Uwe> - use the class 'scrbook' instead of 'book' (scrbook has a better Uwe> implementation of environments and is recommended by TUG and Uwe> Dante)
I agree that scrbook is better than book, but are we sure that everybody will have a working version of it? I mean, not just everybody with a two years old linux distribution, but really most people.
The koma-schript classes scr* are standard on all LeTeX2e distributions.
I read also that scrbook leans towards european users. Is that true?
I don't know what you mean. The reason why the scr*-classes are made is the printing space, see the documentation of koma-script. (The printing space is calculated automatically for every page dimesion, also for non ISO formats like USletter. (Correct me if I'm wrong.))
Uwe> - use A4-paper instead of 'standard'
How does that print on USletter paper? I thought there were still quite a lot of people using that... I am not sure that a4 is a better default than usletter (OK, I agree that it is a better standard, and this is what I use....).
I googled and found out, that USletter is 8.5 x 11 inches that is in SI-Units: 216 x 279 mm A4 is 210 x 279 mm so this shouldn't produce problems. (Maybe I'm wrong with the sizes, could somebody check it?)
Uwe> - set margins (scrbook has a beautiful print space but most of
Uwe> the users won't print out the doc. So I used the two-sided style
Uwe> but centerd the text in the page for better viewing on the
Uwe> screen)
I do not agree with this one: setting margins by direct manipulation of \textwidth and fiends is the kind of thing which is frown upon, to say the least. Why didn't you use LyX UI to set the margins?
OK seting the margins by hand is always a nasty hack. It is better to remove this stuff, because scrbook calculates the dimensions automatically, as said above. This has furthermore the advantage that the margin note in chapter 4.2 will appear correct.
Moreover, it is very subjective to say that people will not print the documentation. I could say that people who do not print the doc will browse it inside LyX and so all the special pdf support if not really needed.
You are right. I thought, that most of the users won't print it on paper but will read the userguide in pdf-format, because pdf offers the best way to browse in the document.
Uwe> - added vertiacal space between footnotes (when you have more tan
Uwe> one footnote at a page, they 'adhere' together)
Your redefinition of \footnote seems very fragile to me. What about setting a value to \footnotesep instead? Anyway I would tend to leave document classes defaults as they are, since what one user may find ugly may be to the taste of another one.
\footnotesep doesn't make the job. I don't know why. And you convinced me again. It is not really necessary.
Uwe> - delete the unneeded declaration of non-T1 encoded characters
Uwe> use the package textcomp instead (see also the note above the
Uwe> table in chapter 6.6.3)
In what latex version was textcomp.sty added to base latex?
Don't know, but the actual version is from 2001/06/05 and the .sty says copyright till 1993. (The actual preamble of the userguide is from 1997, possibly textcomp wasn't standard at this time.)
I tend to agree that we should use it but, again, we must stay on the safe side.
Uwe> - let the index appear in the TOC with the package tocbibind
If we are to stay with scrbook, we might as well use the built-in class options that this class provides...
Could this be done with scrbook options? How? I added this, because it is used in the de_* files for years.
Concerning tocbibind itself, it dates from 1998, so one could consider that it will be present on any system capable of building LyX.
(actual version is 2003/02/04 v1.5f)
Uwe> - added support for linked cross-references and URLs with the Uwe> package hyperref (you can click on all footnotes, Uwe> cross-references and URLs in dvi or pdf output. The TOC entries Uwe> are also clickable. In pdf output you can furthermore use Uwe> bookmarks)
I am not sure I like that. Hyperref is great as long as it works. There are a lot of horror stories about subtly incompatible versions of hyperref, babel, or whatever.
I met the maintainer of hyperref last week, asked him about problems with babel and tocbibind and he denied. I also tested it together with usual packages and couldn't see any conflicts.
It works with the doc, because only tocbibind and babel is used. I also tested babel with different languages and the LaTeX-output with tex4ht.
LaTeX2html has also full hyperref-support.
I'd rather avoid it in the documentations (for the reasons outlined above).
Hey, this was the reason why I provided a new userguide version. Linked cross references (in dvi too!) are a dream when you want to read large documents.
If we really want to generate nice pdf docs (and we should definitely have some on our site!) we can always use tex2pdf: http://tex2pdf.berlios.de/
Why don't you want to use the pdftex engine? This is always up to date and part of all usual LaTeX2e-distibution.
And when you look at the tex2pdf page, you can read the following:
Primary dependencies
* Perl: As tex2pdf is a Perl script it requires Perl of course. ;-)
* pdftex: generates PDF documents from LaTeX. Unfortunately, it
cannot handle EPS graphics. This missing feature is the main
reason why the tex2pdf project has started ...
* epstopdf: translates EPS images in PDF ones.
* hyperref: LaTeX package to integrate (colored) links in your PDF
doc. It's great!When using pdftex together with LyX, epstopdf is automatically used for eps-images. And for linked cross-references you need hyperref too.
Uwe> - clean up the document: - the TOC pages are numbered roman
Why didn't you use \fronmatter/\mainmatter/\backmatter?
What's the difference? The commands also have to be inserted as ERT, or am I wrong here?
Uwe> - clean up the bibliography - arrange the doc, so that most of Uwe> the 'overfull \hbox' and font warnings in the LaTeX-logfile Uwe> disappear - rearrange chapter 4.3.1.1 - rearrange chapter 6.6.3 - Uwe> delete the chapter names of chapter 1.2.2.1, 3.4.4.1 and the old Uwe> chapter 5.6.1 (because if there is only a chapter 5.6.1 but no Uwe> 5.6.2, it is unnecessary to have an extra chapter-level)
This I like.
I'll also add some comments to this page:
http://wiki.lyx.org/pmwiki.php/DevelDoc/UserGuide
later this day.
Thanks for your comments and regards Uwe
