Steve Litt wrote:


Oh dear lord! I did this, as is my habit:

/usr/share/lyx/configure.py

So just for fun, I did lyx->tools->reconfigure, quit, restart lyx, and now storybook showed up. Thanks for the reminder.

Hah! And here I thought I was the only one on the list with memory lapses! :-)

This brings up another problem. Without an automated way to reconfigure, debugging will take literallly two or three times longer. Can /usr/share/lyx/configure.py /usr/share/lyx/configure.py be modified to do exactly the same thing as lyx->tools->reconfigure, quit, restart lyx?

I don't have an answer to this, but since I just debugged some modules this morning, I may have something to point out. Reconfiguring LyX is only necessary when you add a layout or module. Once the layout/module file is there, you can edit it, and LyX only needs a restart (not a reconfigure) to pick up the changes.

Also, I think it would be a great idea for LyX, on loading, to write to a log all info about discovered document classes. Every entry would have a timestamp. It might look something like this:

CHECKING SYSTEM WIDE DIRECTORIES FOR LAYOUTS
        dir /usr/share/lyx/layouts/
                /usr/share/lyx/layouts/seminar.layout: Loaded doc class 
"seminar"
                /usr/share/lyx/layouts/siamltex.layout: Loaded doc class "{article 
(SIAM)"
/usr/share/lyx/layouts/sigplanconf.layout: FAILED to load doc class "article (ACM SIGPLAN)", reason
                /path/to/other/systemwide/layouts
                        ...
CHECKING CURRENT DIRECTORY
        dir /d/at/books/stories
                /d/at/books/stories/storybook.layout: Loaded doc class 
"storybook"
CHECKING PERSONAL LYX LAYOUT DIRECTORY
        dir /home/slitt/.lyx/layouts
                dir /home/slitt/.lyx/layouts/tttt.layout: Loaded doc class 
"tttt"
                dir /home/slitt/.lyx/layouts/ttotst.layout: Loaded doc class 
"ttotst"
dir /home/slitt/.lyx/layouts/storybook.layout: FAILED to load doc class "storybook", class already loaded


That same log could be written by /usr/share/lyx/configure.py because I'm pretty sure that investigates all directories also.

With the log file in place, layout/class troubleshooting wouldn't be a black box -- we'd have a diagnostic tool that could save the classmaker and/or author hours.


Not a bad idea IMHO.

/Paul

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