[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Enrique S Gonzalez Di Totto wrote:
As a new user, to me clearly the most important feature missing from
LyX is the ability to create new document classes with custom
enviroments using the LyX GUI.
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.
Are you talking about document classes or layouts here? They are quite
different. One is instructions for the appearance of your document after
it has been processed by LaTeX, the other how your document should be
presented on screen by LyX.
Btw, in my opinion creating a new typographic appearance for a document
is well beyound the average user - LyX or Word. In fact, I doubt I'd be
able to produce something that looks good. (I'm not talking about doing
some minor tweaking of an existing style here, but actually doing one
from scratch). If possible, I'd leave this to people with
(typo)graphical talents.
/Christian
Well, there are already a menu-driven screens under Document
for text layout and page layout for instance. So they already
exist and don't need to be created for the "average Word user".
Lyx comes with layout files. But sometimes you get a strange .cls
file from the internet (ACM recently) that needs to have a .layout
file created for it (Latex refresh fndb and Reconfigure LyX).
The casual user, LyXer or Word, modifies a closest fit
pre-existing layout file and you don't need to do much.
Creating such a file from scratch, or even tweaking the
new modified file takes quite a bit of knowledge that one
isn't going to (cannot) find neatly presented on a menu,
(like the quick&dirty method).
Designing such a menu seems quite ambitious, even for a
subset of possibilities. I would have thought it impossible
if Steve Litt, who wrote the layout tutorial, hadn't said
he thought it was a good idea. It just seems so dynamic!
What we need here is a breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence,
so I'm having trouble fathoming building a menu-driven new .cls
or .layout file creator as even a debatable possibility that
doesn't need expert human supervision and knowledge feedback.
I am really interested to see how this (can possibly) works.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating not the view,
Stephen
