All -- I can see this is a controversial topic. Once again I'd like to stress that I'm advocating a program completely separate from LyX, not needed by LyX. LyX need not know anything about this program. People using LyX can continue using it exactly as they've always used it, without this program.
The program I suggest simply creates styles using templates and a few questions. The use of styles is the foundation of LyX and LaTeX. Even TeX makes style creation fairly easy (much easier than in current LyX). A style creator makes style creation easier for someone like me, and makes it possible for the masses. Perhaps the masses will create lousy styles, but their alternative is MS Word, and we all know how great MS Word docs look. If anyone wants to help plan this little program, let's kick around some ideas. On Monday 09 July 2007 15:33, Michael Anderson wrote: > Steve, > I really can't see why you would want to reduce LaTeX or LyX to a > competitor to Word. I see it not as a reduction, but an expansion. LyX and LaTeX remain what they are -- great typesetting programs. But using a style creation program, LyX expands its reach into wordprocessing. Why not, it doesn't in any way hurt LyX's current useage -- it just brings it to a whole different group of people. > They are designed for completely different > purposes and markets. I also take exception the concept of such a > comparison, just on the principle they were never intended to be > anything like one another. Viagra was originally intended to lower blood pressure and reduce chest pains. Then another usage was discovered. Nobody said "we can't use it for that -- it's intended to be a blood pressure medicine." > Lets compare apples to apples here, LaTeX was written for technical > writing and by its very essence designed to remove the author from > creating style so the author could focus on the content. I, > personally, make no advocacy one way or the other, as it is stated in > both the mission statements of LyX and LaTeX that their goal is to > remove this component from those who have no idea what they are doing > and keep it firmly with those who do. I couldn't find this as a goal in any docs I saw. It's not one of TeX's ten reasons (http://ctan.org/what_is_tex.html). Separating content from appearance is usually a good thing, but that doesn't mean *preventing* people from doing one or the other, and as mentioned, I didn't see that as a design goal of TeX in the CTAN docs I looked at.. > The learning curve that is > involved in creating new styles is there for a reason, which is to > keep things clean and elegant and created only by those who have > taken the time to learn what it really takes to create beautiful > documents. I don't believe that. I doubt that Donald Knuth deliberately put roadblocks to prevent non-typesetting-people from creating styles. He was a programmer and computer scientist, and that's not how programmers and computer scientists work. He created a Turing complete computer language whose purpose was layout and typesetting, and the syntax of that language fit the problem domain. I doubt he deliberately obfuscated TeX to protect documents from non-layout people or general newbies. > I've been using LaTeX and LyX for years now, and I have > never found a situation where I couldn't use a little ERT or read the > existing documentation and get exactly what I want with an existing > style. You make an excellent point about reading the documentation. IMHO ERT is very bad if consistent quality is a goal. ERT in the frontmatter is cool, but within the document's mainmatter and backmatter, I'd MUCH rather see style based formatting than ERT. > LyX by itself is easy enough to learn that you don't need to > go around flippantly creating style files. LyX may be easy to learn, but I've never seen a document class yielding every style necessary to complete the document. As far as flippantly creating styles, one creates styles to map with usages within the document. I wouldn't call that flippant. > We shouldn't be lowering > the learning curve for for those who don't want to learn how to do > things the right way, Yes we should. Without such lowering of the learning curve, they'll do it an even wronger way -- MS Word. > but should be actively engaged in teaching the > proper use and established methods for creating documents. Exactly. One of the most proper and established methods to create documents is the use of styles. > This is > where Word went wrong, by making it too easy to change anything you > want, you generally get crap for a result. I just can't agree with > putting the effort into creating something that could open those kind > of doors. I'm not advocating any change in LyX. I'm advocating a separate product that helps people make styles using templates. This in no way harms current LyX users -- they can continue to use it the way they always use it. > I too have done self-publishing, but before I did I spent years > studying proper page layout and construction as a calligrapher. To > be blunt I've seen too much junk put out into the world by those who > thought that they knew what a "proper" page style and set up was to > agree with the implementation of this concept on any level. Not agreeing with it won't raise the world's level of page beauty -- it will lower it as people continue to use MS Word, which actively encourages fine tuning of everything, over LyX, which actively encourages use of styles. Another thing -- I'd rather live in a world where people write in atrocious scribbles than live in a world where people don't write at all, because MS Word ate their document or confused them to the point where further authoring was hopeless. With the exception of style creation, LyX is much more straightforward than MS Word, and with the recent LyX addition of outline view, LyX now competes well on features. > I think that were we are disagreeing here is that you think the > fault lies exclusively with the software ( Openoffice, Word, etc.), > this is however not the case. I think it's exactly the case. When it takes me an entire day to create a single style to portray a note, warning or tip in a 60% wide, centered and shaded box, then there's something wrong with the software. When OpenOffice "magically" changes the styles I've created, that's a software problem. When MS Word keeps my document in a proprietary binary format, or a proprietary obfuscated XML format, that's a software problem. > The fault lies with the people, not > the software. When those without experience are give too much > control over the nuance of typesetting; the software, regardless of > its quality, is still going to produce a crappy document. Once again, with an information rich book, I'd be quite willing to forgive wierd or "ugly" formatting to get the information. I wouldn't call it a crappy document just because the nuance of typesetting are wrong. > I think > that we should be less interested in trying to automate that which > for the past (20+) has been left un-automated, and be more interested > in trying to get people to learn the right way to create beautiful > type. For tech books, I'd prioritize beautiful type considerably below useful content. For fiction books and novels, I'd prioritize beautiful type considerably below plot and character development. The only place I'd prioritize beautiful type above content is in coffee table books. > Think about it, they could have implemented this idea of yours > at anytime since LaTeX was written, the technology has always been > there. (Word has demonstrated this.) And yet, no one has done it. > Have you taken a second to ask why that is? The same logic could be applied to LyX character styles. From 1999 thru what, 2004 we used emphasis and monofont instead of character styles, or if we were really desparate, we used Dekl Tsur's color text workaround. Perhaps we didn't have character styles because they're bad. In fact, LyX character styles have eliminated all sorts of kludgy workarounds we formerly used. I doubt anyone would want to roll back the clock to the time before LyX character styles. > As I was learning about > LaTeX, I found that the reasons I've been outlining are the exact > reason that this has never been implemented. Take a few minutes and > read the CTAN articles about how LaTeX and TeX came about. They > explain this very clearly, the average person (myself included) > should not be allowed to dictate document style without the proper > training and study. That's not how I see it. SteveT Steve Litt Author: Universal Troubleshooting Process books and courseware http://www.troubleshooters.com/
