Roberto Gorjão wrote:
Hi all,
I would like to learn a bit more of LaTeX. I found surprising that we
couldn't edit latex code directly on LyX at source view... Being used to
web page visual editors, I was expecting that the source viewer would
function like a "code mode" that we could choose as an alternative to
the normal "design mode", as happens with dreamweaver, for instance. I
know that we can edit LaTeX with the ERT command and at the preamble,
but it isn't really the same as a "code mode".
As I'm already used to code web languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP)
using Eclipse I was happy to find about the TeXlipse plugin. But it
seems far less complete than LEd or TeXnic. I would like to know what's
your opinion about the best strategy and tools to learn and work
directly on LaTeX while keep using LyX for text creation. Something like
having dreamweavers' "design mode" and "code mode" at the same time.
This is really a question for the developers, but here's my uninformed
opinion. Most of a LyX document is in what you might call an internal
representation (what you see when you look at the .lyx file). LyX
converts that to LaTeX when you view source. I think it would be fairly
easy to allow you to edit LaTeX code that came from the preamble or ERT
boxes (stuff you entered directly), but to do what you want would
require that LyX be able to do a reverse conversion (from LaTeX back to
LyX) on the fly. Furthermore, it would require considerable defensive
coding to make sure that what you entered in the edit window, which
might be perfectly valid LaTeX, did not screw up the LyX code upon
reverse conversion. So this would IMHO be a huge effort for the developers.
I'm not sure the payoff would be all that great. Typically, I think,
the sort of LaTeX tweaking you have in mind is something I would do in
preparation for a final draft, not during the writing of the document.
So I would be content to export to LaTeX, edit the LaTeX in a simple
text editor, and go that route. I would probably use LyX Note boxes to
keep track, in the document, of any tweaks I intended to make, to
preserve them in the event the final edit was not actually final.
That's less convenient than what you have in mind, but workable. Keep
in mind with Dreamweaver (which I also use) that in Dreamweaver you are
editing HTML, which is a much simpler language than LaTeX (with a much
smaller vocabulary).
Cheers,
Paul
