On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 12:57 PM, stefano franchi <stefano.fran...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Oct 4, 2014 9:54 AM, "Jürgen Spitzmüller" <sp...@lyx.org> wrote: >> >> stefano franchi wrote: >> > > Both cannot. The command line simply allows you to ignore the error >> > > with >> > > whatever visible or invisible consequences this has. LyX does not let >> > > you >> > > get >> > > away with it. The error needs to be fixed anyway. >> > >> > I understand that, but why is this? >> >> Why not? > > Sorry my message got truncated. What I meant to say was: > Why does LyX fail compilation when programs like kile are able to continue > past the error? It does not seem to be a technical constraint but a > conscious decision. > > I understand that the error will need to be fixed sooner or later. But in > some tricky cases (like this one) the error may hard to find. Indeed I have > already spent four hour bisecting my document and I haven't pinned it down > yet. As I keep looking, my only choice to keep working on the content is to > export to latex and compile from command line or form mile. Wouldn't it be > better to emulate the latter behavior in LyX? Unless I'm wrong about the > technical constraints, of course.
The answer to "Why?", as Jürgen stated, is that it is important that the user knows that there is an error so that the error can be fixed as soon as possible. It would be irresponsible of LyX not to make sure you know that a command failed. You might think then that we could just issue a warning, but I don't think things are that simple (as a permanent LyX solution). For example, if a document is exported from LyX on the command line, the warning is shown but there is a non-zero exit code so such a user might not realize there is a problem. I understand your argument, Stefano. It is a reasonable one and also a common one. For example, if you have a deadline to meet and a certain error that you think might not even affect the output of the PDF (and even if there is a chance, you could proof check the PDF manually), you just want your PDF and don't have time to think about fixing a possibly minor error. However, I think this is a feature request and not a bug. You might want to open a trac ticket because this type of conversation comes up from time to time and is likely to come up very often in 2.2 if we start stopping compilation when BibTeX errors occur (see http://www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/2757). Input from your side of the debate is important since we don't have any developer currently defending that (popular) feature request and it is important to understand and try to accommodate all workflows. If you do open a feature request, please mention exactly how Kile handles the situation. It's very useful to compare LyX with other programs and in this case appears to strengthen your argument. Off topic, this is an example of why versioning is useful. I use git and whenever I come across such a complicated issue, I just look at the differences between my current revision and the last "good" revision. I hope you get this frustrating issue figured out soon. It certainly sounds annoying. Scott
