On 03/17/2010 10:56 PM, Jack Desert wrote:
I have created a tool called LyxBlogger which
simplifies the process of getting LyX-created documents into a
WordPress blog. It basically converts to html using eLyXer and then
copies to the clipboard using Xclip. Someone suggested I mention it on
this list so that LyxBlogger could be included with the next release of
LyX.
elyxer is not included with LyX---we have had that discussion several
times, so let's not have it again---so I don't expect this will be
included with LyX if it depends upon elyxer. That said, LyX 2.0 will
include its own native HTML output, and alpha releases of 2.0 should be
out shortly, so you can try it out for yourself. If your tool works with
LyX's HTML output, or if you can get it to do so, then I have no
objection to its being included in LyX. Seems useful.
Note that we are at alpha, so the HTML output isn't finished
yet---there's some math stuff to do still, and some of the image-related
stuff doesn't work---but it already does a lot that elyxer does not. For
example, cross-references actually come out the way they come out in
LaTeX, e.g., with numbers and not just little arrows, and you can use
the customization features of LyX, too, like modules. This may not be
critical for blogging, but it matters a lot for more serious stuff. I've
put the exports for a short paper of mine here:
http://frege.brown.edu/heck/ALiar-elyxer-042.html
http://frege.brown.edu/heck/ALiar-r33791.xhtml
You have to use firefox to view the latter because LyX produces MathML.
I haven't done anything yet to try to make that work in Incredibly
Eccentric browsers (and konqueror has no MathML support at all, so far
as I can see). Eventually, we'll have an "export little pictures"
option, and if someone wanted to port elyxer's math rendering to LyX,
that wouldn't be hard. But I figured we might as well look to the future.
As you'll see, LyX's version of my paper has some issues, but elyxer's
is unreadable. What makes it so are, as I said, elyxer's inability to
handle math macros and LyX modules, and its using arrows for every
cross-reference. I.e., elyxer gives us:
Whatever plausibility attaches to ↑
<http://frege.brown.edu/heck/ALiar-elyxer-042.html#For:NegSOrNegTNegS>
and ↑
<http://frege.brown.edu/heck/ALiar-elyxer-042.html#For:SOrTNegS>
clearly depends upon excluded middle. The plausibility of ↑
<http://frege.brown.edu/heck/ALiar-elyxer-042.html#For:SandTNegS>
and ↑
<http://frege.brown.edu/heck/ALiar-elyxer-042.html#For:NegSAndNegTNegS>
does not.
whereas LyX gives us:
Whatever plausibility attaches to (7) and (8) clearly depends upon
excluded middle. The plausibility of (1) and (2) does not.
The other thing worth noticing here is LyX's handling of citations and
the bibliography. The latter will improve a lot before long, though it's
already decent.
Of course, elyxer could be enhanced in all these ways. The point of
doing the export from within LyX is that LyX already knows about this
stuff, and no backend work is needed. For example, the routine that
formats the bibliography is exactly the same routine that displays
bibliographical information in the citation dialog. No work required.
By the way, since you remark on how elyxer handles footnotes, I'd
appreciate your views about the way footnotes are done in LyX. If I do
say so myself, it is extremely cool, but I fear it may be too cool. To
read the footnote you either have to keep your mouse on the number or
else move it into the footnote, and then you have to do it really fast.
In the end, then, I may have to do something like elyxer does. Another
option would be to use javascript, so you could click on the footnote
number to open and close the note. That would be great, but it would
need javascript, which is a cost.
rh
