As a note aside: I am planning to go to TUG2002 in India in September and holding a talk presenting several paradigms for approaching WYSIWYG editing for LaTeX. Since India has very special typesetting needs (about a dozen different local languages, and corresponding scripts/alphabets) and has a better availability of talent as compared to that of computing power, this conference offers a very unique opportunity for eventually extending LaTeX's user base considerably. There will be talks and tutorials, and opportunity both for people not previously exposed to LaTeX to get to know it, as well as to show existing users of LaTeX the full range of tools available, which might not only help them get along better with LaTeX, but also persuade others to the use of it.
While you probably could easily imagine a more suitable proponent for your cause, and while my level of expertise with LyX will clearly be insufficient for either a talk dedicated entirely to it, or a tutorial in connection with it, I would not want to miss pointing out those aspects and advantages of LyX that make it a tool of choice for some users. One thing that I am aware of is the math editor. BTW, as is often the case with Free Software, one question for which the answer would interest me is in what degree it might be possible to rip it off as a component to be used in separate environments: click on a formula in Emacs, get a LyX formula editor fired up, perhaps in a different window (embedding into an Emacs window would be cool, but probably unrealistic), edit and then have the formula integrated back into the buffer. Of course, this would probably be non-nice if it implies LaTeX import and reexport, losing all formatting and probably hand-adjustments in spacing and stuff. I am digressing. Obviously, the math editor will be a big starting help for some users. What other features would you find worth having pointed out (apart from preview-LyX, in case it gets into a demonstratable state by conference time, or at least into a stage where one can be reasonably sure that its implementation will get followed through eventually)? The talk focuses about WYSIWYG aspects of editing, but if there are particular other advantages to using LyX not immediately connected with that aspect, I might squeeze them in. In due time for the conference, I will ask again here about what version I should use for demonstrations: it should be a reasonably stable version as long as all features to be demonstrated can be made to work with it. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
