Am 12.03.2018 um 04:32 schrieb Richard Heck:
That is a serious mistake: to focus on "average users". But it has
clearly become pointless to discuss this any longer.
Dear Richard,
I cannot leave this commented because it is too fundamental. I tried to
calm down, but cannot.
What is LyX for? It is a frontend for LaTeX. It is designed to hide
LaTeX from the users. Because of this I came once to LyX: "Cool, I don't
have to learn LaTeX but can use it!". This way I used it for about a
year for internship protocols at the University. So long after I came to
LyX I started to learn what is behind it.
As new LyX user you will first learn in sec. 6 of the UserGuide
something of LaTeX and there also not about package handling.
( Users liking to work with LaTeX directly can and will use other
editors like TeXWorks.)
So the average user does not know how LaTeX works, what a package is and
how it is installed or uninstalled.
As I wrote, most of my students and colleagues at the University uses
LyX for large documents without knowing anything about LaTeX.
Why don't you trust my experience in helping LyX users? Why should I lie
to you with my experience?
Therefore our main userbase are just users. The task of the installer is
to provide a working LyX for them.
Users with more knowledge know what to do and how LaTeX works. Therefore
I won't bother the majority of users with a decision they cannot make
because lack of knowledge. I explained now a dozen times why I cannot
allow these users to deny an update because then their LaTeX can be
broken and they are lost.
The experienced users have already all possibilities to handle LaTeX
differently as I wrote.
I won't repeat this anymore now. Please add an appropriate sentence to
the announcement or release notes for the experienced users that then
will have to set "Never" in miktex for the package handling if they like
to. But also tell them the risks of this.
I do not know how we should resolve this matter now. But, longer term,
we need someone to create a Windows installer that JUST installs LyX,
much the way the OSX installer does. As JMarc said, users on OSX seem to
manage to install a LaTeX distribution, etc, independently. Surely
Windows users can manage to do the same.
I cannot accept that you are telling me what is good for Windows users.
I explained my decision but you are not understanding. Why don't you try
it out yourself to see what can happen?
I would also not start a debate how to handle with LyX under Mac or
Linux because I don't know these OSes or don't use them. Do you use
MiKTeX? Do you use LyX under Windows? Do you know LyX Windows users who
don't know LaTeX? So why do you state what is good for them?
It has become a serious problem the extent to which *MiKTeX* bugs now
delay LyX releases,
When did we had the last time a delay because of a bug in MiKTeX? We had
much, much more problems in the past with ImageMagick. I had to create
many installer builds because of this program.
LyX was never meant to be so closely integrated with a particular LaTeX
distribution, and it was a mistake to make it so.
Again, please try our LyX under windows by yourself before you continue.
take a Win users without knowledge of LaTeX and they should use TeXLive.
Then you'll see.
It is unacceptable that you tell me what mistakes I made. You know
nothing about TeXLive and its problem in the past. We had many
discussions with users and the current installer is the result. For more
than 10 years I provide it and spent hundreds of ours in supporting
users. I tried to fix problem, as fast as possible.
I give up now.
Uwe
