Jeremy, I'm a humanities user as well (history) so I understand your frustration.... however, I'll take an approach most similar to your #1 -- "you're wrong": Lyx requires a little more investment in document structures, formatting, and so on, which is the point of most of the discussion on the list. However, once you get it set up correctly, you can leave it alone and everything works well, almost all of the time. I'm currently writing my diss (with jurabib and Jabref) and if I compile my document now, of course the bibliographic citations in the footnotes aren't exactly how I want them. I know that at some point I'll take a couple of hours, spread over a couple of days, to RTFMs, search the list archives and wiki, and even ask a question or two on the relevant list. I'll get the answers I need, then make a couple changes, and everything will work right. As long as I stay in my field, I'll probably never need to ask those questions again. Over the long run, this is a great investment of my time. (This is, of course, a recapitulation in micro of the overall philosophy of LyX - concentrate on the writing, which computers do not do well, and leave the typesetting and formatting to the machine.)
The other thing is that many of us use LyX because we think it's a superior solution for our needs, of course, but also because we like the helpful community here. It's a place where people communicate with respect toward each other, and contribute when it's possible to do so. The willingness to pitch in and make things work -- either for yourself or for everyone else as well -- is a key part of this community. Not all of us, including me, have the time or inclination to learn how to code, but I deeply appreciate those who do. So -- how can people like us help? Wide-ranging criticism is not the best answer. Detailed requests -- "i can make it do X by placing this ERT in each footnote, but could we perhaps have a button or macro to handle that automatically?" are more helpful to the developers. When we figure out how to solve a problem that vexes us, we can post our solution to the list or the wiki, to make it part of the public record. (I'm quite grateful to the multiple participants in the "Convert to Word" discussions of a while ago, for example.) We humanists have particular expertise with documentation - perhaps creating, revising, or tweaking the docs may be of help. In short, please appreciate this community both for what it is and what it is not; and if you are looking to contribute, there are many ways of doing so. Best regards, -Eric On 6/19/06, Juergen Spitzmueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Jeremy Wells wrote: > I suppose what I'm hoping for is someone to say 1) "no, you're wrong, > because..."; 2) "wait x number of years and we'll be there"; or 3) "if you > don't like coding, use a different tool." No: 4) Sit down, learn coding and implement the features you are missing. Or at least: 5) write down your enhancement wishes clearly and try to convince some kind soul to implement it for you. This is an open source project, not a company where you can complain to. Jürgen
