Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Daniel Lohmann]

On 17.04.2009, at 15:25, Niko Schwarz wrote:

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:53 AM, Rainer M Krug r.m.k...@gmail.com  
wrote:


1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
would definitely not change the default format.



Ok, maybe I didn't make myself clear: you can have self-contained  
archives
with no compression at all on OSX. It works like this: you make a  
directory
and in that directory you dump a special file that tells finder to  
display

the directory as a package.

But from the command line, it is still a directory. And in finder,  
you can
look into the package by choosing Show Package Contents from the  
pop up

menu.

Now Pages files for example come as such packages, you can copy that
directory around, send it through email (yea, email clients handle it
surprisingly well), and it still works.

Now, other operating systems see a directory and not a package.  
People using
something other than OSX would have to be reminded to copy the  
directory

around the .lyx file around, which would be managed by lyx.

The file would still be accessible, no performance penalty, but  
complete
send-aroundability, and while it might feel a little alien on other  
OS's, on

OSX it's the standard way to do such things, so OSX users will cheer.


No, they won't.

The thing is that OSX -- or at least the OSX applications that use  
this concept, with Pages being a good (well, bad) example -- do *not*  
treat packages as true directories, but as a personal container.  
Whenever you save a Pages document, for instance, Pages deletes  
everything in the directory that was not created by itself. This can  
be quite surprising!  Pages might also decide to rename its files in  
the directory. And so on.


All tools that need to manage side-by-side metadata in directories  
(such as CVS and SVN) are inherently unusable with OSX apps that use  
the package format. You just cannot put a Keynote presentation into an  
svn repository...


Packages are one of those OSX standards that are conceptually nice,  
but unfortunately seriously broken in the actual implementation.


Daniel

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Daniel Lohmann]

On 17.04.2009, at 15:25, Niko Schwarz wrote:

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:53 AM, Rainer M Krug r.m.k...@gmail.com  
wrote:


1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
would definitely not change the default format.



Ok, maybe I didn't make myself clear: you can have self-contained  
archives
with no compression at all on OSX. It works like this: you make a  
directory
and in that directory you dump a special file that tells finder to  
display

the directory as a package.

But from the command line, it is still a directory. And in finder,  
you can
look into the package by choosing Show Package Contents from the  
pop up

menu.

Now Pages files for example come as such packages, you can copy that
directory around, send it through email (yea, email clients handle it
surprisingly well), and it still works.

Now, other operating systems see a directory and not a package.  
People using
something other than OSX would have to be reminded to copy the  
directory

around the .lyx file around, which would be managed by lyx.

The file would still be accessible, no performance penalty, but  
complete
send-aroundability, and while it might feel a little alien on other  
OS's, on

OSX it's the standard way to do such things, so OSX users will cheer.


No, they won't.

The thing is that OSX -- or at least the OSX applications that use  
this concept, with Pages being a good (well, bad) example -- do *not*  
treat packages as true directories, but as a personal container.  
Whenever you save a Pages document, for instance, Pages deletes  
everything in the directory that was not created by itself. This can  
be quite surprising!  Pages might also decide to rename its files in  
the directory. And so on.


All tools that need to manage side-by-side metadata in directories  
(such as CVS and SVN) are inherently unusable with OSX apps that use  
the package format. You just cannot put a Keynote presentation into an  
svn repository...


Packages are one of those OSX standards that are conceptually nice,  
but unfortunately seriously broken in the actual implementation.


Daniel

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Daniel Lohmann]

On 17.04.2009, at 15:25, Niko Schwarz wrote:

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:53 AM, Rainer M Krug   
wrote:


1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
would definitely not change the default format.



Ok, maybe I didn't make myself clear: you can have self-contained  
archives
with no compression at all on OSX. It works like this: you make a  
directory
and in that directory you dump a special file that tells finder to  
display

the directory as a package.

But from the command line, it is still a directory. And in finder,  
you can
look into the package by choosing "Show Package Contents" from the  
pop up

menu.

Now Pages files for example come as such "packages", you can copy that
directory around, send it through email (yea, email clients handle it
surprisingly well), and it still works.

Now, other operating systems see a directory and not a package.  
People using
something other than OSX would have to be reminded to copy the  
directory

around the .lyx file around, which would be managed by lyx.

The file would still be accessible, no performance penalty, but  
complete
send-aroundability, and while it might feel a little alien on other  
OS's, on

OSX it's the standard way to do such things, so OSX users will cheer.


No, they won't.

The thing is that OSX -- or at least the OSX applications that use  
this concept, with Pages being a good (well, bad) example -- do *not*  
treat packages as true directories, but as a "personal container".  
Whenever you save a Pages document, for instance, Pages deletes  
everything in the "directory" that was not created by itself. This can  
be quite surprising!  Pages might also decide to rename its files in  
the directory. And so on.


All tools that need to manage side-by-side metadata in directories  
(such as CVS and SVN) are inherently unusable with OSX apps that use  
the package format. You just cannot put a Keynote presentation into an  
svn repository...


Packages are one of those OSX standards that are conceptually nice,  
but unfortunately seriously broken in the actual implementation.


Daniel

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Christian Ridderström]

On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Niko Schwarz wrote:

need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I 
had written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; 
it needs to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to 
redo the module installation procedure on every update.


Have you reported this? At the very least it sounds like a feature request 
that you don't want to have to use absolute paths to .module.


regards,
Christian

--
Christian Ridderström   Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[BH]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 5:38 AM, Christian Ridderström
christian.ridderst...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Niko Schwarz wrote:

 need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I
 had written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; it
 needs to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo the
 module installation procedure on every update.

 Have you reported this? At the very least it sounds like a feature request
 that you don't want to have to use absolute paths to .module.

Niko -

Are you putting modules in the right place? If you put them in
~/Library/Application Support/LyX-1.6/layouts, then you should have no
problems with updates.

Bennett

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

oh, i didn't know that's possible!
hmm, that would solve the update thing!

niko

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:47 PM, BH bewih...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 5:38 AM, Christian Ridderström
 christian.ridderst...@gmail.com wrote:
  On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Niko Schwarz wrote:
 
  need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I
  had written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path;
 it
  needs to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo
 the
  module installation procedure on every update.
 
  Have you reported this? At the very least it sounds like a feature
 request
  that you don't want to have to use absolute paths to .module.

 Niko -

 Are you putting modules in the right place? If you put them in
 ~/Library/Application Support/LyX-1.6/layouts, then you should have no
 problems with updates.

 Bennett

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Christian Ridderström]

On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Niko Schwarz wrote:

need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I 
had written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; 
it needs to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to 
redo the module installation procedure on every update.


Have you reported this? At the very least it sounds like a feature request 
that you don't want to have to use absolute paths to .module.


regards,
Christian

--
Christian Ridderström   Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[BH]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 5:38 AM, Christian Ridderström
christian.ridderst...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Niko Schwarz wrote:

 need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I
 had written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; it
 needs to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo the
 module installation procedure on every update.

 Have you reported this? At the very least it sounds like a feature request
 that you don't want to have to use absolute paths to .module.

Niko -

Are you putting modules in the right place? If you put them in
~/Library/Application Support/LyX-1.6/layouts, then you should have no
problems with updates.

Bennett

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

oh, i didn't know that's possible!
hmm, that would solve the update thing!

niko

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:47 PM, BH bewih...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 5:38 AM, Christian Ridderström
 christian.ridderst...@gmail.com wrote:
  On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Niko Schwarz wrote:
 
  need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I
  had written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path;
 it
  needs to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo
 the
  module installation procedure on every update.
 
  Have you reported this? At the very least it sounds like a feature
 request
  that you don't want to have to use absolute paths to .module.

 Niko -

 Are you putting modules in the right place? If you put them in
 ~/Library/Application Support/LyX-1.6/layouts, then you should have no
 problems with updates.

 Bennett

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Christian Ridderström]

On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Niko Schwarz wrote:

need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I 
had written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; 
it needs to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to 
redo the module installation procedure on every update.


Have you reported this? At the very least it sounds like a feature request 
that you don't want to have to use absolute paths to .module.


regards,
Christian

--
Christian Ridderström   Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[BH]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 5:38 AM, Christian Ridderström
 wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Niko Schwarz wrote:
>
>> need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I
>> had written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; it
>> needs to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo the
>> module installation procedure on every update.
>
> Have you reported this? At the very least it sounds like a feature request
> that you don't want to have to use absolute paths to .module.

Niko -

Are you putting modules in the right place? If you put them in
~/Library/Application Support/LyX-1.6/layouts, then you should have no
problems with updates.

Bennett

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

oh, i didn't know that's possible!
hmm, that would solve the update thing!

niko

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:47 PM, BH  wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 5:38 AM, Christian Ridderström
>  wrote:
> > On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Niko Schwarz wrote:
> >
> >> need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I
> >> had written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path;
> it
> >> needs to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo
> the
> >> module installation procedure on every update.
> >
> > Have you reported this? At the very least it sounds like a feature
> request
> > that you don't want to have to use absolute paths to .module.
>
> Niko -
>
> Are you putting modules in the right place? If you put them in
> ~/Library/Application Support/LyX-1.6/layouts, then you should have no
> problems with updates.
>
> Bennett
>

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 7:32 PM, Etienne lepercq e.gu...@gmail.com wrote:


 [self-contained lyx-files]
 I think this feature should be at least re-discussed.


I for one have had large troubles when asking people to cooperate with me,
because I had to give them precise instructions how to set up lyx. The image
relative path thing I could solve by making lyx find the pictures using
relative paths and otherwise sharing the folder using dropbox, so i didn't
need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I had
written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; it needs
to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo the module
installation procedure on every update.

I would like to point to how pages treats its documents. Pages documents are
identified with directories, which contain the required images, texts and
properties. No zipping into one archive is done. OSX then makes the
directory look like a file (called a package) in finder.

I think, sharing lyx documents would would be simplified  by providing
self-contained bundles that can be shipped around.

Niko

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Rainer M Krug]

Just my two cents worth:

1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
would definitely not change the default format.

2) I like the idea of an export format, which effectively compresses
all files necessary into a single file. This is very nice for
archiving final documents (lets call it .lyxa for lyx Archive).

3) .lyxa should represent a directory tree, in which subfolders hold
pictures, bibtex, ... files.

4) .lyxa should be usable directly, i.e. the .lyx document should be
modified during export to contain only a) relative paths which b) only
are in subdirectories of the location of .lyx

5) .lyxa should contain information of the original location of the
foles on the system where it was created, to be able to update the
files not in the subdirectory.

6) One should be able to open a .lyxa file (which would modify the
files in the .lyxa but not the original location information (from 5))
or imported (showing the differences of the files in the .lyxa and the
original files and update the files when confirmed from the ones in
the .lyxa)

In this way, the .lyxa could be used as a colaborative tool (original
author exports, sends .lyxa to other authors, they open it, save it,
send it back, oroginal author imports it and confirms the files which
should be overwritten) and as an archive tool of finalised documents.

Cheers,

Rainer



On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Niko Schwarz
niko.schw...@googlemail.com wrote:
 On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 7:32 PM, Etienne lepercq e.gu...@gmail.com wrote:


 [self-contained lyx-files]
 I think this feature should be at least re-discussed.


 I for one have had large troubles when asking people to cooperate with me,
 because I had to give them precise instructions how to set up lyx. The image
 relative path thing I could solve by making lyx find the pictures using
 relative paths and otherwise sharing the folder using dropbox, so i didn't
 need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I had
 written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; it needs
 to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo the module
 installation procedure on every update.

 I would like to point to how pages treats its documents. Pages documents are
 identified with directories, which contain the required images, texts and
 properties. No zipping into one archive is done. OSX then makes the
 directory look like a file (called a package) in finder.

 I think, sharing lyx documents would would be simplified  by providing
 self-contained bundles that can be shipped around.

 Niko




-- 
Rainer M. Krug, Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology,
Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[A B]

First I wish to come clean with one thing: I'd like to see LyX being
used by the ms word people in the industry, so my take is: do not
trust files someone send to you (see earlier discussions on
collaboration)

 1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
 would definitely not change the default format.

Yes, that is very nice. Easy to generate lyx files from scripts, etc.
Very nice and worth saving.

 2) I like the idea of an export format, which effectively compresses
 all files necessary into a single file. This is very nice for
 archiving final documents (lets call it .lyxa for lyx Archive).

lyxa sounds like a nice idea, and there seems to allready be code for this.
There are two things though. lyxa should, as I see it, keep everything
in one place, all original paths will be removed, and it will be
everything in one directory or possible one subdirectory for images,
one for lyx files, one for bibtex stuff, one for  and so on, as
suggested. But basically everything in one place. Reason? If you need
lyxa format, you are either archiving it for backup or sending it to
someone. The recipient are never going to have the same directory
structure as you. That will only mean failure to try to achieve. The
easier way is to just loose the exact location if you are going for a
lyxa  file.
The only time I can see that the exact location is important is when
the images are changed and you don't want to update them manually in
the lyxa file, but hey, then you are probably not receiving new lyxa
versions back in collaboration with someone, so just keep your
original structure and generate a new lyxa file if you need to send it
to someone.
I hope I've managed to make my point clear about that keeping the
exact structure in a lyxa format is futile.


 5) .lyxa should contain information of the original location of the
 foles on the system where it was created, to be able to update the
 files not in the subdirectory.
I say no. You do not want to trust someone on this, either sending
your paths or receiving paths from someone else. If you trust your
coworkers, set up subversion, use the same account, make it world
readable... etc.


 6) One should be able to open a .lyxa file (which would modify the
 files in the .lyxa but not the original location information (from 5))
 or imported (showing the differences of the files in the .lyxa and the
 original files and update the files when confirmed from the ones in
 the .lyxa)

 In this way, the .lyxa could be used as a colaborative tool (original
 author exports, sends .lyxa to other authors, they open it, save it,
 send it back, oroginal author imports it and confirms the files which
 should be overwritten) and as an archive tool of finalised documents.

As I said no to replacing existing files with files from a lyxa file,
I say no to that, but I say yes to colaboration.
I don't want to start another flamewar about collaboration, but from
my viewpoint, don't trust your enemies lyxa files, add a diff this
new lyxa file against this lyxa file that I have currently open and
display differences so I can accept or reject them-button :-)
This will work also when you are working with total trust.

If someone includes an eps file that generates fractals and overload
your cpu, well that is kind of hard to detect  and I guess you'll have
to live with it.

IMHO:
The lyxa format is what Lyx misses, if you have to send more than one
file to send text and image, you are alienating 99% of the population.
Then comes the question... should .lyx be available as a file format
or an internal hidden format and  everything is saved in lyxa format?
But that can probably be decided in the future.

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Rainer M Krug]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 9:26 AM, A B gentosa...@gmail.com wrote:
 First I wish to come clean with one thing: I'd like to see LyX being
 used by the ms word people in the industry, so my take is: do not
 trust files someone send to you (see earlier discussions on
 collaboration)

 1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
 would definitely not change the default format.

 Yes, that is very nice. Easy to generate lyx files from scripts, etc.
 Very nice and worth saving.

Exactly.


 2) I like the idea of an export format, which effectively compresses
 all files necessary into a single file. This is very nice for
 archiving final documents (lets call it .lyxa for lyx Archive).

 lyxa sounds like a nice idea, and there seems to allready be code for this.
 There are two things though. lyxa should, as I see it, keep everything
 in one place, all original paths will be removed, and it will be
 everything in one directory or possible one subdirectory for images,
 one for lyx files, one for bibtex stuff, one for  and so on, as
 suggested. But basically everything in one place. Reason? If you need
 lyxa format, you are either archiving it for backup or sending it to
 someone. The recipient are never going to have the same directory
 structure as you. That will only mean failure to try to achieve. The
 easier way is to just loose the exact location if you are going for a
 lyxa  file.
 The only time I can see that the exact location is important is when
 the images are changed and you don't want to update them manually in
 the lyxa file, but hey, then you are probably not receiving new lyxa
 versions back in collaboration with someone, so just keep your
 original structure and generate a new lyxa file if you need to send it
 to someone.
 I hope I've managed to make my point clear about that keeping the
 exact structure in a lyxa format is futile.


 5) .lyxa should contain information of the original location of the
 foles on the system where it was created, to be able to update the
 files not in the subdirectory.
 I say no. You do not want to trust someone on this, either sending
 your paths or receiving paths from someone else. If you trust your
 coworkers, set up subversion, use the same account, make it world
 readable... etc.


 6) One should be able to open a .lyxa file (which would modify the
 files in the .lyxa but not the original location information (from 5))
 or imported (showing the differences of the files in the .lyxa and the
 original files and update the files when confirmed from the ones in
 the .lyxa)

 In this way, the .lyxa could be used as a colaborative tool (original
 author exports, sends .lyxa to other authors, they open it, save it,
 send it back, oroginal author imports it and confirms the files which
 should be overwritten) and as an archive tool of finalised documents.

 As I said no to replacing existing files with files from a lyxa file,
 I say no to that, but I say yes to colaboration.
 I don't want to start another flamewar about collaboration, but from
 my viewpoint, don't trust your enemies lyxa files, add a diff this
 new lyxa file against this lyxa file that I have currently open and
 display differences so I can accept or reject them-button :-)
 This will work also when you are working with total trust.

I probably did not make myself clear: I definitely do NOT want that it
is automatically replacing the original files, only AFTER
confirmation, which could be done after showing the differences.


 If someone includes an eps file that generates fractals and overload
 your cpu, well that is kind of hard to detect  and I guess you'll have
 to live with it.

 IMHO:
 The lyxa format is what Lyx misses, if you have to send more than one

agreed.

 file to send text and image, you are alienating 99% of the population.
 Then comes the question... should .lyx be available as a file format
 or an internal hidden format and  everything is saved in lyxa format?
 But that can probably be decided in the future.


Just one idea to make the conversion easier: what about offering the
option of creating the file structure automatically, when a graph or
bibtex is inserted? Under Linux, this could be done via links, under
Windows probably as well (.lnk files?)? i.e. when I include a file
outside the ./graphs directory, a link to the original location is
created?

Rainer

-- 
Rainer M. Krug, Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology,
Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 09:26:26AM +0200, A B wrote:

 suggested. But basically everything in one place. Reason? If you need
 lyxa format, you are either archiving it for backup or sending it to
 someone. The recipient are never going to have the same directory
 structure as you. That will only mean failure to try to achieve. The
 easier way is to just loose the exact location if you are going for a
 lyxa  file.

You have this problem anyway, because LyX depends on LaTeX and all the
various LaTeX packages people have installed.  It's really quite a bit
more complicated than a Word or OOo installation.  I've no idea what
to do about this short of limiting the power of LyX by shipping its
own LaTeX with standard extensions.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
a...@shinkuro.com
Shinkuro, Inc.

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:53 AM, Rainer M Krug r.m.k...@gmail.com wrote:

 1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
 would definitely not change the default format.


Ok, maybe I didn't make myself clear: you can have self-contained archives
with no compression at all on OSX. It works like this: you make a directory
and in that directory you dump a special file that tells finder to display
the directory as a package.

But from the command line, it is still a directory. And in finder, you can
look into the package by choosing Show Package Contents from the pop up
menu.

Now Pages files for example come as such packages, you can copy that
directory around, send it through email (yea, email clients handle it
surprisingly well), and it still works.

Now, other operating systems see a directory and not a package. People using
something other than OSX would have to be reminded to copy the directory
around the .lyx file around, which would be managed by lyx.

The file would still be accessible, no performance penalty, but complete
send-aroundability, and while it might feel a little alien on other OS's, on
OSX it's the standard way to do such things, so OSX users will cheer.

cheers,

niko

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 7:32 PM, Etienne lepercq e.gu...@gmail.com wrote:


 [self-contained lyx-files]
 I think this feature should be at least re-discussed.


I for one have had large troubles when asking people to cooperate with me,
because I had to give them precise instructions how to set up lyx. The image
relative path thing I could solve by making lyx find the pictures using
relative paths and otherwise sharing the folder using dropbox, so i didn't
need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I had
written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; it needs
to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo the module
installation procedure on every update.

I would like to point to how pages treats its documents. Pages documents are
identified with directories, which contain the required images, texts and
properties. No zipping into one archive is done. OSX then makes the
directory look like a file (called a package) in finder.

I think, sharing lyx documents would would be simplified  by providing
self-contained bundles that can be shipped around.

Niko

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Rainer M Krug]

Just my two cents worth:

1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
would definitely not change the default format.

2) I like the idea of an export format, which effectively compresses
all files necessary into a single file. This is very nice for
archiving final documents (lets call it .lyxa for lyx Archive).

3) .lyxa should represent a directory tree, in which subfolders hold
pictures, bibtex, ... files.

4) .lyxa should be usable directly, i.e. the .lyx document should be
modified during export to contain only a) relative paths which b) only
are in subdirectories of the location of .lyx

5) .lyxa should contain information of the original location of the
foles on the system where it was created, to be able to update the
files not in the subdirectory.

6) One should be able to open a .lyxa file (which would modify the
files in the .lyxa but not the original location information (from 5))
or imported (showing the differences of the files in the .lyxa and the
original files and update the files when confirmed from the ones in
the .lyxa)

In this way, the .lyxa could be used as a colaborative tool (original
author exports, sends .lyxa to other authors, they open it, save it,
send it back, oroginal author imports it and confirms the files which
should be overwritten) and as an archive tool of finalised documents.

Cheers,

Rainer



On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Niko Schwarz
niko.schw...@googlemail.com wrote:
 On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 7:32 PM, Etienne lepercq e.gu...@gmail.com wrote:


 [self-contained lyx-files]
 I think this feature should be at least re-discussed.


 I for one have had large troubles when asking people to cooperate with me,
 because I had to give them precise instructions how to set up lyx. The image
 relative path thing I could solve by making lyx find the pictures using
 relative paths and otherwise sharing the folder using dropbox, so i didn't
 need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I had
 written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; it needs
 to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo the module
 installation procedure on every update.

 I would like to point to how pages treats its documents. Pages documents are
 identified with directories, which contain the required images, texts and
 properties. No zipping into one archive is done. OSX then makes the
 directory look like a file (called a package) in finder.

 I think, sharing lyx documents would would be simplified  by providing
 self-contained bundles that can be shipped around.

 Niko




-- 
Rainer M. Krug, Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology,
Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[A B]

First I wish to come clean with one thing: I'd like to see LyX being
used by the ms word people in the industry, so my take is: do not
trust files someone send to you (see earlier discussions on
collaboration)

 1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
 would definitely not change the default format.

Yes, that is very nice. Easy to generate lyx files from scripts, etc.
Very nice and worth saving.

 2) I like the idea of an export format, which effectively compresses
 all files necessary into a single file. This is very nice for
 archiving final documents (lets call it .lyxa for lyx Archive).

lyxa sounds like a nice idea, and there seems to allready be code for this.
There are two things though. lyxa should, as I see it, keep everything
in one place, all original paths will be removed, and it will be
everything in one directory or possible one subdirectory for images,
one for lyx files, one for bibtex stuff, one for  and so on, as
suggested. But basically everything in one place. Reason? If you need
lyxa format, you are either archiving it for backup or sending it to
someone. The recipient are never going to have the same directory
structure as you. That will only mean failure to try to achieve. The
easier way is to just loose the exact location if you are going for a
lyxa  file.
The only time I can see that the exact location is important is when
the images are changed and you don't want to update them manually in
the lyxa file, but hey, then you are probably not receiving new lyxa
versions back in collaboration with someone, so just keep your
original structure and generate a new lyxa file if you need to send it
to someone.
I hope I've managed to make my point clear about that keeping the
exact structure in a lyxa format is futile.


 5) .lyxa should contain information of the original location of the
 foles on the system where it was created, to be able to update the
 files not in the subdirectory.
I say no. You do not want to trust someone on this, either sending
your paths or receiving paths from someone else. If you trust your
coworkers, set up subversion, use the same account, make it world
readable... etc.


 6) One should be able to open a .lyxa file (which would modify the
 files in the .lyxa but not the original location information (from 5))
 or imported (showing the differences of the files in the .lyxa and the
 original files and update the files when confirmed from the ones in
 the .lyxa)

 In this way, the .lyxa could be used as a colaborative tool (original
 author exports, sends .lyxa to other authors, they open it, save it,
 send it back, oroginal author imports it and confirms the files which
 should be overwritten) and as an archive tool of finalised documents.

As I said no to replacing existing files with files from a lyxa file,
I say no to that, but I say yes to colaboration.
I don't want to start another flamewar about collaboration, but from
my viewpoint, don't trust your enemies lyxa files, add a diff this
new lyxa file against this lyxa file that I have currently open and
display differences so I can accept or reject them-button :-)
This will work also when you are working with total trust.

If someone includes an eps file that generates fractals and overload
your cpu, well that is kind of hard to detect  and I guess you'll have
to live with it.

IMHO:
The lyxa format is what Lyx misses, if you have to send more than one
file to send text and image, you are alienating 99% of the population.
Then comes the question... should .lyx be available as a file format
or an internal hidden format and  everything is saved in lyxa format?
But that can probably be decided in the future.

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Rainer M Krug]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 9:26 AM, A B gentosa...@gmail.com wrote:
 First I wish to come clean with one thing: I'd like to see LyX being
 used by the ms word people in the industry, so my take is: do not
 trust files someone send to you (see earlier discussions on
 collaboration)

 1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
 would definitely not change the default format.

 Yes, that is very nice. Easy to generate lyx files from scripts, etc.
 Very nice and worth saving.

Exactly.


 2) I like the idea of an export format, which effectively compresses
 all files necessary into a single file. This is very nice for
 archiving final documents (lets call it .lyxa for lyx Archive).

 lyxa sounds like a nice idea, and there seems to allready be code for this.
 There are two things though. lyxa should, as I see it, keep everything
 in one place, all original paths will be removed, and it will be
 everything in one directory or possible one subdirectory for images,
 one for lyx files, one for bibtex stuff, one for  and so on, as
 suggested. But basically everything in one place. Reason? If you need
 lyxa format, you are either archiving it for backup or sending it to
 someone. The recipient are never going to have the same directory
 structure as you. That will only mean failure to try to achieve. The
 easier way is to just loose the exact location if you are going for a
 lyxa  file.
 The only time I can see that the exact location is important is when
 the images are changed and you don't want to update them manually in
 the lyxa file, but hey, then you are probably not receiving new lyxa
 versions back in collaboration with someone, so just keep your
 original structure and generate a new lyxa file if you need to send it
 to someone.
 I hope I've managed to make my point clear about that keeping the
 exact structure in a lyxa format is futile.


 5) .lyxa should contain information of the original location of the
 foles on the system where it was created, to be able to update the
 files not in the subdirectory.
 I say no. You do not want to trust someone on this, either sending
 your paths or receiving paths from someone else. If you trust your
 coworkers, set up subversion, use the same account, make it world
 readable... etc.


 6) One should be able to open a .lyxa file (which would modify the
 files in the .lyxa but not the original location information (from 5))
 or imported (showing the differences of the files in the .lyxa and the
 original files and update the files when confirmed from the ones in
 the .lyxa)

 In this way, the .lyxa could be used as a colaborative tool (original
 author exports, sends .lyxa to other authors, they open it, save it,
 send it back, oroginal author imports it and confirms the files which
 should be overwritten) and as an archive tool of finalised documents.

 As I said no to replacing existing files with files from a lyxa file,
 I say no to that, but I say yes to colaboration.
 I don't want to start another flamewar about collaboration, but from
 my viewpoint, don't trust your enemies lyxa files, add a diff this
 new lyxa file against this lyxa file that I have currently open and
 display differences so I can accept or reject them-button :-)
 This will work also when you are working with total trust.

I probably did not make myself clear: I definitely do NOT want that it
is automatically replacing the original files, only AFTER
confirmation, which could be done after showing the differences.


 If someone includes an eps file that generates fractals and overload
 your cpu, well that is kind of hard to detect  and I guess you'll have
 to live with it.

 IMHO:
 The lyxa format is what Lyx misses, if you have to send more than one

agreed.

 file to send text and image, you are alienating 99% of the population.
 Then comes the question... should .lyx be available as a file format
 or an internal hidden format and  everything is saved in lyxa format?
 But that can probably be decided in the future.


Just one idea to make the conversion easier: what about offering the
option of creating the file structure automatically, when a graph or
bibtex is inserted? Under Linux, this could be done via links, under
Windows probably as well (.lnk files?)? i.e. when I include a file
outside the ./graphs directory, a link to the original location is
created?

Rainer

-- 
Rainer M. Krug, Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology,
Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 09:26:26AM +0200, A B wrote:

 suggested. But basically everything in one place. Reason? If you need
 lyxa format, you are either archiving it for backup or sending it to
 someone. The recipient are never going to have the same directory
 structure as you. That will only mean failure to try to achieve. The
 easier way is to just loose the exact location if you are going for a
 lyxa  file.

You have this problem anyway, because LyX depends on LaTeX and all the
various LaTeX packages people have installed.  It's really quite a bit
more complicated than a Word or OOo installation.  I've no idea what
to do about this short of limiting the power of LyX by shipping its
own LaTeX with standard extensions.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
a...@shinkuro.com
Shinkuro, Inc.

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:53 AM, Rainer M Krug r.m.k...@gmail.com wrote:

 1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
 would definitely not change the default format.


Ok, maybe I didn't make myself clear: you can have self-contained archives
with no compression at all on OSX. It works like this: you make a directory
and in that directory you dump a special file that tells finder to display
the directory as a package.

But from the command line, it is still a directory. And in finder, you can
look into the package by choosing Show Package Contents from the pop up
menu.

Now Pages files for example come as such packages, you can copy that
directory around, send it through email (yea, email clients handle it
surprisingly well), and it still works.

Now, other operating systems see a directory and not a package. People using
something other than OSX would have to be reminded to copy the directory
around the .lyx file around, which would be managed by lyx.

The file would still be accessible, no performance penalty, but complete
send-aroundability, and while it might feel a little alien on other OS's, on
OSX it's the standard way to do such things, so OSX users will cheer.

cheers,

niko

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 7:32 PM, Etienne lepercq  wrote:

>
> >[self-contained lyx-files]
> I think this feature should be at least re-discussed.


I for one have had large troubles when asking people to cooperate with me,
because I had to give them precise instructions how to set up lyx. The image
relative path thing I could solve by making lyx find the pictures using
relative paths and otherwise sharing the folder using dropbox, so i didn't
need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I had
written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; it needs
to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo the module
installation procedure on every update.

I would like to point to how pages treats its documents. Pages documents are
identified with directories, which contain the required images, texts and
properties. No zipping into one archive is done. OSX then makes the
directory look like a file (called a package) in finder.

I think, sharing lyx documents would would be simplified  by providing
self-contained bundles that can be shipped around.

Niko

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Rainer M Krug]

Just my two cents worth:

1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
would definitely not change the default format.

2) I like the idea of an export format, which effectively compresses
all files necessary into a single file. This is very nice for
archiving final documents (lets call it .lyxa for lyx Archive).

3) .lyxa should represent a directory tree, in which subfolders hold
pictures, bibtex, ... files.

4) .lyxa should be usable directly, i.e. the .lyx document should be
modified during export to contain only a) relative paths which b) only
are in subdirectories of the location of .lyx

5) .lyxa should contain information of the original location of the
foles on the system where it was created, to be able to update the
files not in the subdirectory.

6) One should be able to open a .lyxa file (which would modify the
files in the .lyxa but not the original location information (from 5))
or imported (showing the differences of the files in the .lyxa and the
original files and update the files when confirmed from the ones in
the .lyxa)

In this way, the .lyxa could be used as a colaborative tool (original
author exports, sends .lyxa to other authors, they open it, save it,
send it back, oroginal author imports it and confirms the files which
should be overwritten) and as an archive tool of finalised documents.

Cheers,

Rainer



On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Niko Schwarz
 wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 7:32 PM, Etienne lepercq  wrote:
>
>>
>> >[self-contained lyx-files]
>> I think this feature should be at least re-discussed.
>
>
> I for one have had large troubles when asking people to cooperate with me,
> because I had to give them precise instructions how to set up lyx. The image
> relative path thing I could solve by making lyx find the pictures using
> relative paths and otherwise sharing the folder using dropbox, so i didn't
> need to tar/untar anything. What was REALLY difficult was the .module I had
> written for the document. It cannot be accessed by a relative path; it needs
> to be inserted directly into the lyx tree. On OSX, I have to redo the module
> installation procedure on every update.
>
> I would like to point to how pages treats its documents. Pages documents are
> identified with directories, which contain the required images, texts and
> properties. No zipping into one archive is done. OSX then makes the
> directory look like a file (called a package) in finder.
>
> I think, sharing lyx documents would would be simplified  by providing
> self-contained bundles that can be shipped around.
>
> Niko
>



-- 
Rainer M. Krug, Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology,
Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[A B]

First I wish to come clean with one thing: I'd like to see LyX being
used by the ms word people in the industry, so my take is: do not
trust files someone send to you (see earlier discussions on
collaboration)

> 1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
> would definitely not change the default format.

Yes, that is very nice. Easy to generate lyx files from scripts, etc.
Very nice and worth saving.

> 2) I like the idea of an export format, which effectively compresses
> all files necessary into a single file. This is very nice for
> archiving final documents (lets call it .lyxa for lyx Archive).

lyxa sounds like a nice idea, and there seems to allready be code for this.
There are two things though. lyxa should, as I see it, keep everything
in one place, all original paths will be removed, and it will be
"everything in one directory" or possible one subdirectory for images,
one for lyx files, one for bibtex stuff, one for  and so on, as
suggested. But basically everything in one place. Reason? If you need
lyxa format, you are either archiving it for backup or sending it to
someone. The recipient are never going to have the same directory
structure as you. That will only mean failure to try to achieve. The
easier way is to just loose the exact location if you are going for a
lyxa  file.
The only time I can see that the exact location is important is when
the images are changed and you don't want to update them manually in
the lyxa file, but hey, then you are probably not receiving new lyxa
versions back in collaboration with someone, so just keep your
original structure and generate a new lyxa file if you need to send it
to someone.
I hope I've managed to make my point clear about that keeping the
exact structure in a lyxa format is futile.


> 5) .lyxa should contain information of the original location of the
> foles on the system where it was created, to be able to update the
> files not in the subdirectory.
I say no. You do not want to trust someone on this, either sending
your paths or receiving paths from someone else. If you trust your
coworkers, set up subversion, use the same account, make it world
readable... etc.


> 6) One should be able to open a .lyxa file (which would modify the
> files in the .lyxa but not the original location information (from 5))
> or imported (showing the differences of the files in the .lyxa and the
> original files and update the files when confirmed from the ones in
> the .lyxa)
>
> In this way, the .lyxa could be used as a colaborative tool (original
> author exports, sends .lyxa to other authors, they open it, save it,
> send it back, oroginal author imports it and confirms the files which
> should be overwritten) and as an archive tool of finalised documents.

As I said no to replacing existing files with files from a lyxa file,
I say no to that, but I say yes to colaboration.
I don't want to start another flamewar about collaboration, but from
my viewpoint, don't trust your enemies lyxa files, add a "diff this
new lyxa file against this lyxa file that I have currently open and
display differences so I can accept or reject them"-button :-)
This will work also when you are working with total trust.

If someone includes an eps file that generates fractals and overload
your cpu, well that is kind of hard to detect  and I guess you'll have
to live with it.

IMHO:
The lyxa format is what Lyx misses, if you have to send more than one
file to send text and image, you are alienating 99% of the population.
Then comes the question... should .lyx be available as a file format
or an internal hidden format and  everything is saved in lyxa format?
But that can probably be decided in the future.

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Rainer M Krug]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 9:26 AM, A B  wrote:
> First I wish to come clean with one thing: I'd like to see LyX being
> used by the ms word people in the industry, so my take is: do not
> trust files someone send to you (see earlier discussions on
> collaboration)
>
>> 1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
>> would definitely not change the default format.
>
> Yes, that is very nice. Easy to generate lyx files from scripts, etc.
> Very nice and worth saving.

Exactly.

>
>> 2) I like the idea of an export format, which effectively compresses
>> all files necessary into a single file. This is very nice for
>> archiving final documents (lets call it .lyxa for lyx Archive).
>
> lyxa sounds like a nice idea, and there seems to allready be code for this.
> There are two things though. lyxa should, as I see it, keep everything
> in one place, all original paths will be removed, and it will be
> "everything in one directory" or possible one subdirectory for images,
> one for lyx files, one for bibtex stuff, one for  and so on, as
> suggested. But basically everything in one place. Reason? If you need
> lyxa format, you are either archiving it for backup or sending it to
> someone. The recipient are never going to have the same directory
> structure as you. That will only mean failure to try to achieve. The
> easier way is to just loose the exact location if you are going for a
> lyxa  file.
> The only time I can see that the exact location is important is when
> the images are changed and you don't want to update them manually in
> the lyxa file, but hey, then you are probably not receiving new lyxa
> versions back in collaboration with someone, so just keep your
> original structure and generate a new lyxa file if you need to send it
> to someone.
> I hope I've managed to make my point clear about that keeping the
> exact structure in a lyxa format is futile.
>
>
>> 5) .lyxa should contain information of the original location of the
>> foles on the system where it was created, to be able to update the
>> files not in the subdirectory.
> I say no. You do not want to trust someone on this, either sending
> your paths or receiving paths from someone else. If you trust your
> coworkers, set up subversion, use the same account, make it world
> readable... etc.
>
>
>> 6) One should be able to open a .lyxa file (which would modify the
>> files in the .lyxa but not the original location information (from 5))
>> or imported (showing the differences of the files in the .lyxa and the
>> original files and update the files when confirmed from the ones in
>> the .lyxa)
>>
>> In this way, the .lyxa could be used as a colaborative tool (original
>> author exports, sends .lyxa to other authors, they open it, save it,
>> send it back, oroginal author imports it and confirms the files which
>> should be overwritten) and as an archive tool of finalised documents.
>
> As I said no to replacing existing files with files from a lyxa file,
> I say no to that, but I say yes to colaboration.
> I don't want to start another flamewar about collaboration, but from
> my viewpoint, don't trust your enemies lyxa files, add a "diff this
> new lyxa file against this lyxa file that I have currently open and
> display differences so I can accept or reject them"-button :-)
> This will work also when you are working with total trust.

I probably did not make myself clear: I definitely do NOT want that it
is automatically replacing the original files, only AFTER
confirmation, which could be done after showing the differences.

>
> If someone includes an eps file that generates fractals and overload
> your cpu, well that is kind of hard to detect  and I guess you'll have
> to live with it.
>
> IMHO:
> The lyxa format is what Lyx misses, if you have to send more than one

agreed.

> file to send text and image, you are alienating 99% of the population.
> Then comes the question... should .lyx be available as a file format
> or an internal hidden format and  everything is saved in lyxa format?
> But that can probably be decided in the future.
>

Just one idea to make the conversion easier: what about offering the
option of creating the file structure automatically, when a graph or
bibtex is inserted? Under Linux, this could be done via links, under
Windows probably as well (.lnk files?)? i.e. when I include a file
outside the ./graphs directory, a link to the original location is
created?

Rainer

-- 
Rainer M. Krug, Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology,
Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 09:26:26AM +0200, A B wrote:

> suggested. But basically everything in one place. Reason? If you need
> lyxa format, you are either archiving it for backup or sending it to
> someone. The recipient are never going to have the same directory
> structure as you. That will only mean failure to try to achieve. The
> easier way is to just loose the exact location if you are going for a
> lyxa  file.

You have this problem anyway, because LyX depends on LaTeX and all the
various LaTeX packages people have installed.  It's really quite a bit
more complicated than a Word or OOo installation.  I've no idea what
to do about this short of limiting the power of LyX by shipping its
own LaTeX with "standard" extensions.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
a...@shinkuro.com
Shinkuro, Inc.

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 8:53 AM, Rainer M Krug  wrote:
>
> 1) I like the lyx format as it is BECAUSE it is not compressed, so I
> would definitely not change the default format.
>

Ok, maybe I didn't make myself clear: you can have self-contained archives
with no compression at all on OSX. It works like this: you make a directory
and in that directory you dump a special file that tells finder to display
the directory as a package.

But from the command line, it is still a directory. And in finder, you can
look into the package by choosing "Show Package Contents" from the pop up
menu.

Now Pages files for example come as such "packages", you can copy that
directory around, send it through email (yea, email clients handle it
surprisingly well), and it still works.

Now, other operating systems see a directory and not a package. People using
something other than OSX would have to be reminded to copy the directory
around the .lyx file around, which would be managed by lyx.

The file would still be accessible, no performance penalty, but complete
send-aroundability, and while it might feel a little alien on other OS's, on
OSX it's the standard way to do such things, so OSX users will cheer.

cheers,

niko

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Konrad Hofbauer]

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:
Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child documents, 
etc.etc.


Put it in as Export format! :)

/Konrad

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Vincent van Ravesteijn]

Konrad Hofbauer schreef:

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:
Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child 
documents, etc.etc.


Put it in as Export format! :)

/Konrad


It is not yet so perfect to go in.

Vincent

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Konrad Hofbauer]

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:
Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child documents, 
etc.etc.


Put it in as Export format! :)

/Konrad

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Vincent van Ravesteijn]

Konrad Hofbauer schreef:

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:
Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child 
documents, etc.etc.


Put it in as Export format! :)

/Konrad


It is not yet so perfect to go in.

Vincent

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Konrad Hofbauer]

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:
Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child documents, 
etc.etc.


Put it in as Export format! :)

/Konrad

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Vincent van Ravesteijn]

Konrad Hofbauer schreef:

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:
Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child 
documents, etc.etc.


Put it in as Export format! :)

/Konrad


It is not yet so perfect to go in.

Vincent

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Christian Ridderström]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, rgheck wrote:

I'll second what a few others have said: A version control system is 
really the way to go for collaboration. You get easy exchanges, easy 
updating, conflict management, plus you get versioned archving of 
everything you do. There are plenty of free hosting services for this 
kind of thing, if you don't already have access to some server or other.


I started my new job today and learned about a document management system 
called 'DOX' 
(possible link: http://www.softwarecompliance.com/html/products/dox.html )


Now, while that system does have mane benefits, it does still seem quite 
crude compared to a proper version control system. Basically it expects 
you to lock a file while editing it.


So for sharing files to work with, I really think version control is the 
way to go. Perhaps what you need is such a system that easily let's you 
e-mail only the differences.


/Christian

--
Christian Ridderström   Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Christian Ridderström]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, rgheck wrote:

I'll second what a few others have said: A version control system is 
really the way to go for collaboration. You get easy exchanges, easy 
updating, conflict management, plus you get versioned archving of 
everything you do. There are plenty of free hosting services for this 
kind of thing, if you don't already have access to some server or other.


I started my new job today and learned about a document management system 
called 'DOX' 
(possible link: http://www.softwarecompliance.com/html/products/dox.html )


Now, while that system does have mane benefits, it does still seem quite 
crude compared to a proper version control system. Basically it expects 
you to lock a file while editing it.


So for sharing files to work with, I really think version control is the 
way to go. Perhaps what you need is such a system that easily let's you 
e-mail only the differences.


/Christian

--
Christian Ridderström   Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Christian Ridderström]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, rgheck wrote:

I'll second what a few others have said: A version control system is 
really the way to go for collaboration. You get easy exchanges, easy 
updating, conflict management, plus you get versioned archving of 
everything you do. There are plenty of free hosting services for this 
kind of thing, if you don't already have access to some server or other.


I started my new job today and learned about a document management system 
called 'DOX' 
(possible link: http://www.softwarecompliance.com/html/products/dox.html )


Now, while that system does have mane benefits, it does still seem quite 
crude compared to a proper version control system. Basically it expects 
you to lock a file while editing it.


So for sharing files to work with, I really think version control is the 
way to go. Perhaps what you need is such a system that easily let's you 
e-mail only the differences.


/Christian

--
Christian Ridderström   Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Paul A. Rubin]

Etienne lepercq wrote:

I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
now.
I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX is
much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

Thanks a lot.

Etienne Lepercq


An alternative to swapping tarballs or zip archives back and forth is to 
set up a version control system on a server somewhere, with Internet 
access, and let users check drafts in and out.  LyX supports CVS and 
Subversion (that I know of) and maybe other versioning systems. 
Assuming that you have access to a server, it's pretty easy to set up a 
versioning service (speaking from personal experience).  This approach 
lets the user download/upload just the changes, and helps prevent 
collisions when two coauthors get the urge to edit the same section 
concurrently.


/Paul

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Paul A. Rubin wrote:

Etienne lepercq wrote:
I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a 
few time

now.
I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As 
LyX is

much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to 
handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have 
to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to 
untar

it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over 
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on

#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were 
released !!


This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

Thanks a lot.

Etienne Lepercq


An alternative to swapping tarballs or zip archives back and forth is 
to set up a version control system on a server somewhere, with 
Internet access, and let users check drafts in and out.  LyX supports 
CVS and Subversion (that I know of) and maybe other versioning 
systems. Assuming that you have access to a server, it's pretty easy 
to set up a versioning service (speaking from personal experience).  
This approach lets the user download/upload just the changes, and 
helps prevent collisions when two coauthors get the urge to edit the 
same section concurrently.


And there are all kinds of free services out there, too, that will allow 
simple versioning systems.


rh

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Etienne lepercq wrote:

I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX 
is
much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

  
I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite 
simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on 
where you can put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to 
arbitrary locations in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so 
it was disagreements over how to manage these sorts of issues that led 
to our not releasing anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of 
the good being sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd 
really rather not have that battle again.


So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have 
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the 
work I did before and make it functional.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Philippe Grosjean]

OpenOffice does that with the Open Document format (.odx). Java does 
that with JARs, Mozilla does that with plugins, ... Everytime it is the 
same: a zipped directory tree. Perhaps, such a format (kind of .zlyx) 
could be purely optional? It shouldn't replace the original format. That 
way, opponents could use their usual .lyx files and place their figures 
where they like. I would be very happy to get such a feature!

Best,

Philippe Grosjean
..°}))
 ) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( (Prof. Philippe Grosjean
 ) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( (Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
 ) ) ) ) )   Mons-Hainaut University, Belgium
( ( ( ( (
..

Richard Heck wrote:

Etienne lepercq wrote:
I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few 
time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an 
article. As LyX is

much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to 
handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to 
build

an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over 
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on

#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

  
I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite 
simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on 
where you can put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to 
arbitrary locations in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so 
it was disagreements over how to manage these sorts of issues that led 
to our not releasing anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of 
the good being sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd 
really rather not have that battle again.


So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have 
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the 
work I did before and make it functional.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

2009/4/13, Richard Heck rgh...@bobjweil.com:

 Etienne lepercq wrote:

 I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few
 time
 now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As
 LyX is
 much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
 collaborators to give a try to LyX.

 There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
 sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
 build
 an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
 it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
 archive, etc...

 This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
 solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
 archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
 figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
 .lyxZ files ;-)

 Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
 on
 #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
 once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

 This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
 feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
 implementation ?



 I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite simple,
 both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on where you can
 put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to arbitrary locations
 in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so it was disagreements
 over how to manage these sorts of issues that led to our not releasing
 anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of the good being
 sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd really rather not have
 that battle again.

 So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

 That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have mentioned
 here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the work I did
 before and make it functional.

 Richard


I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is willing to
work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to tar/untar ...
will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary files
(as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be considered as
temporary files from the user's point of view) but currently LyX _does_ use
temporary files when working with an unsaved document !

I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the
quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, when
compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG applications
like OOo or MS-Word).

Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML to
better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same
disagreements still exist ?

Etienne Lepercq
-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

2009/4/13, Richard Heck rgh...@bobjweil.com:

 Etienne lepercq wrote:

 I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few
 time
 now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As
 LyX is
 much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
 collaborators to give a try to LyX.

 There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
 sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
 build
 an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
 it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
 archive, etc...

 This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
 solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
 archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
 figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
 .lyxZ files ;-)

 Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
 on
 #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
 once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

 This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
 feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
 implementation ?



 I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite simple,
 both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on where you can
 put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to arbitrary locations
 in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so it was disagreements
 over how to manage these sorts of issues that led to our not releasing
 anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of the good being
 sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd really rather not have
 that battle again.

 So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

 That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have mentioned
 here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the work I did
 before and make it functional.

 Richard


I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is willing to
work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to tar/untar ...
will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary files
(as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be considered as
temporary files from the user's point of view) but currently LyX _does_ use
temporary files when working with an unsaved document !

I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the
quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, when
compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG applications
like OOo or MS-Word).

Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML to
better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same
disagreements still exist ?

Etienne Lepercq
-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Philippe Grosjean wrote:
OpenOffice does that with the Open Document format (.odx). Java does 
that with JARs, Mozilla does that with plugins, ... Everytime it is 
the same: a zipped directory tree. Perhaps, such a format (kind of 
.zlyx) could be purely optional? It shouldn't replace the original 
format. That way, opponents could use their usual .lyx files and place 
their figures where they like. I would be very happy to get such a 
feature!



No, certainly it wouldn't replace anything.

rh


Richard Heck wrote:

Etienne lepercq wrote:
I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a 
few time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an 
article. As LyX is

much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to 
handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have 
to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to 
untar

it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over 
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were 
made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were 
released !!


This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have 
such

feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

  
I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite 
simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on 
where you can put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to 
arbitrary locations in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And 
so it was disagreements over how to manage these sorts of issues that 
led to our not releasing anything. To my mind, this was a perfect 
example of the good being sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, 
well, I'd really rather not have that battle again.


So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have 
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect 
the work I did before and make it functional.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Etienne lepercq wrote:



2009/4/13, Richard Heck rgh...@bobjweil.com 
mailto:rgh...@bobjweil.com:


Etienne lepercq wrote:

I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for
quiet a few time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an
article. As LyX is
much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I
convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not
easy to handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one
have to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators
have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive,
send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One
simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open,
say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could
be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations
were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were
released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to
have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one
relatively-good
implementation ?

 


I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it
quite simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes
restrictions on where you can put files, since you can't (and
don't want to) untar to arbitrary locations in the filesystem.
This bothered some people. And so it was disagreements over how to
manage these sorts of issues that led to our not releasing
anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of the good being
sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd really rather
not have that battle again.

So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect
the work I did before and make it functional.

Richard


I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is 
willing to work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to 
tar/untar ... will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary 
files (as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be 
considered as temporary files from the user's point of view) but 
currently LyX _does_ use temporary files when working with an unsaved 
document !


That's precisely what my old implementation did: untar to the temporary 
directory.


I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the 
quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, 
when compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG 
applications like OOo or MS-Word).


Yes, this model is similar to OOo, etc. Images and the like get 
embedded within the document and lose touch with where they came from. 
But it's a familiar model.


Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML 
to better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same 
disagreements still exist ?



At least in some quarters, these worries still exist.

On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a while 
ago. I don't know how far he got.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

 I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is willing
 to work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to tar/untar ...
 will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
 Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary
 files (as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be considered as
 temporary files from the user's point of view) but currently LyX _does_ use
 temporary files when working with an unsaved document !

  That's precisely what my old implementation did: untar to the temporary
 directory.

  I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the
 quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, when
 compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG applications
 like OOo or MS-Word).

  Yes, this model is similar to OOo, etc. Images and the like get
 embedded within the document and lose touch with where they came from.
 But it's a familiar model.


Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an export
file format to share with others, then one could just merge back the .lyx
embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can use this feature, but
some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone does when using OOo for
example, reinsert the figure)


Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML to
 better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same
 disagreements still exist ?

  At least in some quarters, these worries still exist.

 On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a while ago.
 I don't know how far he got.

 Richard


I think this feature should be at least re-discussed.
And thank you for your answers !
Etienne


-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Vincent van Ravesteijn]

On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a while 
ago. I don't know how far he got.


Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child documents, 
etc.etc.



Richard



Vincent

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Etienne lepercq wrote:




I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that
is willing to work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but
having to tar/untar ... will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar
temporary files (as with this approach, I think un-tared files
should be considered as temporary files from the user's point
of view) but currently LyX _does_ use temporary files when
working with an unsaved document !

That's precisely what my old implementation did: untar to the
temporary directory.

I think that preserving the same temporary path is not
decreasing the quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for
some people, a must have, when compared to the workflow some
have when working with WYSIWYG applications like OOo or MS-Word).

Yes, this model is similar to OOo, etc. Images and the like get
embedded within the document and lose touch with where they came
from. But it's a familiar model.


Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an 
export file format to share with others, then one could just merge 
back the .lyx embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can 
use this feature, but some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone 
does when using OOo for example, reinsert the figure)


This is where things get messy. If you just want an export format, then 
that actually exists already, kind of. There's a script, lyxpak.py, in 
the development tree that will pack a LyX file and all its 
dependencies, wherever they may be, into a tar, I think. Then it can be 
shipped off, unpacked, etc. The difficulty is then in updating. 
Obviously, you can unpack the tar yourself and do with it as you will. 
But, for security reasons, you do not really want LyX to be able 
automatically to unpack and write to arbitrary locations in your 
filesystem.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:


On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a 
while ago. I don't know how far he got.


Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child 
documents, etc.etc.



Cool.

rh

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Christian Ridderström]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, Richard Heck wrote:


 Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an
 export file format to share with others, then one could just merge
 back the .lyx embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can
 use this feature, but some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone
 does when using OOo for example, reinsert the figure)

This is where things get messy. If you just want an export format, then that 
actually exists already, kind of. There's a script, lyxpak.py, in the 
development tree that will pack a LyX file and all its dependencies, 
wherever they may be, into a tar, I think. Then it can be shipped off, 
unpacked, etc. The difficulty is then in updating. Obviously, you can 
unpack the tar yourself and do with it as you will. But, for security 
reasons, you do not really want LyX to be able automatically to unpack and 
write to arbitrary locations in your filesystem.


Aren't there options to 'tar' that can help with this, e.g. only allowing 
things to be written to somewhere inside a subdirectory.


As for the updating, I don't think 'tar' will be enough... you could 
expand the .tar-file into a separate directory and then compare the 
directories and manually move the files that have changed _and_ that you 
want to use to replace your version of those files. Then I thought a bit 
more for a solution, but what I came up with really just ended up 
amounting to a version control system where you were emailing changes.


So why not go for a distributed version control system that supports 
sending changes (or all of it) as e-mail. This way you can get by without 
a server.


/Christian

--
Christian Ridderström   Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

to help sharing files, dropbox is excellent.

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Etienne lepercq e.gu...@gmail.com wrote:

 I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
 now.
 I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX
 is
 much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
 collaborators to give a try to LyX.

 There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
 sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
 build
 an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
 it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
 archive, etc...

 This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
 solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
 archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
 figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
 .lyxZ files ;-)

 Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
 on
 #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
 once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

 This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
 feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
 implementation ?

 Thanks a lot.

 Etienne Lepercq
 --
 Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Murat Yildizoglu]

Just my two cents: Scientific Word was used to come with a utility
called Document Manager. It was able to pack everything in a .msg
file. The utility has a GUI that gives you options for choosing the
elements to include for the packing and other options during
unpacking.  I think that we were even allowed to distribute it to the
collaborators with whom we share files. I do not know if such a
solution would be sufficient and enough secure... Also, it worked only
for Windows, we would definitely need a cross-platform tool for LyX of
course. But, such a tool would definitely be useful.

Regards,

Murat

2009/4/13 Niko Schwarz niko.schw...@googlemail.com:
 to help sharing files, dropbox is excellent.

 On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Etienne lepercq e.gu...@gmail.com wrote:

 I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
 now.
 I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX
 is
 much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
 collaborators to give a try to LyX.

 There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
 sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
 build
 an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
 it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
 archive, etc...

 This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
 solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
 archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
 figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
 .lyxZ files ;-)

 Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
 on
 #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
 once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

 This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
 feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
 implementation ?

 Thanks a lot.

 Etienne Lepercq
 --
 Sincerily





-- 
*** NEW UNIVERSITY, NEW ADDRESS ! ***

Prof. Murat Yildizoglu
Université Paul Cézanne (Aix-Marseille 3)
GREQAM (UMR CNRS 6579)
Centre de la Vieille Charité
2, rue de la Charité
13236 Marseille cedex 02

Bureau 320
Tel : +33 4 91 14 07 27 (standard)
Tel : +33 4 91 14 07 70 (secrétariat)
Tel : +33 4 91 14 07 47 (bureau)
Fax : +33 4 91 90 02 27

e-mail: murat.yildizo...@univ-cezanne.fr
www : http://www.vcharite.univ-mrs.fr/PP/yildi/index.html
http://www.twitter.com/yildizoglu
__

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[rgheck]

Christian Ridderström wrote:

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, Richard Heck wrote:


 Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an
 export file format to share with others, then one could just merge
 back the .lyx embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can
 use this feature, but some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone
 does when using OOo for example, reinsert the figure)

This is where things get messy. If you just want an export format, 
then that actually exists already, kind of. There's a script, 
lyxpak.py, in the development tree that will pack a LyX file and 
all its dependencies, wherever they may be, into a tar, I think. Then 
it can be shipped off, unpacked, etc. The difficulty is then in 
updating. Obviously, you can unpack the tar yourself and do with it 
as you will. But, for security reasons, you do not really want LyX to 
be able automatically to unpack and write to arbitrary locations in 
your filesystem.


Aren't there options to 'tar' that can help with this, e.g. only 
allowing things to be written to somewhere inside a subdirectory.


Yes, of course, and if you're not worried about updating, then that is 
sufficient.


rh

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[rgheck]

Murat Yildizoglu wrote:

Just my two cents: Scientific Word was used to come with a utility
called Document Manager. It was able to pack everything in a .msg
file. The utility has a GUI that gives you options for choosing the
elements to include for the packing and other options during
unpacking.  I think that we were even allowed to distribute it to the
collaborators with whom we share files. I do not know if such a
solution would be sufficient and enough secure... Also, it worked only
for Windows, we would definitely need a cross-platform tool for LyX of
course. But, such a tool would definitely be useful.

  
I'll second what a few others have said: A version control system is 
really the way to go for collaboration. You get easy exchanges, easy 
updating, conflict management, plus you get versioned archving of 
everything you do. There are plenty of free hosting services for this 
kind of thing, if you don't already have access to some server or other.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

2009/4/13, Niko Schwarz niko.schw...@googlemail.com:

 to help sharing files, dropbox is excellent.

 Hmm interesting idea : I'll try, even if it imply using a third-party tool.
I'll give it a try.

-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Paul A. Rubin]

Etienne lepercq wrote:

I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
now.
I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX is
much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

Thanks a lot.

Etienne Lepercq


An alternative to swapping tarballs or zip archives back and forth is to 
set up a version control system on a server somewhere, with Internet 
access, and let users check drafts in and out.  LyX supports CVS and 
Subversion (that I know of) and maybe other versioning systems. 
Assuming that you have access to a server, it's pretty easy to set up a 
versioning service (speaking from personal experience).  This approach 
lets the user download/upload just the changes, and helps prevent 
collisions when two coauthors get the urge to edit the same section 
concurrently.


/Paul

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Paul A. Rubin wrote:

Etienne lepercq wrote:
I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a 
few time

now.
I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As 
LyX is

much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to 
handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have 
to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to 
untar

it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over 
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on

#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were 
released !!


This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

Thanks a lot.

Etienne Lepercq


An alternative to swapping tarballs or zip archives back and forth is 
to set up a version control system on a server somewhere, with 
Internet access, and let users check drafts in and out.  LyX supports 
CVS and Subversion (that I know of) and maybe other versioning 
systems. Assuming that you have access to a server, it's pretty easy 
to set up a versioning service (speaking from personal experience).  
This approach lets the user download/upload just the changes, and 
helps prevent collisions when two coauthors get the urge to edit the 
same section concurrently.


And there are all kinds of free services out there, too, that will allow 
simple versioning systems.


rh

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Etienne lepercq wrote:

I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX 
is
much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

  
I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite 
simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on 
where you can put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to 
arbitrary locations in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so 
it was disagreements over how to manage these sorts of issues that led 
to our not releasing anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of 
the good being sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd 
really rather not have that battle again.


So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have 
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the 
work I did before and make it functional.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Philippe Grosjean]

OpenOffice does that with the Open Document format (.odx). Java does 
that with JARs, Mozilla does that with plugins, ... Everytime it is the 
same: a zipped directory tree. Perhaps, such a format (kind of .zlyx) 
could be purely optional? It shouldn't replace the original format. That 
way, opponents could use their usual .lyx files and place their figures 
where they like. I would be very happy to get such a feature!

Best,

Philippe Grosjean
..°}))
 ) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( (Prof. Philippe Grosjean
 ) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( (Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
 ) ) ) ) )   Mons-Hainaut University, Belgium
( ( ( ( (
..

Richard Heck wrote:

Etienne lepercq wrote:
I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few 
time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an 
article. As LyX is

much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to 
handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to 
build

an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over 
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on

#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

  
I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite 
simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on 
where you can put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to 
arbitrary locations in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so 
it was disagreements over how to manage these sorts of issues that led 
to our not releasing anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of 
the good being sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd 
really rather not have that battle again.


So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have 
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the 
work I did before and make it functional.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

2009/4/13, Richard Heck rgh...@bobjweil.com:

 Etienne lepercq wrote:

 I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few
 time
 now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As
 LyX is
 much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
 collaborators to give a try to LyX.

 There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
 sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
 build
 an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
 it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
 archive, etc...

 This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
 solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
 archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
 figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
 .lyxZ files ;-)

 Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
 on
 #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
 once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

 This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
 feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
 implementation ?



 I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite simple,
 both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on where you can
 put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to arbitrary locations
 in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so it was disagreements
 over how to manage these sorts of issues that led to our not releasing
 anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of the good being
 sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd really rather not have
 that battle again.

 So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

 That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have mentioned
 here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the work I did
 before and make it functional.

 Richard


I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is willing to
work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to tar/untar ...
will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary files
(as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be considered as
temporary files from the user's point of view) but currently LyX _does_ use
temporary files when working with an unsaved document !

I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the
quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, when
compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG applications
like OOo or MS-Word).

Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML to
better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same
disagreements still exist ?

Etienne Lepercq
-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

2009/4/13, Richard Heck rgh...@bobjweil.com:

 Etienne lepercq wrote:

 I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few
 time
 now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As
 LyX is
 much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
 collaborators to give a try to LyX.

 There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
 sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
 build
 an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
 it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
 archive, etc...

 This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
 solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
 archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
 figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
 .lyxZ files ;-)

 Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
 on
 #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
 once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

 This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
 feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
 implementation ?



 I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite simple,
 both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on where you can
 put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to arbitrary locations
 in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so it was disagreements
 over how to manage these sorts of issues that led to our not releasing
 anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of the good being
 sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd really rather not have
 that battle again.

 So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

 That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have mentioned
 here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the work I did
 before and make it functional.

 Richard


I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is willing to
work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to tar/untar ...
will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary files
(as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be considered as
temporary files from the user's point of view) but currently LyX _does_ use
temporary files when working with an unsaved document !

I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the
quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, when
compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG applications
like OOo or MS-Word).

Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML to
better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same
disagreements still exist ?

Etienne Lepercq
-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Philippe Grosjean wrote:
OpenOffice does that with the Open Document format (.odx). Java does 
that with JARs, Mozilla does that with plugins, ... Everytime it is 
the same: a zipped directory tree. Perhaps, such a format (kind of 
.zlyx) could be purely optional? It shouldn't replace the original 
format. That way, opponents could use their usual .lyx files and place 
their figures where they like. I would be very happy to get such a 
feature!



No, certainly it wouldn't replace anything.

rh


Richard Heck wrote:

Etienne lepercq wrote:
I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a 
few time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an 
article. As LyX is

much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to 
handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have 
to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to 
untar

it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over 
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were 
made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were 
released !!


This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have 
such

feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

  
I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite 
simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on 
where you can put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to 
arbitrary locations in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And 
so it was disagreements over how to manage these sorts of issues that 
led to our not releasing anything. To my mind, this was a perfect 
example of the good being sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, 
well, I'd really rather not have that battle again.


So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have 
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect 
the work I did before and make it functional.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Etienne lepercq wrote:



2009/4/13, Richard Heck rgh...@bobjweil.com 
mailto:rgh...@bobjweil.com:


Etienne lepercq wrote:

I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for
quiet a few time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an
article. As LyX is
much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I
convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not
easy to handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one
have to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators
have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive,
send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One
simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open,
say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could
be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations
were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were
released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to
have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one
relatively-good
implementation ?

 


I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it
quite simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes
restrictions on where you can put files, since you can't (and
don't want to) untar to arbitrary locations in the filesystem.
This bothered some people. And so it was disagreements over how to
manage these sorts of issues that led to our not releasing
anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of the good being
sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd really rather
not have that battle again.

So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect
the work I did before and make it functional.

Richard


I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is 
willing to work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to 
tar/untar ... will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary 
files (as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be 
considered as temporary files from the user's point of view) but 
currently LyX _does_ use temporary files when working with an unsaved 
document !


That's precisely what my old implementation did: untar to the temporary 
directory.


I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the 
quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, 
when compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG 
applications like OOo or MS-Word).


Yes, this model is similar to OOo, etc. Images and the like get 
embedded within the document and lose touch with where they came from. 
But it's a familiar model.


Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML 
to better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same 
disagreements still exist ?



At least in some quarters, these worries still exist.

On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a while 
ago. I don't know how far he got.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

 I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is willing
 to work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to tar/untar ...
 will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
 Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary
 files (as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be considered as
 temporary files from the user's point of view) but currently LyX _does_ use
 temporary files when working with an unsaved document !

  That's precisely what my old implementation did: untar to the temporary
 directory.

  I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the
 quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, when
 compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG applications
 like OOo or MS-Word).

  Yes, this model is similar to OOo, etc. Images and the like get
 embedded within the document and lose touch with where they came from.
 But it's a familiar model.


Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an export
file format to share with others, then one could just merge back the .lyx
embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can use this feature, but
some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone does when using OOo for
example, reinsert the figure)


Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML to
 better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same
 disagreements still exist ?

  At least in some quarters, these worries still exist.

 On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a while ago.
 I don't know how far he got.

 Richard


I think this feature should be at least re-discussed.
And thank you for your answers !
Etienne


-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Vincent van Ravesteijn]

On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a while 
ago. I don't know how far he got.


Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child documents, 
etc.etc.



Richard



Vincent

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Etienne lepercq wrote:




I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that
is willing to work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but
having to tar/untar ... will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar
temporary files (as with this approach, I think un-tared files
should be considered as temporary files from the user's point
of view) but currently LyX _does_ use temporary files when
working with an unsaved document !

That's precisely what my old implementation did: untar to the
temporary directory.

I think that preserving the same temporary path is not
decreasing the quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for
some people, a must have, when compared to the workflow some
have when working with WYSIWYG applications like OOo or MS-Word).

Yes, this model is similar to OOo, etc. Images and the like get
embedded within the document and lose touch with where they came
from. But it's a familiar model.


Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an 
export file format to share with others, then one could just merge 
back the .lyx embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can 
use this feature, but some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone 
does when using OOo for example, reinsert the figure)


This is where things get messy. If you just want an export format, then 
that actually exists already, kind of. There's a script, lyxpak.py, in 
the development tree that will pack a LyX file and all its 
dependencies, wherever they may be, into a tar, I think. Then it can be 
shipped off, unpacked, etc. The difficulty is then in updating. 
Obviously, you can unpack the tar yourself and do with it as you will. 
But, for security reasons, you do not really want LyX to be able 
automatically to unpack and write to arbitrary locations in your 
filesystem.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:


On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a 
while ago. I don't know how far he got.


Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child 
documents, etc.etc.



Cool.

rh

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Christian Ridderström]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, Richard Heck wrote:


 Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an
 export file format to share with others, then one could just merge
 back the .lyx embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can
 use this feature, but some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone
 does when using OOo for example, reinsert the figure)

This is where things get messy. If you just want an export format, then that 
actually exists already, kind of. There's a script, lyxpak.py, in the 
development tree that will pack a LyX file and all its dependencies, 
wherever they may be, into a tar, I think. Then it can be shipped off, 
unpacked, etc. The difficulty is then in updating. Obviously, you can 
unpack the tar yourself and do with it as you will. But, for security 
reasons, you do not really want LyX to be able automatically to unpack and 
write to arbitrary locations in your filesystem.


Aren't there options to 'tar' that can help with this, e.g. only allowing 
things to be written to somewhere inside a subdirectory.


As for the updating, I don't think 'tar' will be enough... you could 
expand the .tar-file into a separate directory and then compare the 
directories and manually move the files that have changed _and_ that you 
want to use to replace your version of those files. Then I thought a bit 
more for a solution, but what I came up with really just ended up 
amounting to a version control system where you were emailing changes.


So why not go for a distributed version control system that supports 
sending changes (or all of it) as e-mail. This way you can get by without 
a server.


/Christian

--
Christian Ridderström   Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

to help sharing files, dropbox is excellent.

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Etienne lepercq e.gu...@gmail.com wrote:

 I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
 now.
 I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX
 is
 much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
 collaborators to give a try to LyX.

 There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
 sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
 build
 an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
 it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
 archive, etc...

 This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
 solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
 archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
 figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
 .lyxZ files ;-)

 Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
 on
 #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
 once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

 This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
 feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
 implementation ?

 Thanks a lot.

 Etienne Lepercq
 --
 Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Murat Yildizoglu]

Just my two cents: Scientific Word was used to come with a utility
called Document Manager. It was able to pack everything in a .msg
file. The utility has a GUI that gives you options for choosing the
elements to include for the packing and other options during
unpacking.  I think that we were even allowed to distribute it to the
collaborators with whom we share files. I do not know if such a
solution would be sufficient and enough secure... Also, it worked only
for Windows, we would definitely need a cross-platform tool for LyX of
course. But, such a tool would definitely be useful.

Regards,

Murat

2009/4/13 Niko Schwarz niko.schw...@googlemail.com:
 to help sharing files, dropbox is excellent.

 On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Etienne lepercq e.gu...@gmail.com wrote:

 I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
 now.
 I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX
 is
 much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
 collaborators to give a try to LyX.

 There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
 sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
 build
 an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
 it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
 archive, etc...

 This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
 solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
 archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
 figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
 .lyxZ files ;-)

 Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
 on
 #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
 once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

 This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
 feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
 implementation ?

 Thanks a lot.

 Etienne Lepercq
 --
 Sincerily





-- 
*** NEW UNIVERSITY, NEW ADDRESS ! ***

Prof. Murat Yildizoglu
Université Paul Cézanne (Aix-Marseille 3)
GREQAM (UMR CNRS 6579)
Centre de la Vieille Charité
2, rue de la Charité
13236 Marseille cedex 02

Bureau 320
Tel : +33 4 91 14 07 27 (standard)
Tel : +33 4 91 14 07 70 (secrétariat)
Tel : +33 4 91 14 07 47 (bureau)
Fax : +33 4 91 90 02 27

e-mail: murat.yildizo...@univ-cezanne.fr
www : http://www.vcharite.univ-mrs.fr/PP/yildi/index.html
http://www.twitter.com/yildizoglu
__

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[rgheck]

Christian Ridderström wrote:

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, Richard Heck wrote:


 Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an
 export file format to share with others, then one could just merge
 back the .lyx embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can
 use this feature, but some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone
 does when using OOo for example, reinsert the figure)

This is where things get messy. If you just want an export format, 
then that actually exists already, kind of. There's a script, 
lyxpak.py, in the development tree that will pack a LyX file and 
all its dependencies, wherever they may be, into a tar, I think. Then 
it can be shipped off, unpacked, etc. The difficulty is then in 
updating. Obviously, you can unpack the tar yourself and do with it 
as you will. But, for security reasons, you do not really want LyX to 
be able automatically to unpack and write to arbitrary locations in 
your filesystem.


Aren't there options to 'tar' that can help with this, e.g. only 
allowing things to be written to somewhere inside a subdirectory.


Yes, of course, and if you're not worried about updating, then that is 
sufficient.


rh

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[rgheck]

Murat Yildizoglu wrote:

Just my two cents: Scientific Word was used to come with a utility
called Document Manager. It was able to pack everything in a .msg
file. The utility has a GUI that gives you options for choosing the
elements to include for the packing and other options during
unpacking.  I think that we were even allowed to distribute it to the
collaborators with whom we share files. I do not know if such a
solution would be sufficient and enough secure... Also, it worked only
for Windows, we would definitely need a cross-platform tool for LyX of
course. But, such a tool would definitely be useful.

  
I'll second what a few others have said: A version control system is 
really the way to go for collaboration. You get easy exchanges, easy 
updating, conflict management, plus you get versioned archving of 
everything you do. There are plenty of free hosting services for this 
kind of thing, if you don't already have access to some server or other.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

2009/4/13, Niko Schwarz niko.schw...@googlemail.com:

 to help sharing files, dropbox is excellent.

 Hmm interesting idea : I'll try, even if it imply using a third-party tool.
I'll give it a try.

-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Paul A. Rubin]

Etienne lepercq wrote:

I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
now.
I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX is
much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

Thanks a lot.

Etienne Lepercq


An alternative to swapping tarballs or zip archives back and forth is to 
set up a version control system on a server somewhere, with Internet 
access, and let users check drafts in and out.  LyX supports CVS and 
Subversion (that I know of) and maybe other versioning systems. 
Assuming that you have access to a server, it's pretty easy to set up a 
versioning service (speaking from personal experience).  This approach 
lets the user download/upload just the changes, and helps prevent 
collisions when two coauthors get the urge to edit the same section 
concurrently.


/Paul

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Paul A. Rubin wrote:

Etienne lepercq wrote:
I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a 
few time

now.
I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As 
LyX is

much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to 
handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have 
to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to 
untar

it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over 
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on

#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were 
released !!


This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

Thanks a lot.

Etienne Lepercq


An alternative to swapping tarballs or zip archives back and forth is 
to set up a version control system on a server somewhere, with 
Internet access, and let users check drafts in and out.  LyX supports 
CVS and Subversion (that I know of) and maybe other versioning 
systems. Assuming that you have access to a server, it's pretty easy 
to set up a versioning service (speaking from personal experience).  
This approach lets the user download/upload just the changes, and 
helps prevent collisions when two coauthors get the urge to edit the 
same section concurrently.


And there are all kinds of free services out there, too, that will allow 
simple versioning systems.


rh

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Etienne lepercq wrote:

I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX 
is
much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

  
I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite 
simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on 
where you can put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to 
arbitrary locations in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so 
it was disagreements over how to manage these sorts of issues that led 
to our not releasing anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of 
the good being sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd 
really rather not have that battle again.


So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have 
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the 
work I did before and make it functional.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Philippe Grosjean]

OpenOffice does that with the Open Document format (.odx). Java does 
that with JARs, Mozilla does that with plugins, ... Everytime it is the 
same: a zipped directory tree. Perhaps, such a format (kind of .zlyx) 
could be purely optional? It shouldn't replace the original format. That 
way, opponents could use their usual .lyx files and place their figures 
where they like. I would be very happy to get such a feature!

Best,

Philippe Grosjean
..<°}))><
 ) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( (Prof. Philippe Grosjean
 ) ) ) ) )
( ( ( ( (Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
 ) ) ) ) )   Mons-Hainaut University, Belgium
( ( ( ( (
..

Richard Heck wrote:

Etienne lepercq wrote:
I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few 
time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an 
article. As LyX is

much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to 
handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to 
build

an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over 
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on

#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

  
I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite 
simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on 
where you can put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to 
arbitrary locations in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so 
it was disagreements over how to manage these sorts of issues that led 
to our not releasing anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of 
the good being sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd 
really rather not have that battle again.


So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have 
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the 
work I did before and make it functional.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

2009/4/13, Richard Heck :
>
> Etienne lepercq wrote:
>
>> I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few
>> time
>> now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As
>> LyX is
>> much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
>> collaborators to give a try to LyX.
>>
>> There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
>> sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
>> build
>> an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
>> it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
>> archive, etc...
>>
>> This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
>> solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
>> archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
>> figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
>> .lyxZ files ;-)
>>
>> Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
>> on
>> #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
>> once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!
>>
>> This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
>> feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
>> implementation ?
>>
>>
>>
> I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite simple,
> both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on where you can
> put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to arbitrary locations
> in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so it was disagreements
> over how to manage these sorts of issues that led to our not releasing
> anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of the good being
> sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd really rather not have
> that battle again.
>
> So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.
>
> That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have mentioned
> here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the work I did
> before and make it functional.
>
> Richard
>
>
I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is willing to
work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to tar/untar ...
will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary files
(as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be considered as
temporary files from the user's point of view) but currently LyX _does_ use
temporary files when working with an unsaved document !

I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the
quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, when
compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG applications
like OOo or MS-Word).

Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML to
better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same
disagreements still exist ?

Etienne Lepercq
-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

2009/4/13, Richard Heck :
>
> Etienne lepercq wrote:
>
>> I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few
>> time
>> now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As
>> LyX is
>> much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
>> collaborators to give a try to LyX.
>>
>> There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
>> sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
>> build
>> an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
>> it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
>> archive, etc...
>>
>> This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
>> solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
>> archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
>> figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
>> .lyxZ files ;-)
>>
>> Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
>> on
>> #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
>> once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!
>>
>> This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
>> feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
>> implementation ?
>>
>>
>>
> I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite simple,
> both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on where you can
> put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to arbitrary locations
> in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And so it was disagreements
> over how to manage these sorts of issues that led to our not releasing
> anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of the good being
> sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd really rather not have
> that battle again.
>
> So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.
>
> That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have mentioned
> here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect the work I did
> before and make it functional.
>
> Richard
>
>
I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is willing to
work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to tar/untar ...
will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary files
(as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be considered as
temporary files from the user's point of view) but currently LyX _does_ use
temporary files when working with an unsaved document !

I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the
quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, when
compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG applications
like OOo or MS-Word).

Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML to
better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same
disagreements still exist ?

Etienne Lepercq
-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Philippe Grosjean wrote:
OpenOffice does that with the Open Document format (.odx). Java does 
that with JARs, Mozilla does that with plugins, ... Everytime it is 
the same: a zipped directory tree. Perhaps, such a format (kind of 
.zlyx) could be purely optional? It shouldn't replace the original 
format. That way, opponents could use their usual .lyx files and place 
their figures where they like. I would be very happy to get such a 
feature!



No, certainly it wouldn't replace anything.

rh


Richard Heck wrote:

Etienne lepercq wrote:
I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a 
few time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an 
article. As LyX is

much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to 
handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have 
to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to 
untar

it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over 
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were 
made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were 
released !!


This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have 
such

feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
implementation ?

  
I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it quite 
simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes restrictions on 
where you can put files, since you can't (and don't want to) untar to 
arbitrary locations in the filesystem. This bothered some people. And 
so it was disagreements over how to manage these sorts of issues that 
led to our not releasing anything. To my mind, this was a perfect 
example of the good being sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, 
well, I'd really rather not have that battle again.


So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have 
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect 
the work I did before and make it functional.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Etienne lepercq wrote:



2009/4/13, Richard Heck >:


Etienne lepercq wrote:

I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for
quiet a few time
now. I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an
article. As LyX is
much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I
convinced my
collaborators to give a try to LyX.

There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not
easy to handle,
sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one
have to build
an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators
have to untar
it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive,
send the
archive, etc...

This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One
simple
solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open,
say .tar
archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could
be called
.lyxZ files ;-)

Does such feature exist already ? I searched over
FAQ/Documentation/Asked on
#LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations
were made
once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were
released !!

This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to
have such
feature now, or is there a way to at least release one
relatively-good
implementation ?

 


I agree with you that there is a way to do this that makes it
quite simple, both to implement and to use. But it imposes
restrictions on where you can put files, since you can't (and
don't want to) untar to arbitrary locations in the filesystem.
This bothered some people. And so it was disagreements over how to
manage these sorts of issues that led to our not releasing
anything. To my mind, this was a perfect example of the good being
sacrificed for the non-existent best, but, well, I'd really rather
not have that battle again.

So, at present, the tar-untar routine is about all we can do.

That said, if enough USERs thought the kind of facility you have
mentioned here was worth implementing, I'd be willing to resurrect
the work I did before and make it functional.

Richard


I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is 
willing to work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to 
tar/untar ... will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary 
files (as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be 
considered as temporary files from the user's point of view) but 
currently LyX _does_ use temporary files when working with an unsaved 
document !


That's precisely what my old implementation did: untar to the temporary 
directory.


I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the 
quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, 
when compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG 
applications like OOo or MS-Word).


Yes, this model is similar to OOo, etc. Images and the like get 
"embedded" within the document and lose touch with where they came from. 
But it's a familiar model.


Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML 
to better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same 
disagreements still exist ?



At least in some quarters, these worries still exist.

On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a while 
ago. I don't know how far he got.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

>
>
>>
>> I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that is willing
>> to work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but having to tar/untar ...
>> will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
>> Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar temporary
>> files (as with this approach, I think un-tared files should be considered as
>> temporary files from the user's point of view) but currently LyX _does_ use
>> temporary files when working with an unsaved document !
>>
>>  That's precisely what my old implementation did: untar to the temporary
> directory.
>
>  I think that preserving the same temporary path is not decreasing the
>> quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for some people, a must have, when
>> compared to the workflow some have when working with WYSIWYG applications
>> like OOo or MS-Word).
>>
>>  Yes, this model is similar to OOo, etc. Images and the like get
> "embedded" within the document and lose touch with where they came from.
> But it's a familiar model.


Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an "export"
file format to share with others, then one could just merge back the .lyx
embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can use this feature, but
some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone does when using OOo for
example, reinsert the figure)


Does such feature-request be proposed (once again ;-) ) in the dev ML to
>> better know if your previous work may be merged now, or if the same
>> disagreements still exist ?
>>
>>  At least in some quarters, these worries still exist.
>
> On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a while ago.
> I don't know how far he got.
>
> Richard
>
>
I think this feature should be at least re-discussed.
And thank you for your answers !
Etienne


-- 
Sincerily

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Vincent van Ravesteijn]

On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a while 
ago. I don't know how far he got.


Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child documents, 
etc.etc.



Richard



Vincent

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Etienne lepercq wrote:




I _really_ think this is a must have: I know someone else that
is willing to work with LyX and propose it to her teacher, but
having to tar/untar ... will make it _very_ difficult to accept.
Of course, you are right about the problem of where to untar
temporary files (as with this approach, I think un-tared files
should be considered as temporary files from the user's point
of view) but currently LyX _does_ use temporary files when
working with an unsaved document !

That's precisely what my old implementation did: untar to the
temporary directory.

I think that preserving the same temporary path is not
decreasing the quality of LyX, and adds a good feature (for
some people, a must have, when compared to the workflow some
have when working with WYSIWYG applications like OOo or MS-Word).

Yes, this model is similar to OOo, etc. Images and the like get
"embedded" within the document and lose touch with where they came
from. But it's a familiar model.


Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an 
"export" file format to share with others, then one could just merge 
back the .lyx embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can 
use this feature, but some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone 
does when using OOo for example, reinsert the figure)


This is where things get messy. If you just want an export format, then 
that actually exists already, kind of. There's a script, lyxpak.py, in 
the development tree that will "pack" a LyX file and all its 
dependencies, wherever they may be, into a tar, I think. Then it can be 
shipped off, unpacked, etc. The difficulty is then in "updating". 
Obviously, you can unpack the tar yourself and do with it as you will. 
But, for security reasons, you do not really want LyX to be able 
automatically to unpack and write to arbitrary locations in your 
filesystem.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Richard Heck]

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:


On the other hand, I think Vincent was working on this problem a 
while ago. I don't know how far he got.


Actually, I have an implementation of something that allows you to 
export a zipped archive with all figures, bibtex files, child 
documents, etc.etc.



Cool.

rh

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Christian Ridderström]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, Richard Heck wrote:


 Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an
 "export" file format to share with others, then one could just merge
 back the .lyx embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can
 use this feature, but some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone
 does when using OOo for example, reinsert the figure)

This is where things get messy. If you just want an export format, then that 
actually exists already, kind of. There's a script, lyxpak.py, in the 
development tree that will "pack" a LyX file and all its dependencies, 
wherever they may be, into a tar, I think. Then it can be shipped off, 
unpacked, etc. The difficulty is then in "updating". Obviously, you can 
unpack the tar yourself and do with it as you will. But, for security 
reasons, you do not really want LyX to be able automatically to unpack and 
write to arbitrary locations in your filesystem.


Aren't there options to 'tar' that can help with this, e.g. only allowing 
things to be written to somewhere inside a subdirectory.


As for the "updating", I don't think 'tar' will be enough... you could 
expand the .tar-file into a separate directory and then compare the 
directories and manually move the files that have changed _and_ that you 
want to use to replace your version of those files. Then I thought a bit 
more for a solution, but what I came up with really just ended up 
amounting to a version control system where you were emailing changes.


So why not go for a distributed version control system that supports 
sending changes (or all of it) as e-mail. This way you can get by without 
a server.


/Christian

--
Christian Ridderström   Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Niko Schwarz]

to help sharing files, dropbox is excellent.

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Etienne lepercq  wrote:

> I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
> now.
> I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX
> is
> much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
> collaborators to give a try to LyX.
>
> There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
> sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
> build
> an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
> it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
> archive, etc...
>
> This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
> solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
> archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
> figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
> .lyxZ files ;-)
>
> Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
> on
> #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
> once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!
>
> This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
> feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
> implementation ?
>
> Thanks a lot.
>
> Etienne Lepercq
> --
> Sincerily
>

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Murat Yildizoglu]

Just my two cents: Scientific Word was used to come with a utility
called Document Manager. It was able to pack everything in a .msg
file. The utility has a GUI that gives you options for choosing the
elements to include for the packing and other options during
unpacking.  I think that we were even allowed to distribute it to the
collaborators with whom we share files. I do not know if such a
solution would be sufficient and enough secure... Also, it worked only
for Windows, we would definitely need a cross-platform tool for LyX of
course. But, such a tool would definitely be useful.

Regards,

Murat

2009/4/13 Niko Schwarz :
> to help sharing files, dropbox is excellent.
>
> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Etienne lepercq  wrote:
>
>> I am new to LyX, but not as new to LaTeX : I used Kile for quiet a few time
>> now.
>> I would like to use LyX to work with several people on an article. As LyX
>> is
>> much more user-friendly than Kile, a pure LaTeX editor, I convinced my
>> collaborators to give a try to LyX.
>>
>> There is te least one thing in LyX (and LaTeX) that is not easy to handle,
>> sharing a whole document to make it modifiable by others : one have to
>> build
>> an archive with all figures and latex source, collaborators have to untar
>> it, open LyX, read/modify/etc... and then... rebuild archive, send the
>> archive, etc...
>>
>> This is counter-productive, not easy to use, it is a pain. One simple
>> solution I see for this is to give the ability to LyX to open, say .tar
>> archives, with a specific tree inside (.yx sources, then
>> figures/allFigures.Whatever or something). Such archive could be called
>> .lyxZ files ;-)
>>
>> Does such feature exist already ? I searched over FAQ/Documentation/Asked
>> on
>> #LyX but did not find anything more than : two implementations were made
>> once, but as nobody could say which was the best... none were released !!
>>
>> This is not _that_ complex to implement, but is there a way to have such
>> feature now, or is there a way to at least release one relatively-good
>> implementation ?
>>
>> Thanks a lot.
>>
>> Etienne Lepercq
>> --
>> Sincerily
>>
>



-- 
*** NEW UNIVERSITY, NEW ADDRESS ! ***

Prof. Murat Yildizoglu
Université Paul Cézanne (Aix-Marseille 3)
GREQAM (UMR CNRS 6579)
Centre de la Vieille Charité
2, rue de la Charité
13236 Marseille cedex 02

Bureau 320
Tel : +33 4 91 14 07 27 (standard)
Tel : +33 4 91 14 07 70 (secrétariat)
Tel : +33 4 91 14 07 47 (bureau)
Fax : +33 4 91 90 02 27

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www : http://www.vcharite.univ-mrs.fr/PP/yildi/index.html
http://www.twitter.com/yildizoglu
__

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[rgheck]

Christian Ridderström wrote:

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, Richard Heck wrote:


 Yes, that's a major drawback ! But the .zlyx could be used as an
 "export" file format to share with others, then one could just merge
 back the .lyx embedded into the .zlyx : I see this as a way one can
 use this feature, but some may want to use it otherwise (as everyone
 does when using OOo for example, reinsert the figure)

This is where things get messy. If you just want an export format, 
then that actually exists already, kind of. There's a script, 
lyxpak.py, in the development tree that will "pack" a LyX file and 
all its dependencies, wherever they may be, into a tar, I think. Then 
it can be shipped off, unpacked, etc. The difficulty is then in 
"updating". Obviously, you can unpack the tar yourself and do with it 
as you will. But, for security reasons, you do not really want LyX to 
be able automatically to unpack and write to arbitrary locations in 
your filesystem.


Aren't there options to 'tar' that can help with this, e.g. only 
allowing things to be written to somewhere inside a subdirectory.


Yes, of course, and if you're not worried about updating, then that is 
sufficient.


rh

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[rgheck]

Murat Yildizoglu wrote:

Just my two cents: Scientific Word was used to come with a utility
called Document Manager. It was able to pack everything in a .msg
file. The utility has a GUI that gives you options for choosing the
elements to include for the packing and other options during
unpacking.  I think that we were even allowed to distribute it to the
collaborators with whom we share files. I do not know if such a
solution would be sufficient and enough secure... Also, it worked only
for Windows, we would definitely need a cross-platform tool for LyX of
course. But, such a tool would definitely be useful.

  
I'll second what a few others have said: A version control system is 
really the way to go for collaboration. You get easy exchanges, easy 
updating, conflict management, plus you get versioned archving of 
everything you do. There are plenty of free hosting services for this 
kind of thing, if you don't already have access to some server or other.


Richard

Re: [Figure embedding] An easy way to share lyx documents

[Etienne lepercq]

2009/4/13, Niko Schwarz :
>
> to help sharing files, dropbox is excellent.
>
> Hmm interesting idea : I'll try, even if it imply using a third-party tool.
I'll give it a try.

-- 
Sincerily