Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 12:44:32PM +, Pavel Sanda wrote:
> racoon wrote:
> > If the user denies to update MiKTeX, LyX will not be installed. So 
> > any amateur user will finally answer the question affirmative, I believe.
> 
> I don't follow why Uwe's fears damaging the user installation either.
> If the dialog shows before any installation process starts and confused
> user hits "No" then nothing installs and nothing gets broken.

I agree. I think that could happen if there were a poorly structured
dialog. But as long as we put thought into the dialog (e.g. adding what
I think was your proposal of "if you're not sure what to do, click
"continue"), and we work with the lyx-users list I don't expect
confusion. Users on lyx-users have already made great suggestions.

Scott


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Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

Le 23/03/2018 à 10:33, Uwe Stöhr a écrit :
It doesn't help if you ask users who knows what a package is, if they 
would understand such a dialog. 


The dialog proposals that I have seen where about updating MikTeX. There 
is no mention package or dependencies or even console (?). Why are you 
mentioning these points?


Are you telling us that windows user do not know that there is something 
called MikTex that is used by LyX?


JMarc

Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Pavel Sanda]

racoon wrote:
> If the user denies to update MiKTeX, LyX will not be installed. So 
> any amateur user will finally answer the question affirmative, I believe.

I don't follow why Uwe's fears damaging the user installation either.
If the dialog shows before any installation process starts and confused
user hits "No" then nothing installs and nothing gets broken.

Pavel

Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[racoon]

On 23.03.2018 10:33, Uwe Stöhr wrote:

Am 23.03.2018 um 05:22 schrieb Scott Kostyshak:


I understand your argument. I disagree that adding a dialog would hurt
the vast majority more than it would help it


That is the fundamental disagreement.

It doesn't help if you ask users who knows what a package is, if they 
would understand such a dialog. My experience is that the majority of 
LyX users (under Windows of course) don't know this. My experience will 
not change the longer we discuss.
People like my mother can and do use LyX. She would not understand what 
you want but she should be able to use LyX in future.

Just an idea involving previous experience.

I seem to remember that since I am using LyX, which goes back many 
versions, there was always a dialog recommending but *asking* the user 
to run the MiKTeX update.


As I see it, due to the problems Uwe pointed out, many developers seem 
to accept that, at least for 2.3, LyX should not be installed without a 
forced MiKTeX update. (I might be wrong on this.)


However, also many developers seem to agree that, *as in all the 
versions before*, there should be a dialog asking the user before making 
changes to MiKTeX. (If the user denies to update MiKTeX, LyX will not be 
installed. So any amateur user will finally answer the question 
affirmative, I believe.)


Is there any strong evidence (maybe from many questions on the list or 
emails) that the dialog that LyX was showing before confused users? If 
not, what is the main difference between the old dialog and the new 
dialog in terms of how comprehensible it is?


I don't claim that many developers will follow my reasoning here. It is 
just a desperate attempt to make progress in some way.


Best,
Daniel

Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 23.03.2018 um 05:22 schrieb Scott Kostyshak:


I understand your argument. I disagree that adding a dialog would hurt
the vast majority more than it would help it


That is the fundamental disagreement.

It doesn't help if you ask users who knows what a package is, if they 
would understand such a dialog. My experience is that the majority of 
LyX users (under Windows of course) don't know this. My experience will 
not change the longer we discuss.
People like my mother can and do use LyX. She would not understand what 
you want but she should be able to use LyX in future.


I am wondering why other developers don't have similar experiences as 
well. I mean, most users writing to our mailing lists know what a 
console is but most Windows users don't know this - because you never 
need it unless you are a developer. Concepts like a console, package, 
dependencies etc. are not used in Windows. This should not be an excuse 
not to use LyX under Windows.


regards Uwe

Fwd: Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Uwe Stöhr]

Dear Ben,

many thanks for your reply. I am forwarding it to the mailing list that 
others can follow the discussion:



Thanks for the answer,

First point:

What I mean is that when you choose
LyX:Preferences -> Language Settings -> Default
Keyboard binding should be related to the Keyboard of your system not 
the OS user interface language.
Example I use Windows 10 with UK language interface but with a French 
Azerty Keyboard because it's a French keyboard in my laptop (speaking of 
hardware).
Even that I changed LyX interface Language to French but I didn't notice 
big change in the default key bidding:

LyX:Preferences -> Editing -> Shortcuts

Second point:
===
LyX favorise "American dictionary" and overlook the other English 
dictionaries:

This is easily verified when you choose:
LyX:Document -> Settings -> Language -> English
then LyX use automatically "American" en_US.dic nothing else while in my 
spirit "English" refer to 3 or 4 international languages, the most 
important (historically) of then being the Britannic languages.
When you save your custom spell checking words, LyX consider them 
related to en_US.dic.
Now there is at least 6 options of English languages in the document 
settings:
* English (this is supposed English International but LyX use en_US for 
this option)

* English (USA), LyX save the words in file called pwl_american.dict
* English (USA), LyX save the words in file called pwl_british.dict
* English (Australia) " "
* English (Canada) " "
etc

Third point:
=
Most of the American dictionaries are quite disappointing. I think 
American care very little about this Hungarian spell checker and 
favorise Aspell. The dictionaries are poorly developed for this Language 
and come most from the SCOWL site:

http://wordlist.aspell.net/hunspell-readme/

and as noticed by the authors there:

Quote:

/If none of these dictionaries suite you (for example, maybe you want 
the normal dictionary that also includes common variants) additional 
dictionaries can be generated at http://app.aspell.net/create or by 
modifying speller/make-hunspell-dict in SCOWL. Please do let me know if 
you end up publishing a customized dictionary./



I spent the last 3 or 4 days improving this US dictionary 
 (date 2007-08-29), 
that I consider *the best* after a lot of testing and I added more than 
350 new words related my own field "Mathematics". I spent hours and 
hours browsing index of Mathematic books and checking  google for the 
consistency of words and if they are more or less accepted by the 
international community.

Example:
New word:
geometrization/S
geometrize/GASD

uniformize/GASD

to say the least (how come on an American dictionary forget about a name 
like "Poincaré"?)


Please find attached some files related to my work.

Best regards.
H. Ben
FSSM


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Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 11:48:43PM +, Uwe Stöhr wrote:
> Am 22.03.2018 um 06:34 schrieb Scott Kostyshak:
> 
> > Thank you for this detailed explanation. It's unfortunate that we have
> > this disagreement on what is best for the users, but I appreciate that
> > you have put a lot of thought into your decision and I know that you
> > care a lot about the users.
> 
> Don't get me wrong. Of course I want to please as many people as possible.
> In this case I cannot please everybody. Therefore the focus is on the vast
> majority since experts can follow a hint in the announcement text of LyX
> 2.3.0.

I understand your argument. I disagree that adding a dialog would hurt
the vast majority more than it would help it (I explained my opinion
at [1]), but I appreciate the large amount of time that you've spent to
work on the Windows installer (I have already referred several users to
it and have received positive feedback that it is working well for
them), and to explain your point of view and decision.

Regards,

Scott


[1]
https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=mid=20180316161313.tya2qhypktblk43d%40steph


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Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 22.03.2018 um 06:34 schrieb Scott Kostyshak:


Thank you for this detailed explanation. It's unfortunate that we have
this disagreement on what is best for the users, but I appreciate that
you have put a lot of thought into your decision and I know that you
care a lot about the users.


Don't get me wrong. Of course I want to please as many people as 
possible. In this case I cannot please everybody. Therefore the focus is 
on the vast majority since experts can follow a hint in the announcement 
text of LyX 2.3.0.


regards Uwe

Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 02:09:51AM +, Uwe Stöhr wrote:
> Dear LyXers,
> 
> I just uploaded a new installer version 6:
> http://ftp.lyx.de/LyXWinInstaller/LyX2.3.0/
> 
> The only change compared to the previous version is that the bundle
> installer contains the latest miktex-basic installer. This fixes some bugs
> for users installing LyX (with LaTeX) the first time.
> I also updated the bundled ImageMagick version.
> 
> The last days I spoke with some Win users and I think it is the right
> decision how the installer is for LyX 2.3.0. The installer should focus on
> average users that don't know about packages etc. Concepts like packages do
> not exist under Windows and user should not be bothered with technical
> details they don't understand.
> 
> If some expert user is maybe not amused because he has not read the release
> announcement and did not like to update its MiKTeX package handling, has the
> knowledge to revert this or to use TeXLive. Experts who read the
> announcement know what is meant by setting "never" to install packages in
> the MiKTeX settings.
> 
> So all in all the decision is to please the majority of users also for the
> price that some expert users might not like that.
> I stand to this decision after the long discussion we had here and because
> of my experience during the last years.
> 
> If the LyX community says that we must take care of every expert user not
> reading the announcement for the price that average users without background
> knowledge can sooner or later end up with a broken LaTeX and thus an
> unusable LyX I can live with the fact that LyX might then not have an
> official Windows installer.
> 
> sorry and regards

Dear Uwe,

Thank you for this detailed explanation. It's unfortunate that we have
this disagreement on what is best for the users, but I appreciate that
you have put a lot of thought into your decision and I know that you
care a lot about the users. 

Regards,

Scott


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Re: New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Uwe Stöhr]

Am 21.03.2018 um 15:07 schrieb Ben Houcine:


I will drop some of my remarks here:

- Key binding in LyX should be improved because the standard keybinding 
bundled with LyX fit more the American qwerty keyboard. I have my own 
keybinding to the French azerty keyboard


Dear Ben,

LyX can be used with different key bindings. For example we deliver LyX 
already with key bindings for the German qwertz keyboard.
Therefore please open an enhancement request in our bug tracker and also 
write a mail to the lyx-devel mailing list with your proposal. We have 2 
french developers who can state about french keybindings.


- The spell checker user dictionary should be improved. All in all LyX 
has the behavior to favorise American en_US dictionary when you add your 
own words to the custom list.


That is up to you. With the setting of the document language in LyX you 
decide what dictionary will be used. If you select British English, you 
will get the corresponding dictionary and new words will be added to it, 
not to the American English dictionary. If this is not the case, it is a 
bug that you should report in our bug tracker.


When you choose "English" as language LyX 
don't use the different English flavor dictionaries like 
Breton/en_GB/en_AU ... !!


What do you mean? How else should people e.g. select to use the 
Australian dictionary?


- REQUEST: add a possibility to add Hunspell commands like /M, /S, /MS 
... in the user dictionary "pwl_english.dict"


Please open an enhancement request in our bug tracker:
https://www.lyx.org/trac/wiki/BugTrackerHome

thanks for your feedback and happy LyXining
Uwe

New Win installer ready for LyX 2.3.0

[Uwe Stöhr]

Dear LyXers,

I just uploaded a new installer version 6:
http://ftp.lyx.de/LyXWinInstaller/LyX2.3.0/

The only change compared to the previous version is that the bundle 
installer contains the latest miktex-basic installer. This fixes some 
bugs for users installing LyX (with LaTeX) the first time.

I also updated the bundled ImageMagick version.

The last days I spoke with some Win users and I think it is the right 
decision how the installer is for LyX 2.3.0. The installer should focus 
on average users that don't know about packages etc. Concepts like 
packages do not exist under Windows and user should not be bothered with 
technical details they don't understand.


If some expert user is maybe not amused because he has not read the 
release announcement and did not like to update its MiKTeX package 
handling, has the knowledge to revert this or to use TeXLive. Experts 
who read the announcement know what is meant by setting "never" to 
install packages in the MiKTeX settings.


So all in all the decision is to please the majority of users also for 
the price that some expert users might not like that.
I stand to this decision after the long discussion we had here and 
because of my experience during the last years.


If the LyX community says that we must take care of every expert user 
not reading the announcement for the price that average users without 
background knowledge can sooner or later end up with a broken LaTeX and 
thus an unusable LyX I can live with the fact that LyX might then not 
have an official Windows installer.


sorry and regards
Uwe