bibtex in UTF8 work? How to cancel bibtexkey escape in Lyx?

[baiwensimi]

I found utf8 based bibtex works in XeTeX, even BibtexKey in utf8. But
Lyx did not support it good when cite more than one items. the latex
source code show that the utf8 bibtexkey will be escaped. How can I
cancel this escape?

I test in both linux and mac:

OS: archlinux 3.2.6-2
TeX: texlive 2012
bibtex: 0.99d
Lyx: 2.0.2

OS: Mac OS X 10.7.3
TeX: MacTeX 2011
Lyx: 2.0.2

Re: Bibliography heading stranded

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 18, 2012, at 2:40 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

 Richard Heck wrote:
   With one of the fonts I've been experimenting with there was a single
   character outside the right-justified margin on one page. I have a
   feeling that wouldn't be so easy to fix.
  
 My experience is that with the below penalty changes, such overfull boxes 
 never appear:
  
 \tolerance 1414
 \hbadness 1414
 \emergencystretch 1.5em
 \hfuzz 0.3pt
  
 Furthermore
  
 \usepackage{microtype}

Thanks, Jürgen. Are these used when needed or do you use them with every 
document?

Thanks for the link, too.

--
Eric Weir
eew...@bellsouth.net

The invincible shield of caring
Is a weapon sent from the sky 
against being dead. 

- Tao Te Ching 67

Re: Bibliography heading stranded

[Jürgen Spitzmüller]

Eric Weir wrote:
 Thanks, Jürgen. Are these used when needed or do you use them with every
 document?

Meanwhile, I include this rather routinely.

Jürgen

Why do YOU love LyX?

[Russell D Brunelle]

If you have a good idea, then there's something special (I'm almost 
tempted to say sacred) about committing it to paper.


The emergence of abstract thinking was an early inflection point in the 
development of our species. The invention of written language was another. 
The invention of the printing press was yet another.


More recently, LaTeX made professional typesetting standards available for 
free, and even more recently LyX made using those standards as easy as 
using anything else.


I'm not saying that LyX is as significant as the printing press, only that 
there's an unbroken stream of progress which it's a proud part of, and for 
that reason I feel proud about using it.


So, why do YOU love LyX?

Russell

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Christopher Menzel]

Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
 ...
 So, why do YOU love LyX?

I like to point people here when they ask me that question.

:-)

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 03:28:42 -0800
Russell D Brunelle rdb...@uw.edu wrote:

 If you have a good idea, then there's something special (I'm almost 
 tempted to say sacred) about committing it to paper.
 
 The emergence of abstract thinking was an early inflection point in
 the development of our species. The invention of written language was
 another. The invention of the printing press was yet another.
 
 More recently, LaTeX made professional typesetting standards
 available for free, and even more recently LyX made using those
 standards as easy as using anything else.
 
 I'm not saying that LyX is as significant as the printing press, only
 that there's an unbroken stream of progress which it's a proud part
 of, and for that reason I feel proud about using it.
 
 So, why do YOU love LyX?
 
 Russell

For these reasons, in approximately this order:

* Ease of authoring, authoring speed
* Stability, doesn't lose data when it crashes
* Versatile
* Native format human readable and program parsable
* Friendly, helpful community
* I like LaTeX output and LyX is a good LaTeX front end

SteveT

Re: Mac-specific: tex2lyx won't run

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 17, 2012, at 9:36 AM, Eric Weir wrote:

 On Feb 16, 2012, at 7:47 PM, stefano franchi wrote:
 
 try this workaround to the workaround. Instead of creating a new
 converter, simply go to the existing LAtex(plain--lyx converter, look
 at the command string (the tex2lyx etc.) and stick a  -e UTF8 before
 the -f switch. Then click modify and then click apply.
 
 
 It worked! Thanks!

Well, yesterday it worked. This morning it's not. I've tried it a couple times. 
I've verified that the latex(plain) converter has -e UTF8 in it. [This is the 
exact code in the converter: $$s/../MacOS/tex2lyx -e UTF8 -f $$i $$o] 

I've tried it in the terminal, too. This was the command: 
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOS/tex2lyx -e UTF8 
~/documents/a/evaluation/avoidable-losses/version-viii/lyxified/revision-of-evaluation-of-the-qualitative-analysis.tex
 Same result.

After both types of imports I get the following message: Could not find LaTeX 
command for character''(code point 0x2028)
Some characters of your document are probably not representable in the chosen 
encoding. Changing the document encoding to utf8 could help. 

I've verified that Scrivener uses Unicode UTF8.

Perhaps you or someone one the list will know what the offending character is?

Thanks,
--
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA
eew...@bellsouth.net

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, 
men would die from a great loneliness of spirit. 

- Chief Seattle

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 18, 2012, at 7:31 AM, Christopher Menzel wrote:

 Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
 ...
 So, why do YOU love LyX?
 
 I like to point people here when they ask me that question.

That gave me a chuckle.

--
Eric Weir

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, 
but certainty is an absurd one.
 
- Voltaire

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Yihui Xie]

Yes, that is it!!

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA



On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 6:31 AM, Christopher Menzel cmen...@tamu.edu wrote:
 Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:

 ...
 So, why do YOU love LyX?


 I like to point people here when they ask me that question.

 :-)

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Jens Nöckel]

I see no difference between the two… (just kidding).

On Feb 18, 2012, at 4:31 AM, Christopher Menzel wrote:

 Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
 ...
 So, why do YOU love LyX?
 
 I like to point people here when they ask me that question.
 
 :-)
 

Recommended third-party tools

[Russell D Brunelle]

I'm working on creating the perfect step-by-step procedure for setting 
up a Linux workstation for scientific writing, based on LyX and with an 
emphasis on selecting the best available FOSS tools for creating graphics 
and performing computations.  Whenever possible I wanted to select tools 
which are in common use, so that the skills being gained might have 
lasting value.


Here's the draft I have so far, which builds on something I mentioned on 
this list a while ago: http://russellb.livejournal.com/1335718.html


I believe a simplified guide such as this could be very helpful for 
students about to enter college to study one of the sciences, and I'm 
hoping members of this list might be able to offer suggestions for 
additional third-party tools, or enhancements to LyX, which may have been 
left out.  I don't consider myself a LyX expert, but I do believe there is 
a need for something like this, and I gave this my best shot in the hopes 
of getting the ball rolling.


Russell

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, Russell D Brunelle wrote:


I'm working on creating the perfect step-by-step procedure for setting
up a Linux workstation for scientific writing, based on LyX and with an
emphasis on selecting the best available FOSS tools for creating graphics
and performing computations.  Whenever possible I wanted to select tools
which are in common use, so that the skills being gained might have
lasting value.


  For vector graphics, PSTricks http://www.tug.org/pstricks/. For raster
graphics The GIMP. For data analyses and statistical computing, R
http://www.r-projct.org/ and Sweave.

  Of course, 'perfect' and 'best available' is highly individualistic.
What's perfect and best available to me might not be for you. I prefer emacs
and others prefer vi. I prefer the CLI and others perfer the GUI. And so it
goes. Unlike Microsoft, linux and the *BSDs offer a plethora of choices and
flame wars over what's 'best' used to rage out of control.

  Pick what you find comfortable for your work, learn the tools inside-out,
and stick with them ignoring what others think are 'best' or 'perfect.'


I believe a simplified guide such as this could be very helpful for
students about to enter college to study one of the sciences, and I'm
hoping members of this list might be able to offer suggestions for
additional third-party tools, or enhancements to LyX, which may have been
left out.  I don't consider myself a LyX expert, but I do believe there is
a need for something like this, and I gave this my best shot in the hopes
of getting the ball rolling.


  Teach them to explore choices and pick what suits them the best. Each
individual will settle on a different suite of tools.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.  |   Integrity - Credibility - Innovation
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.   |Helping Ensure Our Clients' Futures
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:45:52 -0800
Russell D Brunelle rdb...@uw.edu wrote:

 I'm working on creating the perfect step-by-step procedure for
 setting up a Linux workstation for scientific writing, based on LyX
 and with an emphasis on selecting the best available FOSS tools for
 creating graphics and performing computations.  Whenever possible I
 wanted to select tools which are in common use, so that the skills
 being gained might have lasting value.
 
 Here's the draft I have so far, which builds on something I mentioned
 on this list a while ago: http://russellb.livejournal.com/1335718.html
 
 I believe a simplified guide such as this could be very helpful for 
 students about to enter college to study one of the sciences, and I'm 
 hoping members of this list might be able to offer suggestions for 
 additional third-party tools, or enhancements to LyX, which may have
 been left out.  I don't consider myself a LyX expert, but I do
 believe there is a need for something like this, and I gave this my
 best shot in the hopes of getting the ball rolling.
 
 Russell

OUTstanding Russell. Very thorough and *very* much needed. I'm so glad
you recognized the value of dia as diagramming software -- most
remember only its lower quality past and not its current
spectacularism. I also like the fact that you recommended both Gimp and
Inkscape -- both are necessary to my business. And congrats on
recommending Gnumeric -- it just works, and works, and works, and never
crashes.

Life would be boring if everyone agreed, so here are some of the points
I would have diverged had I been the author:

1) I'd recommend Ubuntu over Debian for two reasons: A) Ubuntu is
easier to get working with random hardware, and B) Ubuntu is likely to
have a newer LyX. On the other hand, Debian's more likely to have a
*working* LyX :-)

On the subject of recommending distros, I can find you at least fifty
people to tell you that Ubuntu sux, and having used it for five years,
I can't argue with them because I see their point, but for me it's still
the best.

2) I'd either stay away from recommending an email client at all, or
I'd expand it to discuss the different types, PIMs, fat email clients,
and webmail. Some people, me for instance, run screaming from email
acting like a PIM, so I doubt I'll ever use Evolution. More on email in
another post...

3) As long as you're listing specialized products like R, Sweave, SPSS
and the like, you might consider listing one or two circuit analysis
softwares.

The blogpost you just wrote is *very* necessary for the LyX biosphere.
There's a LyX wiki somewhere where you can put URLs of LyX docs. You
should find it and include the URL to your blogpost.

Thanks for the great job!

SteveT

Free software writing appliance -- email clients

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

A few hours ago Russell Brunelle submitted a URL to his excellent blog
entry on making a spectacular free software writing appliance. In it he
recommended Evolution as an email client.

If you want a we-do-it-all-for-you PIM type email client, then
certainly Evolution is the way to go. But standard on-computer email
clients also have their adherents, as do webmail clients that often
reside on the server.

At this point I must inject this: Do NOT use Kmail under any
circumstances!

As one of the I want my email client on my own darn computer people,
I recently was forced to bail on Kmail and move to a combination of
Dovecot and Claws-Mail, which has been doing a spectacular job for the
past three weeks.

The following is a document telling how I made this transition, and how
anybody else can too:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/201202.htm

This is especially relevant because Kmail is forcing its users to
transition to Kmail2, which is entangled with Akonadi. As one former
Kmail guy told me on another list, To be honest, I haven't found a
single person who was able to convert to kmail2.

SteveT

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Yihui Xie]

The topic of the original post is too broad for me to comment on, but
if it comes down to statistical computing and graphics, I certainly
recommend R. Here are some sample documents created in LyX with R
literate programming modules:

https://github.com/downloads/yihui/lyx/sweave.pdf
https://github.com/downloads/yihui/knitr/knitr-manual.pdf
https://github.com/downloads/yihui/knitr/knitr-graphics.pdf

I write almost all my documents in LyX (homework, reports, papers,
...). The good thing about literate programming is you do not have to
copy and paste; all results are generated dynamically by executing
code (R code in this case).

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA

Re: Free software writing appliance -- email clients

[Russell D Brunelle]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2012, Steve Litt wrote:


In it he recommended Evolution as an email client.


FWIW I deleted that portion: it was left over from something else, and 
really shouldn't have been there.


At the same time I made other edits based on some of the suggestions I've 
received so far, including explictly mentioning sweave 
(http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/LyxWithRThroughSweave), and flagging anything 
that might be different under Ubuntu.


The combination of R and LyX is a powerful one.  I'm wondering if it would 
be worth the time to make a YouTube video demonstrating what you can do 
with R (via its Rstudio IDE) and LyX (via sweave): this alone might be a 
compelling reason for a lot of science students to give this entire 
arrangement a shot.


Russell

Re: Free software writing appliance -- email clients

[Yihui Xie]

Yes, LyX + R is really powerful. I have been thinking of making a
video on this topic, but have not got time so far.

BTW, I just noticed someone had updated the wiki page about Sweave to
reflect changes in LyX 2.0. I really appreciate it.

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA



On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 9:15 PM, Russell D Brunelle rdb...@uw.edu wrote:
 On Sun, 19 Feb 2012, Steve Litt wrote:

 In it he recommended Evolution as an email client.


 FWIW I deleted that portion: it was left over from something else, and
 really shouldn't have been there.

 At the same time I made other edits based on some of the suggestions I've
 received so far, including explictly mentioning sweave
 (http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/LyxWithRThroughSweave), and flagging anything that
 might be different under Ubuntu.

 The combination of R and LyX is a powerful one.  I'm wondering if it would
 be worth the time to make a YouTube video demonstrating what you can do with
 R (via its Rstudio IDE) and LyX (via sweave): this alone might be a
 compelling reason for a lot of science students to give this entire
 arrangement a shot.

 Russell

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Les Denham]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:45:52 -0800
Russell D Brunelle rdb...@uw.edu wrote:

 Here's the draft I have so far, which builds on something I mentioned
 on this list a while ago: http://russellb.livejournal.com/1335718.html

I'm sure everyone has different preferences, but here are some of my
preferences.

Firstly, the version of Linux is not all that important. I've had good
experiences with Ubuntu in the past, but thanks to some idiotic (in my
opinion) decisions recently by the maintainers of both Gnome and KDE
and by Ubuntu for its default desktop, I've given up on Ubuntu, Gnome,
and KDE, all three of which I have used happily in the past. For the
average user now I would recommend Linux Mint (which just works even
more smoothly than Ubuntu) and, for those willing to learn a little or a
lot about what is behind the pretty windows, either Sabayon or Gentoo.
Whichever distro you choose, change the window manager to XFCE or LXDE.

For attractive graphics, I would generally agree. You have left out two
tools I find very versatile and useful: for easy publication-quality
data plotting I think xmgrace (which has a graphical interface, but can
also be used on the command line and in scripts) is easier to use than
gnuplot; and if maps of any kind are needed, you need GMT (Generic
Mapping Tools).

If you are using PDF for everything else you definitely need
pdfimages (part of the Poppler library) and pdftk.

And for things like the title pages Steve Litt says you need to do with
something other than LyX, you need Scribus.

Finally, if you want to make your document into an ebook, you need
Calibre.

Les

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Anthony Campbell]

On 13 Feb 2012, Uwe Stöhr wrote:

[snip] 
The typical beginner's mistake is to try to fine-tune everything at the
beginning also if not even the first chapter is ready. The final
formatting can be changed at every time easily for the whole document.
(When you publish a book you have anyway to fulfill the publisher's
guidelines. In most cases the publisher will do the final layout for
you, if you like this or not.)
 

When writing books that I am going to print/publish myself my policy is
to use a two-stage process. I write first in a text editor (vim) which
gives me maximum freedom to concentrate on the content my text without
bothering about how it will look. I then import it into LyX to prepare
it for printing. I still make content changes at this stage but the
basic material already exists.

AC


-- 
Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk 
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux 
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell

bibtex in UTF8 work? How to cancel bibtexkey escape in Lyx?

[baiwensimi]

I found utf8 based bibtex works in XeTeX, even BibtexKey in utf8. But
Lyx did not support it good when cite more than one items. the latex
source code show that the utf8 bibtexkey will be escaped. How can I
cancel this escape?

I test in both linux and mac:

OS: archlinux 3.2.6-2
TeX: texlive 2012
bibtex: 0.99d
Lyx: 2.0.2

OS: Mac OS X 10.7.3
TeX: MacTeX 2011
Lyx: 2.0.2

Re: Bibliography heading stranded

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 18, 2012, at 2:40 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

 Richard Heck wrote:
   With one of the fonts I've been experimenting with there was a single
   character outside the right-justified margin on one page. I have a
   feeling that wouldn't be so easy to fix.
  
 My experience is that with the below penalty changes, such overfull boxes 
 never appear:
  
 \tolerance 1414
 \hbadness 1414
 \emergencystretch 1.5em
 \hfuzz 0.3pt
  
 Furthermore
  
 \usepackage{microtype}

Thanks, Jürgen. Are these used when needed or do you use them with every 
document?

Thanks for the link, too.

--
Eric Weir
eew...@bellsouth.net

The invincible shield of caring
Is a weapon sent from the sky 
against being dead. 

- Tao Te Ching 67

Re: Bibliography heading stranded

[Jürgen Spitzmüller]

Eric Weir wrote:
 Thanks, Jürgen. Are these used when needed or do you use them with every
 document?

Meanwhile, I include this rather routinely.

Jürgen

Why do YOU love LyX?

[Russell D Brunelle]

If you have a good idea, then there's something special (I'm almost 
tempted to say sacred) about committing it to paper.


The emergence of abstract thinking was an early inflection point in the 
development of our species. The invention of written language was another. 
The invention of the printing press was yet another.


More recently, LaTeX made professional typesetting standards available for 
free, and even more recently LyX made using those standards as easy as 
using anything else.


I'm not saying that LyX is as significant as the printing press, only that 
there's an unbroken stream of progress which it's a proud part of, and for 
that reason I feel proud about using it.


So, why do YOU love LyX?

Russell

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Christopher Menzel]

Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
 ...
 So, why do YOU love LyX?

I like to point people here when they ask me that question.

:-)

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 03:28:42 -0800
Russell D Brunelle rdb...@uw.edu wrote:

 If you have a good idea, then there's something special (I'm almost 
 tempted to say sacred) about committing it to paper.
 
 The emergence of abstract thinking was an early inflection point in
 the development of our species. The invention of written language was
 another. The invention of the printing press was yet another.
 
 More recently, LaTeX made professional typesetting standards
 available for free, and even more recently LyX made using those
 standards as easy as using anything else.
 
 I'm not saying that LyX is as significant as the printing press, only
 that there's an unbroken stream of progress which it's a proud part
 of, and for that reason I feel proud about using it.
 
 So, why do YOU love LyX?
 
 Russell

For these reasons, in approximately this order:

* Ease of authoring, authoring speed
* Stability, doesn't lose data when it crashes
* Versatile
* Native format human readable and program parsable
* Friendly, helpful community
* I like LaTeX output and LyX is a good LaTeX front end

SteveT

Re: Mac-specific: tex2lyx won't run

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 17, 2012, at 9:36 AM, Eric Weir wrote:

 On Feb 16, 2012, at 7:47 PM, stefano franchi wrote:
 
 try this workaround to the workaround. Instead of creating a new
 converter, simply go to the existing LAtex(plain--lyx converter, look
 at the command string (the tex2lyx etc.) and stick a  -e UTF8 before
 the -f switch. Then click modify and then click apply.
 
 
 It worked! Thanks!

Well, yesterday it worked. This morning it's not. I've tried it a couple times. 
I've verified that the latex(plain) converter has -e UTF8 in it. [This is the 
exact code in the converter: $$s/../MacOS/tex2lyx -e UTF8 -f $$i $$o] 

I've tried it in the terminal, too. This was the command: 
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOS/tex2lyx -e UTF8 
~/documents/a/evaluation/avoidable-losses/version-viii/lyxified/revision-of-evaluation-of-the-qualitative-analysis.tex
 Same result.

After both types of imports I get the following message: Could not find LaTeX 
command for character''(code point 0x2028)
Some characters of your document are probably not representable in the chosen 
encoding. Changing the document encoding to utf8 could help. 

I've verified that Scrivener uses Unicode UTF8.

Perhaps you or someone one the list will know what the offending character is?

Thanks,
--
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA
eew...@bellsouth.net

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, 
men would die from a great loneliness of spirit. 

- Chief Seattle

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 18, 2012, at 7:31 AM, Christopher Menzel wrote:

 Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
 ...
 So, why do YOU love LyX?
 
 I like to point people here when they ask me that question.

That gave me a chuckle.

--
Eric Weir

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, 
but certainty is an absurd one.
 
- Voltaire

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Yihui Xie]

Yes, that is it!!

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA



On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 6:31 AM, Christopher Menzel cmen...@tamu.edu wrote:
 Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:

 ...
 So, why do YOU love LyX?


 I like to point people here when they ask me that question.

 :-)

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Jens Nöckel]

I see no difference between the two… (just kidding).

On Feb 18, 2012, at 4:31 AM, Christopher Menzel wrote:

 Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
 ...
 So, why do YOU love LyX?
 
 I like to point people here when they ask me that question.
 
 :-)
 

Recommended third-party tools

[Russell D Brunelle]

I'm working on creating the perfect step-by-step procedure for setting 
up a Linux workstation for scientific writing, based on LyX and with an 
emphasis on selecting the best available FOSS tools for creating graphics 
and performing computations.  Whenever possible I wanted to select tools 
which are in common use, so that the skills being gained might have 
lasting value.


Here's the draft I have so far, which builds on something I mentioned on 
this list a while ago: http://russellb.livejournal.com/1335718.html


I believe a simplified guide such as this could be very helpful for 
students about to enter college to study one of the sciences, and I'm 
hoping members of this list might be able to offer suggestions for 
additional third-party tools, or enhancements to LyX, which may have been 
left out.  I don't consider myself a LyX expert, but I do believe there is 
a need for something like this, and I gave this my best shot in the hopes 
of getting the ball rolling.


Russell

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, Russell D Brunelle wrote:


I'm working on creating the perfect step-by-step procedure for setting
up a Linux workstation for scientific writing, based on LyX and with an
emphasis on selecting the best available FOSS tools for creating graphics
and performing computations.  Whenever possible I wanted to select tools
which are in common use, so that the skills being gained might have
lasting value.


  For vector graphics, PSTricks http://www.tug.org/pstricks/. For raster
graphics The GIMP. For data analyses and statistical computing, R
http://www.r-projct.org/ and Sweave.

  Of course, 'perfect' and 'best available' is highly individualistic.
What's perfect and best available to me might not be for you. I prefer emacs
and others prefer vi. I prefer the CLI and others perfer the GUI. And so it
goes. Unlike Microsoft, linux and the *BSDs offer a plethora of choices and
flame wars over what's 'best' used to rage out of control.

  Pick what you find comfortable for your work, learn the tools inside-out,
and stick with them ignoring what others think are 'best' or 'perfect.'


I believe a simplified guide such as this could be very helpful for
students about to enter college to study one of the sciences, and I'm
hoping members of this list might be able to offer suggestions for
additional third-party tools, or enhancements to LyX, which may have been
left out.  I don't consider myself a LyX expert, but I do believe there is
a need for something like this, and I gave this my best shot in the hopes
of getting the ball rolling.


  Teach them to explore choices and pick what suits them the best. Each
individual will settle on a different suite of tools.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.  |   Integrity - Credibility - Innovation
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.   |Helping Ensure Our Clients' Futures
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:45:52 -0800
Russell D Brunelle rdb...@uw.edu wrote:

 I'm working on creating the perfect step-by-step procedure for
 setting up a Linux workstation for scientific writing, based on LyX
 and with an emphasis on selecting the best available FOSS tools for
 creating graphics and performing computations.  Whenever possible I
 wanted to select tools which are in common use, so that the skills
 being gained might have lasting value.
 
 Here's the draft I have so far, which builds on something I mentioned
 on this list a while ago: http://russellb.livejournal.com/1335718.html
 
 I believe a simplified guide such as this could be very helpful for 
 students about to enter college to study one of the sciences, and I'm 
 hoping members of this list might be able to offer suggestions for 
 additional third-party tools, or enhancements to LyX, which may have
 been left out.  I don't consider myself a LyX expert, but I do
 believe there is a need for something like this, and I gave this my
 best shot in the hopes of getting the ball rolling.
 
 Russell

OUTstanding Russell. Very thorough and *very* much needed. I'm so glad
you recognized the value of dia as diagramming software -- most
remember only its lower quality past and not its current
spectacularism. I also like the fact that you recommended both Gimp and
Inkscape -- both are necessary to my business. And congrats on
recommending Gnumeric -- it just works, and works, and works, and never
crashes.

Life would be boring if everyone agreed, so here are some of the points
I would have diverged had I been the author:

1) I'd recommend Ubuntu over Debian for two reasons: A) Ubuntu is
easier to get working with random hardware, and B) Ubuntu is likely to
have a newer LyX. On the other hand, Debian's more likely to have a
*working* LyX :-)

On the subject of recommending distros, I can find you at least fifty
people to tell you that Ubuntu sux, and having used it for five years,
I can't argue with them because I see their point, but for me it's still
the best.

2) I'd either stay away from recommending an email client at all, or
I'd expand it to discuss the different types, PIMs, fat email clients,
and webmail. Some people, me for instance, run screaming from email
acting like a PIM, so I doubt I'll ever use Evolution. More on email in
another post...

3) As long as you're listing specialized products like R, Sweave, SPSS
and the like, you might consider listing one or two circuit analysis
softwares.

The blogpost you just wrote is *very* necessary for the LyX biosphere.
There's a LyX wiki somewhere where you can put URLs of LyX docs. You
should find it and include the URL to your blogpost.

Thanks for the great job!

SteveT

Free software writing appliance -- email clients

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

A few hours ago Russell Brunelle submitted a URL to his excellent blog
entry on making a spectacular free software writing appliance. In it he
recommended Evolution as an email client.

If you want a we-do-it-all-for-you PIM type email client, then
certainly Evolution is the way to go. But standard on-computer email
clients also have their adherents, as do webmail clients that often
reside on the server.

At this point I must inject this: Do NOT use Kmail under any
circumstances!

As one of the I want my email client on my own darn computer people,
I recently was forced to bail on Kmail and move to a combination of
Dovecot and Claws-Mail, which has been doing a spectacular job for the
past three weeks.

The following is a document telling how I made this transition, and how
anybody else can too:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/201202.htm

This is especially relevant because Kmail is forcing its users to
transition to Kmail2, which is entangled with Akonadi. As one former
Kmail guy told me on another list, To be honest, I haven't found a
single person who was able to convert to kmail2.

SteveT

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Yihui Xie]

The topic of the original post is too broad for me to comment on, but
if it comes down to statistical computing and graphics, I certainly
recommend R. Here are some sample documents created in LyX with R
literate programming modules:

https://github.com/downloads/yihui/lyx/sweave.pdf
https://github.com/downloads/yihui/knitr/knitr-manual.pdf
https://github.com/downloads/yihui/knitr/knitr-graphics.pdf

I write almost all my documents in LyX (homework, reports, papers,
...). The good thing about literate programming is you do not have to
copy and paste; all results are generated dynamically by executing
code (R code in this case).

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA

Re: Free software writing appliance -- email clients

[Russell D Brunelle]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2012, Steve Litt wrote:


In it he recommended Evolution as an email client.


FWIW I deleted that portion: it was left over from something else, and 
really shouldn't have been there.


At the same time I made other edits based on some of the suggestions I've 
received so far, including explictly mentioning sweave 
(http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/LyxWithRThroughSweave), and flagging anything 
that might be different under Ubuntu.


The combination of R and LyX is a powerful one.  I'm wondering if it would 
be worth the time to make a YouTube video demonstrating what you can do 
with R (via its Rstudio IDE) and LyX (via sweave): this alone might be a 
compelling reason for a lot of science students to give this entire 
arrangement a shot.


Russell

Re: Free software writing appliance -- email clients

[Yihui Xie]

Yes, LyX + R is really powerful. I have been thinking of making a
video on this topic, but have not got time so far.

BTW, I just noticed someone had updated the wiki page about Sweave to
reflect changes in LyX 2.0. I really appreciate it.

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA



On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 9:15 PM, Russell D Brunelle rdb...@uw.edu wrote:
 On Sun, 19 Feb 2012, Steve Litt wrote:

 In it he recommended Evolution as an email client.


 FWIW I deleted that portion: it was left over from something else, and
 really shouldn't have been there.

 At the same time I made other edits based on some of the suggestions I've
 received so far, including explictly mentioning sweave
 (http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/LyxWithRThroughSweave), and flagging anything that
 might be different under Ubuntu.

 The combination of R and LyX is a powerful one.  I'm wondering if it would
 be worth the time to make a YouTube video demonstrating what you can do with
 R (via its Rstudio IDE) and LyX (via sweave): this alone might be a
 compelling reason for a lot of science students to give this entire
 arrangement a shot.

 Russell

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Les Denham]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:45:52 -0800
Russell D Brunelle rdb...@uw.edu wrote:

 Here's the draft I have so far, which builds on something I mentioned
 on this list a while ago: http://russellb.livejournal.com/1335718.html

I'm sure everyone has different preferences, but here are some of my
preferences.

Firstly, the version of Linux is not all that important. I've had good
experiences with Ubuntu in the past, but thanks to some idiotic (in my
opinion) decisions recently by the maintainers of both Gnome and KDE
and by Ubuntu for its default desktop, I've given up on Ubuntu, Gnome,
and KDE, all three of which I have used happily in the past. For the
average user now I would recommend Linux Mint (which just works even
more smoothly than Ubuntu) and, for those willing to learn a little or a
lot about what is behind the pretty windows, either Sabayon or Gentoo.
Whichever distro you choose, change the window manager to XFCE or LXDE.

For attractive graphics, I would generally agree. You have left out two
tools I find very versatile and useful: for easy publication-quality
data plotting I think xmgrace (which has a graphical interface, but can
also be used on the command line and in scripts) is easier to use than
gnuplot; and if maps of any kind are needed, you need GMT (Generic
Mapping Tools).

If you are using PDF for everything else you definitely need
pdfimages (part of the Poppler library) and pdftk.

And for things like the title pages Steve Litt says you need to do with
something other than LyX, you need Scribus.

Finally, if you want to make your document into an ebook, you need
Calibre.

Les

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Anthony Campbell]

On 13 Feb 2012, Uwe Stöhr wrote:

[snip] 
The typical beginner's mistake is to try to fine-tune everything at the
beginning also if not even the first chapter is ready. The final
formatting can be changed at every time easily for the whole document.
(When you publish a book you have anyway to fulfill the publisher's
guidelines. In most cases the publisher will do the final layout for
you, if you like this or not.)
 

When writing books that I am going to print/publish myself my policy is
to use a two-stage process. I write first in a text editor (vim) which
gives me maximum freedom to concentrate on the content my text without
bothering about how it will look. I then import it into LyX to prepare
it for printing. I still make content changes at this stage but the
basic material already exists.

AC


-- 
Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk 
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux 
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell

bibtex in UTF8 work? How to cancel bibtexkey escape in Lyx?

[baiwensimi]

I found utf8 based bibtex works in XeTeX, even BibtexKey in utf8. But
Lyx did not support it good when cite more than one items. the latex
source code show that the utf8 bibtexkey will be escaped. How can I
cancel this escape?

I test in both linux and mac:

OS: archlinux 3.2.6-2
TeX: texlive 2012
bibtex: 0.99d
Lyx: 2.0.2

OS: Mac OS X 10.7.3
TeX: MacTeX 2011
Lyx: 2.0.2

Re: Bibliography heading stranded

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 18, 2012, at 2:40 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

> Richard Heck wrote:
> > > With one of the fonts I've been experimenting with there was a single
> > > character outside the right-justified margin on one page. I have a
> > > feeling that wouldn't be so easy to fix.
>  
> My experience is that with the below penalty changes, such overfull boxes 
> never appear:
>  
> \tolerance 1414
> \hbadness 1414
> \emergencystretch 1.5em
> \hfuzz 0.3pt
>  
> Furthermore
>  
> \usepackage{microtype}

Thanks, Jürgen. Are these used when needed or do you use them with every 
document?

Thanks for the link, too.

--
Eric Weir
eew...@bellsouth.net

"The invincible shield of caring
Is a weapon sent from the sky 
against being dead." 

- Tao Te Ching 67

Re: Bibliography heading stranded

[Jürgen Spitzmüller]

Eric Weir wrote:
> Thanks, Jürgen. Are these used when needed or do you use them with every
> document?

Meanwhile, I include this rather routinely.

Jürgen

Why do YOU love LyX?

[Russell D Brunelle]

If you have a good idea, then there's something special (I'm almost 
tempted to say "sacred") about committing it to paper.


The emergence of abstract thinking was an early inflection point in the 
development of our species. The invention of written language was another. 
The invention of the printing press was yet another.


More recently, LaTeX made professional typesetting standards available for 
free, and even more recently LyX made using those standards as easy as 
using anything else.


I'm not saying that LyX is as significant as the printing press, only that 
there's an unbroken stream of progress which it's a proud part of, and for 
that reason I feel proud about using it.


So, why do YOU love LyX?

Russell

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Christopher Menzel]

Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
> ...
> So, why do YOU love LyX?

I like to point people here when they ask me that question.

:-)

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 03:28:42 -0800
Russell D Brunelle  wrote:

> If you have a good idea, then there's something special (I'm almost 
> tempted to say "sacred") about committing it to paper.
> 
> The emergence of abstract thinking was an early inflection point in
> the development of our species. The invention of written language was
> another. The invention of the printing press was yet another.
> 
> More recently, LaTeX made professional typesetting standards
> available for free, and even more recently LyX made using those
> standards as easy as using anything else.
> 
> I'm not saying that LyX is as significant as the printing press, only
> that there's an unbroken stream of progress which it's a proud part
> of, and for that reason I feel proud about using it.
> 
> So, why do YOU love LyX?
> 
> Russell

For these reasons, in approximately this order:

* Ease of authoring, authoring speed
* Stability, doesn't lose data when it crashes
* Versatile
* Native format human readable and program parsable
* Friendly, helpful community
* I like LaTeX output and LyX is a good LaTeX front end

SteveT

Re: Mac-specific: tex2lyx won't run

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 17, 2012, at 9:36 AM, Eric Weir wrote:

> On Feb 16, 2012, at 7:47 PM, stefano franchi wrote:
> 
>> try this workaround to the workaround. Instead of creating a new
>> converter, simply go to the existing LAtex(plain-->lyx converter, look
>> at the command string (the tex2lyx etc.) and stick a  "-e UTF8" before
>> the -f switch. Then click "modify" and then click "apply".
> 
> 
> It worked! Thanks!

Well, yesterday it worked. This morning it's not. I've tried it a couple times. 
I've verified that the latex(plain) converter has "-e UTF8" in it. [This is the 
exact code in the converter: $$s/../MacOS/tex2lyx -e UTF8 -f $$i $$o] 

I've tried it in the terminal, too. This was the command: 
/Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOS/tex2lyx -e UTF8 
~/documents/a/evaluation/avoidable-losses/version-viii/lyxified/revision-of-evaluation-of-the-qualitative-analysis.tex
 Same result.

After both types of imports I get the following message: "Could not find LaTeX 
command for character''(code point 0x2028)
Some characters of your document are probably not representable in the chosen 
encoding. Changing the document encoding to utf8 could help." 

I've verified that Scrivener uses Unicode UTF8.

Perhaps you or someone one the list will know what the offending character is?

Thanks,
--
Eric Weir
Decatur, GA
eew...@bellsouth.net

"What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, 
men would die from a great loneliness of spirit." 

- Chief Seattle

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Eric Weir]

On Feb 18, 2012, at 7:31 AM, Christopher Menzel wrote:

> Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
>> ...
>> So, why do YOU love LyX?
> 
> I like to point people here when they ask me that question.

That gave me a chuckle.

--
Eric Weir

"Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, 
but certainty is an absurd one."
 
- Voltaire

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Yihui Xie]

Yes, that is it!!

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie 
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA



On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 6:31 AM, Christopher Menzel  wrote:
> Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
>
> ...
> So, why do YOU love LyX?
>
>
> I like to point people here when they ask me that question.
>
> :-)
>

Re: Why do YOU love LyX?

[Jens Nöckel]

I see no difference between the two… (just kidding).

On Feb 18, 2012, at 4:31 AM, Christopher Menzel wrote:

> Am Feb 18, 2012 um 12:28 PM schrieb Russell D Brunelle:
>> ...
>> So, why do YOU love LyX?
> 
> I like to point people here when they ask me that question.
> 
> :-)
> 

Recommended third-party tools

[Russell D Brunelle]

I'm working on creating the "perfect" step-by-step procedure for setting 
up a Linux workstation for scientific writing, based on LyX and with an 
emphasis on selecting the best available FOSS tools for creating graphics 
and performing computations.  Whenever possible I wanted to select tools 
which are in common use, so that the skills being gained might have 
lasting value.


Here's the draft I have so far, which builds on something I mentioned on 
this list a while ago: http://russellb.livejournal.com/1335718.html


I believe a simplified guide such as this could be very helpful for 
students about to enter college to study one of the sciences, and I'm 
hoping members of this list might be able to offer suggestions for 
additional third-party tools, or enhancements to LyX, which may have been 
left out.  I don't consider myself a LyX expert, but I do believe there is 
a need for something like this, and I gave this my best shot in the hopes 
of getting the ball rolling.


Russell

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Rich Shepard]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012, Russell D Brunelle wrote:


I'm working on creating the "perfect" step-by-step procedure for setting
up a Linux workstation for scientific writing, based on LyX and with an
emphasis on selecting the best available FOSS tools for creating graphics
and performing computations.  Whenever possible I wanted to select tools
which are in common use, so that the skills being gained might have
lasting value.


  For vector graphics, PSTricks . For raster
graphics The GIMP. For data analyses and statistical computing, R
.

  Of course, 'perfect' and 'best available' is highly individualistic.
What's perfect and best available to me might not be for you. I prefer emacs
and others prefer vi. I prefer the CLI and others perfer the GUI. And so it
goes. Unlike Microsoft, linux and the *BSDs offer a plethora of choices and
flame wars over what's 'best' used to rage out of control.

  Pick what you find comfortable for your work, learn the tools inside-out,
and stick with them ignoring what others think are 'best' or 'perfect.'


I believe a simplified guide such as this could be very helpful for
students about to enter college to study one of the sciences, and I'm
hoping members of this list might be able to offer suggestions for
additional third-party tools, or enhancements to LyX, which may have been
left out.  I don't consider myself a LyX expert, but I do believe there is
a need for something like this, and I gave this my best shot in the hopes
of getting the ball rolling.


  Teach them to explore choices and pick what suits them the best. Each
individual will settle on a different suite of tools.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.  |   Integrity - Credibility - Innovation
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.   |Helping Ensure Our Clients' Futures
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:45:52 -0800
Russell D Brunelle  wrote:

> I'm working on creating the "perfect" step-by-step procedure for
> setting up a Linux workstation for scientific writing, based on LyX
> and with an emphasis on selecting the best available FOSS tools for
> creating graphics and performing computations.  Whenever possible I
> wanted to select tools which are in common use, so that the skills
> being gained might have lasting value.
> 
> Here's the draft I have so far, which builds on something I mentioned
> on this list a while ago: http://russellb.livejournal.com/1335718.html
> 
> I believe a simplified guide such as this could be very helpful for 
> students about to enter college to study one of the sciences, and I'm 
> hoping members of this list might be able to offer suggestions for 
> additional third-party tools, or enhancements to LyX, which may have
> been left out.  I don't consider myself a LyX expert, but I do
> believe there is a need for something like this, and I gave this my
> best shot in the hopes of getting the ball rolling.
> 
> Russell

OUTstanding Russell. Very thorough and *very* much needed. I'm so glad
you recognized the value of dia as diagramming software -- most
remember only its lower quality past and not its current
spectacularism. I also like the fact that you recommended both Gimp and
Inkscape -- both are necessary to my business. And congrats on
recommending Gnumeric -- it just works, and works, and works, and never
crashes.

Life would be boring if everyone agreed, so here are some of the points
I would have diverged had I been the author:

1) I'd recommend Ubuntu over Debian for two reasons: A) Ubuntu is
easier to get working with random hardware, and B) Ubuntu is likely to
have a newer LyX. On the other hand, Debian's more likely to have a
*working* LyX :-)

On the subject of recommending distros, I can find you at least fifty
people to tell you that Ubuntu sux, and having used it for five years,
I can't argue with them because I see their point, but for me it's still
the best.

2) I'd either stay away from recommending an email client at all, or
I'd expand it to discuss the different types, PIMs, fat email clients,
and webmail. Some people, me for instance, run screaming from email
acting like a PIM, so I doubt I'll ever use Evolution. More on email in
another post...

3) As long as you're listing specialized products like R, Sweave, SPSS
and the like, you might consider listing one or two circuit analysis
softwares.

The blogpost you just wrote is *very* necessary for the LyX biosphere.
There's a LyX wiki somewhere where you can put URLs of LyX docs. You
should find it and include the URL to your blogpost.

Thanks for the great job!

SteveT

Free software writing appliance -- email clients

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

A few hours ago Russell Brunelle submitted a URL to his excellent blog
entry on making a spectacular free software writing appliance. In it he
recommended Evolution as an email client.

If you want a we-do-it-all-for-you PIM type email client, then
certainly Evolution is the way to go. But standard on-computer email
clients also have their adherents, as do webmail clients that often
reside on the server.

At this point I must inject this: Do NOT use Kmail under any
circumstances!

As one of the "I want my email client on my own darn computer" people,
I recently was forced to bail on Kmail and move to a combination of
Dovecot and Claws-Mail, which has been doing a spectacular job for the
past three weeks.

The following is a document telling how I made this transition, and how
anybody else can too:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/201202.htm

This is especially relevant because Kmail is forcing its users to
transition to Kmail2, which is entangled with Akonadi. As one former
Kmail guy told me on another list, "To be honest, I haven't found a
single person who was able to convert to kmail2."

SteveT

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Yihui Xie]

The topic of the original post is too broad for me to comment on, but
if it comes down to statistical computing and graphics, I certainly
recommend R. Here are some sample documents created in LyX with R
literate programming modules:

https://github.com/downloads/yihui/lyx/sweave.pdf
https://github.com/downloads/yihui/knitr/knitr-manual.pdf
https://github.com/downloads/yihui/knitr/knitr-graphics.pdf

I write almost all my documents in LyX (homework, reports, papers,
...). The good thing about literate programming is you do not have to
copy and paste; all results are generated dynamically by executing
code (R code in this case).

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie 
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA

Re: Free software writing appliance -- email clients

[Russell D Brunelle]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2012, Steve Litt wrote:


In it he recommended Evolution as an email client.


FWIW I deleted that portion: it was left over from something else, and 
really shouldn't have been there.


At the same time I made other edits based on some of the suggestions I've 
received so far, including explictly mentioning sweave 
(http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/LyxWithRThroughSweave), and flagging anything 
that might be different under Ubuntu.


The combination of R and LyX is a powerful one.  I'm wondering if it would 
be worth the time to make a YouTube video demonstrating what you can do 
with R (via its Rstudio IDE) and LyX (via sweave): this alone might be a 
compelling reason for a lot of science students to give this entire 
arrangement a shot.


Russell

Re: Free software writing appliance -- email clients

[Yihui Xie]

Yes, LyX + R is really powerful. I have been thinking of making a
video on this topic, but have not got time so far.

BTW, I just noticed someone had updated the wiki page about Sweave to
reflect changes in LyX 2.0. I really appreciate it.

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie 
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA



On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 9:15 PM, Russell D Brunelle  wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Feb 2012, Steve Litt wrote:
>
>> In it he recommended Evolution as an email client.
>
>
> FWIW I deleted that portion: it was left over from something else, and
> really shouldn't have been there.
>
> At the same time I made other edits based on some of the suggestions I've
> received so far, including explictly mentioning sweave
> (http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/LyxWithRThroughSweave), and flagging anything that
> might be different under Ubuntu.
>
> The combination of R and LyX is a powerful one.  I'm wondering if it would
> be worth the time to make a YouTube video demonstrating what you can do with
> R (via its Rstudio IDE) and LyX (via sweave): this alone might be a
> compelling reason for a lot of science students to give this entire
> arrangement a shot.
>
> Russell
>

Re: Recommended third-party tools

[Les Denham]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:45:52 -0800
Russell D Brunelle  wrote:

> Here's the draft I have so far, which builds on something I mentioned
> on this list a while ago: http://russellb.livejournal.com/1335718.html

I'm sure everyone has different preferences, but here are some of my
preferences.

Firstly, the version of Linux is not all that important. I've had good
experiences with Ubuntu in the past, but thanks to some idiotic (in my
opinion) decisions recently by the maintainers of both Gnome and KDE
and by Ubuntu for its default desktop, I've given up on Ubuntu, Gnome,
and KDE, all three of which I have used happily in the past. For the
average user now I would recommend Linux Mint (which just works even
more smoothly than Ubuntu) and, for those willing to learn a little or a
lot about what is behind the pretty windows, either Sabayon or Gentoo.
Whichever distro you choose, change the window manager to XFCE or LXDE.

For attractive graphics, I would generally agree. You have left out two
tools I find very versatile and useful: for easy publication-quality
data plotting I think xmgrace (which has a graphical interface, but can
also be used on the command line and in scripts) is easier to use than
gnuplot; and if maps of any kind are needed, you need GMT (Generic
Mapping Tools).

If you are using "PDF for everything else" you definitely need
pdfimages (part of the Poppler library) and pdftk.

And for things like the title pages Steve Litt says you need to do with
something other than LyX, you need Scribus.

Finally, if you want to make your document into an ebook, you need
Calibre.

Les

Re: is lyx really appropriate for my book.

[Anthony Campbell]

On 13 Feb 2012, Uwe Stöhr wrote:

[snip] 
>The typical beginner's mistake is to try to fine-tune everything at the
>beginning also if not even the first chapter is ready. The final
>formatting can be changed at every time easily for the whole document.
>(When you publish a book you have anyway to fulfill the publisher's
>guidelines. In most cases the publisher will do the final layout for
>you, if you like this or not.)
> 

When writing books that I am going to print/publish myself my policy is
to use a two-stage process. I write first in a text editor (vim) which
gives me maximum freedom to concentrate on the content my text without
bothering about how it will look. I then import it into LyX to prepare
it for printing. I still make content changes at this stage but the
basic material already exists.

AC


-- 
Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk 
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux 
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell