Le 29/09/2016 à 19:02, Tommaso Cucinotta a écrit :
Hi all,
quite some time I don't write to this list, but in an attempt to find
back some motivational push towards contributing again to the project, I
recently proposed to provide a 15-min demo about LyX at the upcoming
LinuxDay, on Oct 22nd in Pisa (Italy), and I've just been notified that
this might really happen :-)! Thought it would be good to notify LyX
folks, but also to write to hear a quick re-cap of what happened in the
last couple of years, and also gather some opinions about what's best to
show about the tool, in a 15-mins time window, in an event like this
(besides the Advanced F&R -- are people still using that :-)?)
Hi Tommaso,
1) Distinctive and decisive features of LyX (at least for me):
* Change tracking for collaborative authorship, or even just for
suggesting corrections to someone writing in LyX.
* Anyone who had to suggest corrections to a co-author or student, or
received such suggestions, knows the pain of going from e-mail/print
back to the editor window and checking that everything was taken
into account (on either people's side). Change tracking keeps track
of everything in a single location.
* It is a complement of, not a rival to, version control systems.
There is a good synergy with git in my experience.
This is a “how did we do before this?”-feature. All the rest below are
more a matter of personal habit. But having and making use of change
tracking in any collaboration, or of some alternative I have yet to
hear of (Word and Google Docs being excluded in an academic context),
is a matter a professionalism.
* Semantic edition of math equations:
* Selections/copy-paste that respects the boundaries (i.e. no chasing
of closing braces, etc.)
* Semantic edition of grids (array, align environment).
Easily add/delete/swap rows/columns. Example of copy row (Alt+M W
C) to quickly perform lines of calculation.
* Typing LaTeX commands with the keyboard together with
auto-completion and immediate notice of typos (best of both
worlds).
* Math macros (with different display in PDF and in LyX).
All these make LyX not just a tool for the final step of writing
a paper/dissertation: it can entirely serve as a notebook. I think
this can clear up some misconceptions about LyX in more LaTeX-oriented
communities.
2) Some things that did not work so well before and work much better in
LyX 2.2, and which are easy to show:
* Instant preview of math (in fact the SVG/LaTeX integration that was
posted recently in combination with the preview inset would make a
good demo: the picture uses the surrounding font and font style, and
instant preview reflects the changes in real time).
* Code preview which follows the cursor.
* Hi-DPI thanks to Qt5, and kerning/ligatures on screen (important for
Hebrew or Arabic, Jean-Marc surely knows more about this).
3) Other than that, basics, of course:
* No fingerpainting of text styles
* Nice PDF output, LyX takes care of all compilation steps
* Bibliography browser
* Cross-references (copy/paste label as reference)
* Outliner
It's also useful to say that LyX has many bugs and quirks, but that we
use it (and like it) anyway, for lack of anything that comes close to
it. (My own experience, again.)
Best,
Guillaume
