
> The places to send this to would be the known Linux/open source forums, Linux
> Today, Linux Weekly News, Freshmeat, Linux Journal, C't ... (we should have a
> policy on this! Press agencies? Linux distribution vendors? Scientific
> journals -- important among our current user base... ?)
Hey! Not all of us use Linux (unfortunately). You could also submit it to
slashdot, which has a huge, if sometimes annoying, readership. (But make sure
the web & ftp sites are ready to handle the hits!) I think they will announce
large releases of large projects, tho obviously they're not freshmeat. E.g., I
think they mentioned ABIword recently, which Asger mentioned we can totally
leave in the dust :)
If the new revtex ever comes out, we could try sending this to the american
physical society. Do you think whoever does aapaper and the various other
journal types we now support would be willing to carry the press release? I
feel like clueless scientists who have been forced to use latex or stick with
word would be psyched to use LyX, and if we put the information on a
society-approved website, there's more chance they would take it seriously.
I have no idea how contacting such groups & submitting press releases works,
but I guess that's why I'm not the PR guy.
[snip nice, familiar opening paragraphs]
Ah. My only thought is that "especially complex documents" doesn't sound
right. In my experience, things that are good at doing very difficult things
aren't so easy for new users. We want to stress that you can do anything from
a one page note or letter to a highly styled thesis or journal article (or
movie script!).
Combine this with a thought that more concrete details are often a Good Thing,
and perhaps the first one or two paragraphs could say something like "LyX is
easy to learn, and allows you to create anything from a letter to a movie
script, from a class handout to a thesis." (That sentence is lame, another
reason I'm not the PR guy.)
> LyX operates under a paradigm different from that of conventional word
> processors. You set the "ground rules" for your document, but leave the
> finer points of document layout to LyX's highly advanced, intelligent
> rendering engine -- the LaTeX typesetting system. We call this WYSIWYM --
> What You See Is What You MEAN. All the common formatting intelligence of
> LaTeX is made visible and "live", such as a table-of-contents window
> acting as an outline browser, "live" reference links to figures, tables
> and literature references, section and list numbering, and more. The
> result is to liberate the author from many of the headaches associated
> with typical word processing. However, this does limit your freedom to
> construct arbitrarily ugly documents. Typically, people seeing documents
> produced with LyX/LaTeX comment on how good looking they are!
Hm. The second to last sentence doesn't IMO say very much new, and might be
interepreted as condescending. Many writers will say they want to decide what
defines "ugly". While we all know that LaTeX is the True Way (and that you
*can* write arbitrarily ugly documents in LaTeX; it just takes more effort)
this sentence might not work.
I also think the last sentence doesn't help. Obviously we think latex
documents look nice. A few "quotes from users" (which I think were on the
mailing list in that same thread) would IMO be more effective.
> Release 1.0 includes several standard formats and templates that will,
> without effort by the author, produce documents of a particular format.
> There is a growing library of formats and templates which will allow
> the user to write a wide range of documents.
>
> LyX is native to the Unix platform, and provides native support for
> postscript fonts and figures. It contains an especially strong, fully
> integrated formula editor.
"... which adds WYSIWYG convenience to LaTeX's powerful and flexible formula-
writing capabilities."
> LyX has an excellent on-line manual, and has been localized into a dozen
> different (Latin character set) languages.
Or maybe "LyX has excellent on-line help, including a beginner's tutorial, a
user's guide, a manual for advanced users." (I think
readers will appreciate that there's something for beginners, and that the
complicated stuff has its own manual.)
> One feature lacking from LyX is import of MS Word documents. So, if you
> need continued access to these legacy documents, we recommend you also
> keep a traditional word processor (like Corel's WordPerfect for Linux) on
> your disk.
Why tell them what we can't do? Good for a readme, maybe, but not for an
announce. I don't think anyone's about to delete their traditional word
processor the day they download LyX.
> All in all, LyX is a complete environment for writing documents. It has
> superior support for scientific writing, but works well for any kind of
> document. Several people have reported that they have dropped various
> commercial word processors in favour of LyX.
I think I mentioned this last time. I still am not enamored of this last
sentence. Especially to conclude such a well-written introduction.
>
> Read more about LyX (including screen shots) at:
>
> http://www.lyx.org/
>
> What's new compared to LyX version 0.12.0?
> ------------------------------------------
>
> Most importantly, import of LaTeX documents is possible if you have Perl
> installed. Other than that, some new features, and lots of bug fixes.
I think "if you have Perl installed" may scare some. And Perl is standard on
most systems. We don't mention in this doc that you need xforms or xpm...
Are there any other new features important enough to mention here?
"Better support for LinuxDoc, tables, and indexing, as well as expanded
documentation." That would be a sneaky way to mention some nice LyX features,
too. OTOH, if the main goal is to attract new users, maybe this section should
stay short.
[remainder snipped]
Of course all of these suggestions are minor tweaks on what looks like a great
press release.
-Amir
