Paul A. Rubin wrote:
Richard Heck wrote:
On a slightly different note, at least in 1.6, it will be possible to
simplify some of this. Dang near everything you could ever want has
to be defined in the layout file because there's presently no easy
way to pull anything else in. In 1.6, on the other hand, we'll have
(we do have, in svn) what I call layout "modules" that allow you to
customize your layout by pulling in optional stuff. (There's stuff in
Document>Settings that allows you to do this.) So, if it seemed wise,
some of the less crucial stuff could be pulled out into a module, and
then people who needed it could include it, so that by default the
drop box would be less crowded. Of course, for 1.5, this isn't an issue.
Will the users be able to perform this customization from Doc>Settings
and save the modified layouts, or will they have to edit the layouts
themselves? (Or will some luckless soul have to revisit what I'm
doing now?) If it's one size fits all, deciding what goes into each
module will be NP-hard.
Users can load whatever modules they want. So you could, e.g., have a
stripped-down version that loaded theorem, lemma, etc, but left case,
example, etc, to a module. Loading modules is easy, so it's not a
problem for anyone to get the extra stuff. The modules themselves are
just layout files.
Here's an example of why this is cool. Suppose you're using article.cls,
but you want theorem environments. What do you have to do now? Edit
article.layout and probably save it as article-with-theorems.layout, and
then if you change your mind and want to use scrartcl.cls, you have to
edit scrartcl.layout, etc, etc. In 1.6, you load one of the Theorems
modules, and if you change your mind, it stays loaded. Or again: Suppose
you have some charstyles you like, so you save them in charstyles.inc
and include that in article.layout. Now you want to write a book, so you
have to edit book.layout, and if you change your mind about the document
class, you have no option but mass murder. In 1.6, you save your
charstyles to charstyles.module (and reconfigure!), then load the module
and live peacefully for the rest of your life.
Richard
--
==================================================================
Richard G Heck, Jr
Professor of Philosophy
Brown University
http://frege.brown.edu/heck/
==================================================================
Get my public key from http://sks.keyserver.penguin.de
Hash: 0x1DE91F1E66FFBDEC
Learn how to sign your email using Thunderbird and GnuPG at:
http://dudu.dyn.2-h.org/nist/gpg-enigmail-howto
