> Martin (whom we all know by now is a famous linux writer)
Those that can, do. Those that don't, write...
> Don't forget that Allan Rae had volunteered to do
> so, too, and I know he had at least some plans. I'm sure that Allan will
> be happy to co-direct PR with Martin
Hmmm. I'd like to see the material!
> (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 ;-)
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).
Then I went over it again, trying to make it better formulated and "sharper"
and I hope journalistically better.
Do remember though that this is based on old material. And not being a
developer and all, and only recently joining the devel list, I do not know the
latest what has been going on. So correct me!
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... ?)
Here it comes.
Public release of LyX version 1.0.0
===================================
What is LyX?
------------
LyX is a free document processor providing a modern approach to writing
especially complex documents on your computer. Compared to common word
processors, LyX will increase productivity, since the job of typesetting
is done mostly by the computer, not the author.
Technically, this is done by combining the comfortable interface of a
WYSIWYG word processor with the high quality output of a real typesetting
system. LyX uses LaTeX, the most popular typesetting system available,
but no familiarity with LaTeX is required.
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!
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.
LyX has an excellent on-line manual, and has been localized into a dozen
different (Latin character set) languages.
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.
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.
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.
How stable is LyX?
------------------
This release is considered stable, but as with any software, you should
take appropriate back-up steps in a production environment.
What about KLyX?
----------------
KLyX is a port of LyX version 0.12.0 to KDE done primarily by Matthias Ettrich
and Kalle Dalheimer. It was done as a proof-of-principle, to demo how
good looking LyX could be made on this desktop environment, and implement some
advanced features which this environment facilitates; there is an intention
to re-integrate KLyX into the LyX code base, and at the same time make LyX
GUI toolkit/desktop agnostic.
Where can I get it?
-------------------
LyX is distributed under the GPL, which means that you can use it for free.
The main LyX site is
ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/
ftp://ftp.via.ecp.fr/pub/lyx/
with mirrors at
ftp://fiwi02.wiwi.uni-tuebingen.de/pub/LyX/
ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/lyx/
ftp://ftp.sdsc.edu/pub/other/lyx/
ftp://ftp.fciencias.unam.mx/pub/Lyx/
ftp://www.netaxs.com/web/people/dlj0/LyX/
ftp://ftp.uni-frankfurt.de/pub/packages/lyx/
ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/LyX/
The source code package is available at:
ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/stable/lyx-1.0.0.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.via.ecp.fr/pub/lyx/stable/lyx-1.0.0.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.devel.lyx.org/pub/lyx/lyx-1.0.0.tar.gz
and at the mirrors listed above.
You need to have XForms version 0.81, 0.86 or 0.88 to compile your own version.
Version 0.88 is highly recomended.
Ready-to-run precompiled binaries for various platforms are available at:
ftp://ftp.via.ecp.fr/pub/lyx/bin/1.0.0/
Binaries for i386-Linux are also available at your local sunsite mirror:
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/editors/lyx-1.0.0-bin.tar.gz
It is possible to run LyX in a temporary directory before you install it.
Credits
-------
The LyX Team is composed of volunteers from around the world. Many, many
people have helped make the 1.0 release possible, including:
Lars Gullik Bjoennes, Alejandro Aguilar Sierra, Asger Alstrup,
Jean-Marc Lasgouttes, Juergen Vigna, John P. Weiss, Bernhard
Iselborn,
Andre Spiegel, Allan Rae, Henner Zeller, Robert van der Kamp,
David L. Johnson, Amir Karger, Joacim Persson, Peter Suetterlin,
SMiyata, Alkis Polyzotis, ...
Special thanks should go to Matthias Ettrich who started it all.
Feedback
--------
Please direct any comments or questions to the appropriate mailing list as
described on the LyX homepage (http://www.lyx.org/).
Enjoy!
The LyX Team
