Re: URL question (also links, xref)

[Paul A. Rubin]

Timothy Reaves wrote:


    Paul, you summed up my thoughts exactly; I can't think of where I'd 
prefer the URL.sty over hyperref.  I'm not sure why anyone else would 
prefer URL.  And I must say, I do like LyX very much.  It's a bit ugly 
to see the ERT stuff directly in the document, when LyX otherwise does 
such a nice job.

There is one place where url.sty might outshine hyperref, at least for 
some people.  If you poke into the arcana of url.sty, I believe that you 
can exert a fair amount of influence over where a long URL gets broken. 
 I'm not sure how hyperref makes that decision, but I couldn't find any 
relevant hyperref parameters other than the on/off switch for 
line-breaking.  I know that some people are (justifiably) finicky about 
breaking URLs at "natural" break points (for instance, at a path 
separator) rather than willy-nilly.

That said, the current support for url.sty in LyX doesn't facilitate 
changing the line-breaking parameters anyway (meaning you'll need to use 
ERT, and you'll need a deeper understanding of the package than just 
"the text goes here, the URL goes there"), so I still think "the greater 
good for the greater number" is to support hyperref and relegate url.sty 
to ERT.

Plus supporting hyperref would give some lucky developer a chance to 
write a configuration dialog with several thousand options.  :-)

/Paul