David Neeley wrote:
Rich,
I read nothing in Mr. Gonzalez' suggestion that would require that you
or anyone else "come down to that level." Adding the ability to create
a layout from the LyX GUI does not mean that you would lose any
ability for you to "roll your own." It might, though, encourage new
users to get going more quickly--and some of them will be interested
enough to learn how to dig deeper and get the additional power that
comes from mastering the nuts and bolts.
I am by no means a completely "clueless newby"--yet I am new to LyX
and to LaTeX. Thus, I am in the earlier parts of the learning curve. I
believe that some ability to more easily operate from the LyX
interface to create or modify layouts would be a boon to faster
productivity.
For example, I am now working on a document that should be a great
help in getting my next job. I am doing it in LyX simply to have
something that will cause me to continue to dig in and expand my
familiarity that much faster. However, dealing with little things that
should be easy to find is taking far longer than writing the document
itself. I can see that as I become more familiar with things, my
writing time should decline greatly, even compared to all the word
processors I am familiar with (which includes most of the ones you
have heard of over the past twenty years or so--part of my consulting
work over the years has included evaluation of software and hardware
tools for businesses and organizations of all sorts).
My work has led me to believe that the word processing paradigm is
wrong for those actually interested in productivity with a
high-quality end result. When I have done technical writing
assignments, I have learned firsthand how many people screw up their
documents by not learning to use styles intelligently--leading to
major problems in doing version upgrades of documentation. In my view,
therefore, the LyX approach would enforce a more sensible practice,
making future revisions that much easier to deal with. That is, in
fact, why I began this process.
That said, there are some fairly obvious things that could make life
easier for everyone--and Mr.Gonzalez' suggestion is a very major one.
That anyone might resent the idea of making things easier for the new
or casual user is unfortunate. However, this is a large reason that
LyX has not taken off far more than it has.
David
On 5/23/06, Rich Shepard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Tue, 23 May 2006, Enrique S Gonzalez Di Totto wrote:
> I know adding such a feature must be quite a large undertaking, but
writing
> .layout files or even one single line of LaTeX code is too steep a
learning
> curve for the average Word user to ever climb.
Then, perhaps, the average Word user should stick to that and not
make any
attempts to learn LaTeX, or even LyX. For those with learning
disabilities,
stick to what's available in shrink-wrapped packages for the Microsoft
environment. Don't suggest that the rest of us come down to that level.
Rich
LyX is a front-end for Latex. Word should not be compared to LyX, but
perhaps to OpenOffice. WinEdt, Scientific Workplace (SWP) or maybe
Texnic are in the same category and have a great deal more relevance
when considering inspirations for menus and toolbars.
The average Word user has no need at all for LyX. The average Word
user doesn't even use 1/10 of Word's capability, much less those
areas in which LyX/Latex are superior to Word.
> Enrique: or even one single line of LaTeX code is too steep a
> learning curve for the average Word user to ever climb.
LyX is for those who have encountered the limitations of Word.
LyX was never intended to be a replacement for Word or duplicate
its functions although there is some overlap.
I can't think of any good reason for the average Word user
to learn LyX. LyX/Latex is for those who are not average Word users.
> David: -and Mr.Gonzalez' suggestion is a very major one.
> That anyone might resent the idea of making things easier for the new
> or casual user is unfortunate. However, this is a large reason that
> LyX has not taken off far more than it has.
LyX developers already try to make the menus easier and
toolbars more available for _all_ users. I don't think Rich resents
making things easier, but the completely ignorant notion that making
Lyx menus more like Word menus would accomplish such a goal. ERTs
will be the area where there is the least overlap, and Lyx is needed
for areas which are not for the average user, it is more specialized:
A comment about *tex from Peter Flynn:
>> Hendrik Maryns: The TeX language is one of the
>> worst-designed and incomprehensible languages ever invented.
Peter Flynn replied:
"It was designed by a computer scientist and mathematician for doing
the kind of things computer scientists and mathematicians do, and as
a byproduct it also happens to do some non-math, non-scientific
typesetting. You should not expect it to be usable by end users: like
the TeXbook, it was designed for use by computer scientists and
typographic programmers."
LyX is a front-end for Latex which makes this easier and its
intended audience is for people who require more than Wordpad.
LyX needs to capture migrating Word users who would be attracted
to other front-ends like SWP, TeXnic or WinEdt. It is not a
substitute or replacement for Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice etc.
Regards,
Stephen
