On Fri, Nov 26, 1999 at 07:36:29AM -0500, Joshua N Pritikin wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 26, 1999 at 10:28:15AM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>wrote:
> > > LyX files are _not_ LaTeX format or even remotely LaTeX compatible.
> >
> > Maybe we should put a line into the header of .lyx file saying exactly
> > that. .lyx files look a bit .tex-ish, don't they?
>
> Yes, please! That's exactly what happened. I edited the lyx file in
> xemacs.
While it *is* possible to edit a .lyx file in a standard text editor
([x]emacs, vi), it is VERY DANGEROUS. Those of us on the LyX Team can
get away with doing this, because we know the internals well enough.
Granted, there are times you will want to open a .lyx file in emacs.
Here's a valid reason from my Ph.D. thesis-writing days. I, too, had
several LaTeX macros, defined to make my life easier. About 2-3
times, unfortunately, I realized I gave my macros wrong/bad names.
What to do? Well, I made a copy of my .lyx files, opened them in
emacs, did a query-replace on the offending macro name, then tried to
open the modified file in LyX. If there was a problem loading, I went
back to the original copies I made. Or I undid the query-replace,
then redid it with a more careful eye.
The upshot is that I had to be extremely careful to make such extensive
modifications to the .lyx file, and expect those modifications to
break something.
--
John Weiss
