I'm trying to answer to some of the statememts in this thread:
It was surely my fault that I modified the appearance of LyX in my installer in
the past, but this
is now no longer the case. I was very happy about the clean discussions about
these issues last week.
Concerning the installer size:
You can't judge a book by its cover! I designed the installer to be able to
have a full functional
LyX. For this purpose I include all needed files from SVN's /lib directory and
this are about 20 MB
(uncompressed). Then there are of course the .exe files and the needed files
from Ghostscript,
ImageMagick and Python.
Joost doesn't deliver the Ghostscript and ImageMagick files, his installer will
download and install
the programs separately. This has some disadvantages: The users need to
download more stuff than
needed, because we don't need for example all ImageMagick files. So in the end
the user has
downloaded more bytes than with my solution (but this isn't that important in
these times).
More important is the support: I started the installer without having the needed programs included
but this lead to lots of unnecessary bug reports. Especially ImageMagick (IM) releases very often,
and often with bugs. When the user had installed a buggy version _I_ got the bug reports, not the IM
people. So the idea was to include ImageMagick to the installer as I then
deliver a well tested
version. When LyX is updated I also assure this way that the users will use the
newest tested IM
version together with the new LyX version. With Joost's method the separately
installed IM remains
on the system and isn't updated, the uninstaller also don't ask the user to
remove IM together with LyX.
When a user has a previous installed IM I don't touch it, so the included IM is
only used when
nothing was found.
Another aspect is the redundancy: I'm not anymore a fan of downloading all
needed things on demand.
I often had the case that one of the FTP-servers were down or whatever and I
got bug reports about
this. As I explainded before, the overall download size is the same, if you
include it or not, but
including can reduce the size and assures that actual and tested versions are
used by the LyXers.
Concerning the contents of the installer:
The name "LyXWinInstaller small" implies for some users that there is something
missing, so I will
rename it to standard. The complete version is what the name says: complete. It
includes all things
you need for a full functional LaTeX environment. The programs delivered with
this are completely
independent from LyX, we don't need to take care about them so I don't
understand the resentments.
Building an installer that only installs LyX and nothing more can easily be
done but this is no good
decision. An installer is the first thing you see of a program so problems and
missing things carrys
weight.
My intention was to make installing LyX as easy as possible and use this to
advertise LyX. I know
many people and not everybody has a good computer knowledge but is able to use
LyX. Sometimes it is
really funny what I'm asked but this helps me to get down to understand what is
needed.
(For example I often was asked "How can I deinstall LyX? I can't find anything to
remove it." I'm
not joking but after some of these emails I added a link to uninstall LyX in
the start menu below
the link to the lyx.exe.)
I looked how other open source projects handle installer issues and I'm
inspired by the way of OOo:
The installer includes everything that is needed, so it could surely be smaller
in size but it works
for most of the users.
Concerning the support:
It costs me lot of time to answer all Windows related questions I get so of
course I want to reduce
them because: "You never hear from contented users, only from those having
problems."
What I really miss is the support: Joost for example changed the lyx.exe to
lyxc.exe to hide the
appearing command line window. This is a nice feature but nobody knows it.
Users asked where's the
debug output, why is lyx.exe so small, etc. Another example: We discussed last
week how to get rid
of the lyx.bat file and now Joost wrote me that he did this already - fine but
how and when, and why
does nobody know this? Users might perhaps have problems with this, ask on the
list but we couldn't
answer them.
I'm not speaking against Joost, I really appreciate his work, he pushed us a
huge step forward with
his work on Aspell, Aiksaurus, etc.
Create an installer that you want but support it! I'll remove my code ASAP from
SVN, sorry that my
doing provoke this debate.
---
The changes to Joost's installer I listed here
http://wiki.lyx.org/Windows/LyXWinInstaller
was, as I wrote, for the 1.4.3-installer from October 2006. To avoid confusions
I updated it.
---
Bo wrote:
* A more comfortable method to view/update PDF-files.
Does this assume the use of acrobat reader?
No.
Does it work with all versions of acrobat reader?
Yes.
What will happen if no acrobat reader is installed and PDF is associated with
something else?
Then this program is used.
I am in general oppose the idea of such a wrapper because of the maintenance
burden we
have to carry. Even if this wrapper answers all my concerns
positively, what if acrobat 11 is released and breaks view/pdf
totally?
Acrobat 8 _is_ already breaking view/pdf! This is independent from a wrapper.
Note that on 95 % of all Win systems Adobe reader/Acrobat is installed as
default PDF viewer.
* The shortcut "C-M-n" creates a new displayed formula that is already
numbered. The next version will also have a menu entry for this often
requested feature.
You can ignore this, this is in SVN since a while now.
* LyX comes with this slightly modified toolbar.
The same argument as above.
You can ignore this, not the case in current version.
* The installer has bundled the latest version of the German LyX math
manual LyXMathebefehle. It can be found in LyX's install folder
~\Resources\doc\de_LyXMathebefehle.lyx
The same argument as above.
You can ignore this, not the case in current version. The English counterpart,
the Extended-Math
manual is coming soon.
* The installer checks for programs to view/edit LaTeX-files. If you
need to have a look at the LaTeX-code LyX creates, for example to find
LaTeX-errors, all you have to do is to write the name of your editor
into the fields for the file format "LaTeX" in LyX's preferences.
After
a restart of LyX you'll have a new entry for LaTeX in LyX's view menu.
Isn't this standard?
No, but this is no longer needed thanks to you fantastic view source feature! I
really love this
feature as it saves so much time when testing out reported LaTeX-problems.
* The installer sets InstantPreview-graphics a bit larger as this was
often requested by users.
So only windows users have bad eyesight?
;-) I've never understood why the default is 0.9 instead of 1.0 scaling. Seems
to be a relict of the
times when Angus implemented this.
* Automatic installation of missing LaTeX-packages when you have an open
internet connection. All packages needed by LyX are automatically
downloaded when LyX is started/configured the first time. If you later
use LaTeX-packages in your documents that aren't already installed
they will automatically be installed when you view/export your
LyX-file.
You mean you turn on miktex/update-on-the-fly for users? This is
another example of maintenance burden of third-party applications.
What if a new version of miktex is released?
Do you use MiKTeX? The feature was partly build in for our needs. What's the
problem? The installer
supports MiKTeX 2.4 (that also has this feature in a slightly different way) as well as MiKTeX 2.5.
I worked together with the MiKTeX developer to fine tune this feature and it is ready since MiKTeX 2.5.
* If you have no access to the Internet, the complete installer version
delivers the needed LaTeX-packages (but not their documentation). To
install them, copy the folder latex from LyX's install folder to
MiKTeX's install sub folder ~\tex and then refresh MiKTeX's file name
database using the program MiKTeX Options.
Again, what if user has a newer or older version of miktex?
? I don't understand, this is independent from the MiKTeX version.
What if a
user has some special reason not to do so for his existing miktex
installation?
Then he don't do it; it's an offer for those who need this. LyX can be used
anyway.
This was requested several times, so I put it in.
Also, there is no way to guarantee that your bundled
file will work as expected.
The bundled file can be used if you have no access to the internet but want to
use all packages LyX
supports. And of course it is guaranteed that it works.
* Imagemagick, the program used by LyX for all sorts of images, and
Ghostscript which is needed to handle PDF and Postscript are bundled
together with the installer. This assures that you are using the
latest stable version especially of ImageMagick which is released very
often (and often with bugs).
Any difference from the official installer? The official installer
suggests a download and download for the user, which is IMHO a better
way than bundling a certain version of it.
Se me explanation above.
* The installer automatically downloads and installs Aspell dictionaries
for English, for the language set in your Windows, and for LyX's menu
language that you have chosen in the installer. You are prompted to
install more dictionaries if you like.
(4 different internet locations are used to assure that the
dictionaries
are at any time available.)
Any difference from the official one? I guess the 4 different
locations stuff can be easily added to the official installer.
This is not the thing, requested was this:
Aspell for English, for the language set in your Windows, and for LyX's
menu
language that you have chosen in the installer.
People didn't like long lists to choose. Butthis is not so important.
* The installer asks you to update MiKTeX also if you just have it
installed together with LyX. This assures that you have the latest
version and can benefit from the latest LaTeX-package updates and
bug fixes. The reason that updating MiKTeX should also be done for new
installations is that the MiKTeX-bundle, that is included in
the installer, is only provided one time per one or two months while
bug fixes/updates of LaTeX-packages are normally released every week.
This questions the value of bundled miktex packages.
No, the updates are installed using the internet. If the user don't want to
have MiKTeX be changed
nothing happens.
* The installer also installs the LaTeX-class files that comes
with LyX to MiKTeX.
This are the classes "cv", "broadway", "hollywood", and "revtex"
and the style
files "lyxskak" and "lyxchess". When LyX is uninstalled these
files will also be
uninstalled.
Again, make them available for all platforms or none.
This is already the case but they have to be registered to MiKTeX that people
can use them with LyX.
You find many questions about this in the users list "document class cv not
found", etc.
* The uninstaller allows you to uninstall MiKTeX and Aspell together
with LyX.
The same with the official one, right?
No.
* The installer supports Instant Preview. Look here to learn more
about it.
The same with the official one.
Yes. This section and the one about BibTeX have nothing to do with the
installer comparison.
From the questions above it seems to me that not everybody who criticize me is using LyX with
MiKTeX and have never tested my installer. I don't think it's fair to judge something you haven't
tested.
regards Uwe
