RE: temporarily disable 3-pass processing of citations/bibliography

[Mark.Bravington]

[ Small correction to recipe below ]

From: Bravington, Mark (Data61, Hobart)
Sent: 16 September 2018 11:40
To: Richard Kimberly Heck; lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
Subject: RE: temporarily disable 3-pass processing of citations/bibliography

> From: Richard Kimberly Heck [rikih...@lyx.org]
Sent: 15 September 2018 12:12
To: Bravington, Mark (Data61, Hobart); lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
Subject: Re: temporarily disable 3-pass processing of citations/bibliography

On 8/13/18 8:21 PM, mark.braving...@data61.csiro.au wrote:
> > Including citations/references, or even telling Lyx that they *might* be 
> > used (see below), slows down PDF preview quite a bit, ie 
> > Document->View(PDF). Is there a way to temporarily turn off the 3-pass 
> > system (~3 calls to pdflatex interspersed by calls to biber or bibtex)? Of 
> > course, it's then fine for all citations to appear as "labels" or [?] .

<>>

> Not sure how helpful this is now: But you could export to LaTeX and run 
> everything else manually.
> Riki

[ Minor corrections with **...** below ]

Aha! Armed with that hint, I was able to define a Format and Converter that 
give "one-pass-only" PDFs; pig-ugly refs, no biblio, but very quick!

The Format I called "PDF (nobib)" and it mimicks Lyx's existing "PDF 
(pdflatex)" Format ** except that the Viewer needs to be set to Custom, with a 
value "auto" **.

The Converter looks exactly like Lyx's "Latex (pdf) -> PDF (latex)" but 
obviously ends " ... -> PDF (nobib)" instead. The only change needed to the 
Converter was to clear the "Extra flags" field.

This seems to do what I want (I think--- I am no expert on La/tex, and have not 
tested beyond a basic case). It might be worth adding this as a built-in format 
and converter (or I may be the only person who sees the speed as a problem...). 

** Some experimentation was required to get this to work--- the documentation 
doesn't describe what to do with the Viewer field, nor mention Custom/auto. **

** DELETED --- FIX GIVEN ABOVE The only and very minor issue is that, when 
defining the new Format, I cannot select "pdfview" as the Viewer--- which is 
what Lyx uses for all other PDF outputs. instead, I had to choose "custom" and 
then type the name of my viewer (Sumatra) into a box. No big deal, obvs. **

Thanks
Mark

RE: temporarily disable 3-pass processing of citations/bibliography

[Mark.Bravington]

> From: Richard Kimberly Heck [rikih...@lyx.org]
Sent: 15 September 2018 12:12
To: Bravington, Mark (Data61, Hobart); lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
Subject: Re: temporarily disable 3-pass processing of citations/bibliography

On 8/13/18 8:21 PM, mark.braving...@data61.csiro.au wrote:
> > Including citations/references, or even telling Lyx that they *might* be 
> > used (see below), slows down PDF preview quite a bit, ie 
> > Document->View(PDF). Is there a way to temporarily turn off the 3-pass 
> > system (~3 calls to pdflatex interspersed by calls to biber or bibtex)? Of 
> > course, it's then fine for all citations to appear as "labels" or [?] .

<>> 

> Not sure how helpful this is now: But you could export to LaTeX and run 
> everything else manually.
> Riki

Aha! Armed with that hint, I was able to define a Format and Converter that 
give "one-pass-only" PDFs; pig-ugly refs, no biblio, but very quick!

The Format I called "PDF (nobib)" and it mimicks Lyx's existing "PDF 
(pdflatex)" Format. The Converter looks exactly like Lyx's "Latex (pdf) -> PDF 
(latex)" but obviously ends " ... -> PDF (nobib)" instead. The only change 
needed to the Converter was to clear the "Extra flags" field.

This seems to do what I want (I think--- I am no expert on La/tex, and have not 
tested beyond a basic case). It might be worth adding this as a built-in format 
and converter (or I may be the only person who sees the speed as a problem...).

The only and very minor issue is that, when defining the new Format, I cannot 
select "pdfview" as the Viewer--- which is what Lyx uses for all other PDF 
outputs. instead, I had to choose "custom" and then type the name of my viewer 
(Sumatra) into a box. No big deal, obvs.

Thanks
Mark

temporarily disable 3-pass processing of citations/bibliography

[Mark.Bravington]

Including citations/references, or even telling Lyx that they *might* be used 
(see below), slows down PDF preview quite a bit, ie Document->View(PDF). Is 
there a way to temporarily turn off the 3-pass system (~3 calls to pdflatex 
interspersed by calls to biber or bibtex)? Of course, it's then fine for all 
citations to appear as "labels" or [?] .

This is particularly noticeable when Lyx 2.3.0 bibliography "style" is set to 
biblatex/biber, in which case Lyx *always* seems to use 3 passes whether there 
are citations or bibliography or not. The speed is no problem for final 
production, but a bit annoying when trying to get a quick preview. 

To be clear: my preferred default for all documents, whether they include 
references or not, would be to set 
Document->Settings->Bibliography->Citation_style->Style_format to "biblatex". 
But this is annoyingly slow on some documents. Setting the same thing to 
"bibtex" still leads to 3 passes if any citations/bibliography are present--- 
as it should--- but with bibtex at least Lyx is then smart enough to just do 1 
pass if there are no citations/bibliography. However, biblatex is better, so 
I'd prefer it to be the default...

So 2 questions here: 

 - (less important) with biblatex/biber, can the 3 passes automatically be 
reduced to 1 when there are no "live" citations or bibliographies, eg not in 
any active branches? This already happens with bibtex.
 
 - (more useful) can the 3 passes be reduced to 1 regardless of biblatex vs 
bibtex, by just changing one thing somewhere? And yes, this will lead to [?] 
and/or printing-the-label type citations. A 
"Document->settings->bibliography->turn_off_citations_and_biblio" box would be 
perfect longer-term. But a hack would be fine for now ;)

FWIW I am using Lyx 2.3.0 under Windows 10--- "official" biblatex/biber support 
only appeared in Lyx 2.3.

Thanks
Mark

RE: lyx 2.3.0 cannot find biblatex.sty so biblatex not working

[Mark.Bravington]

> 
> From: Richard Kimberly Heck [rikih...@lyx.org]
> Sent: 13 July 2018 11:59
> To: Bravington, Mark (Data61, Hobart); lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
> Subject: Re: lyx 2.3.0 cannot find biblatex.sty so biblatex not working
>
> On 07/12/2018 08:44 PM, mark.braving...@data61.csiro.au wrote:
> > With newly installed (upgraded) Lyx 2.3.0, whenever I try to add a Biblatex 
> > bibliography, I am getting this error box:
> >
> > Lyx: package not available
> > The cite engine biblatex requires a package that is not available ... or a 
> > converter that you have not installed...
> > Missing prerequisites: biblatex.sty
> > ...
> >
> > Background: I've just updated to Lyx 2.3.0 via the Windows installer (for 
> > which, many thanks). A key reason for me to upgrade is the native Biblatex 
> > support. With Lyx 2.2, I got Biblatex working fine via the tricks described 
> > in the Lyx Wiki--- so my system is/was basically OK I reckon. But I can't 
> > get biblatex biblios going with Lyx 2.3.0.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > - The exact same issue has occurred on my two machines where I've just 
> > upgraded to Lyx 2.3. In one case, I did a complete Miktex reinstall *after* 
> > installing Lyx 2.3, but in the other I used my previous Miktex. Since I 
> > already had working Miktex 2.9 with Lyx 2.2, I used the Installer 
> > "LyX-230-Installer-6.exe", not the Bundle (then, on one machine, I 
> > re-installed Miktex directly).
> 
> FYI, this is not the official installer. It's similar to that one, but
> not quite the same.
> 
> >  - Tools->Tex_Information->Latex_styles does show "biblatex.sty". There are 
> > lots of entries in the "Biblatex citation styles" and "Biblatex 
> > bibliography styles", too.
> 
> Weird. That means LyX should know you have that package.
> 
> One suggestion would be to try with a fresh user directory. It's
> possible there's something in the one you have that's left over from the
> previous biblatex hackery. But it's hard to know.
>
> Riki

Yes--- that solved it, thanks. I haven't been able to work out exactly which 
the offending file(s) were, otherwise I would have listed them here. What I 
really wanted from the old userdir were some bind and ui files--- I have 
manually copied them (and edited them, since some Lyx functions have changed) 
into the new userdir, and things seem fine now.

Mark

RE: lyx 2.3.0 cannot find biblatex.sty so biblatex not working

[Mark.Bravington]

Thanks: a fresh UserDir solved it. I'm not sure exactly what the problem was in 
my 2.2-friendly UserDir... I have tested various files from it into the new 
Userdir without being able to replicate the problem (but the problem is still 
there with my 2.2-Userdir) so unfortunately I can't tell you exactly what was 
not compatible.

In the end, I have done a bunch of copying and manual tweaking of files (bind 
and ui and preferences) from my old Userdir into the new one--- a bit painful, 
but never mind--- and now seem to have Lyx 2.3.0 working nicely. And it is very 
nice!

> On 07/12/2018 08:44 PM, mark.braving...@data61.csiro.au wrote:
> > With newly installed (upgraded) Lyx 2.3.0, whenever I try to add a Biblatex 
> > bibliography, I am getting this error box:
> >
> > Lyx: package not available
> > The cite engine biblatex requires a package that is not available ... or a 
> > converter that you have not installed...
> > Missing prerequisites: biblatex.sty
> > ...
> >
> 
> [Riki Heck wrote:]
> One suggestion would be to try with a fresh user directory. It's
> possible there's something in the one you have that's left over from the
> previous biblatex hackery.
>
> > Background: I've just updated to Lyx 2.3.0 via the Windows installer (for 
> > which, many thanks). A key reason for me to upgrade is the native Biblatex 
> > support. With Lyx 2.2, I got Biblatex working fine via the tricks described 
> > in the Lyx Wiki--- so my system is/was basically OK I reckon. But I can't 
> > get biblatex biblios going with Lyx 2.3.0.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > - The exact same issue has occurred on my two machines where I've just 
> > upgraded to Lyx 2.3. In one case, I did a complete Miktex reinstall *after* 
> > installing Lyx 2.3, but in the other I used my previous Miktex. Since I 
> > already had working Miktex 2.9 with Lyx 2.2, I used the Installer 
> > "LyX-230-Installer-6.exe", not the Bundle (then, on one machine, I 
> > re-installed Miktex directly).
> 
> FYI, this is not the official installer. It's similar to that one, but
> not quite the same.
> 
> >  - Tools->Tex_Information->Latex_styles does show "biblatex.sty". There are 
> > lots of entries in the "Biblatex citation styles" and "Biblatex 
> > bibliography styles", too.
> 
> Weird. That means LyX should know you have that package.
> 
> One suggestion would be to try with a fresh user directory. It's
> possible there's something in the one you have that's left over from the
> previous biblatex hackery. But it's hard to know.
> 
> Riki
> 
> 

lyx 2.3.0 cannot find biblatex.sty so biblatex not working

[Mark.Bravington]

With newly installed (upgraded) Lyx 2.3.0, whenever I try to add a Biblatex 
bibliography, I am getting this error box:

Lyx: package not available
The cite engine biblatex requires a package that is not available ... or a 
converter that you have not installed...
Missing prerequisites: biblatex.sty
...

Background: I've just updated to Lyx 2.3.0 via the Windows installer (for 
which, many thanks). A key reason for me to upgrade is the native Biblatex 
support. With Lyx 2.2, I got Biblatex working fine via the tricks described in 
the Lyx Wiki--- so my system is/was basically OK I reckon. But I can't get 
biblatex biblios going with Lyx 2.3.0.

More details below. Any thoughts?

 - This is Windows 10 64 bit, Miktex 2.9.

 - Documents without biblios seem to work fine (ie produce PDFs) and Miktex has 
been happily installing packages on-the-fly at Lyx's request.

 - kpsewhich biblatex.sty (in a command window) finds the file, no problem.
 
 - the biblatex.sty file lives underneath one of the "TEXMF root directories"  
that Miktex knows about (I am out-of-my-depth on that stuff, but I 

 - This happens both with a brand-new document (Article/Standard class, no 
modules, no local layout, a few lines of text) when I try to add a biblio, and 
also with a 2.2-format document when following the instructions in  "How to 
transition from using Biblatex in LyX 2.2 and earlier to native support in LyX 
2.3" on the Lyx Wiki.

 - Happens whether I set 
Document->Settings->Biblio->Citation_style->Style_format to "biblatex" or to 
"biblatex( natbib)", though the name of the cite-engine in the error box 
changes.

 - The exact same issue has occurred on my two machines where I've just 
upgraded to Lyx 2.3. In one case, I did a complete Miktex reinstall *after* 
installing Lyx 2.3, but in the other I used my previous Miktex. Since I already 
had working Miktex 2.9 with Lyx 2.2, I used the Installer 
"LyX-230-Installer-6.exe", not the Bundle (then, on one machine, I re-installed 
Miktex directly).
 
 - Tools->Tex_Information->Latex_styles does show "biblatex.sty". There are 
lots of entries in the "Biblatex citation styles" and "Biblatex bibliography 
styles", too.

 - FWIW: in Tools->Preferences, I have TEXINPUTS set to "." and PATH_prefix set 
to 
"$LyXDir\bin;$LyXDir\Python;$LyXDir\Python\Lib;$LyXDir\Perl\bin;$LyXDir\imagemagick;C:\miktex\miktex_2.9\miktex\bin\x64;C:\Rtools\Rtools34\mingw-64\bin;C:\Rtools\Rtools34\bin;C:\R\R-3.3.3\bin\i386;C:\PROGRA~1\Git\bin".
 The same issue happens whether I remove or include the miktex folder there.

Mark Bravington
CSIRO Marine Lab
Hobart
Australia

RE: [correction] LyXWinInstaller for LyX 1.6.0 -- similar for 1.6.8

[Mark.Bravington]

Hi Manveru

I don't think using a slow CTAN mirror was really the issue. If I compare the 
Miktex installation on the machine where I LyxWinInstalled, vs on my other 
machine where I standard-Lyx-installed, there are now thousands of extra 
directories created on the former (eg 1000 new directories in tex\latex). 
Because of their creation dates, I'm pretty sure LyxWinInstall is responsible. 
It seems to have asked Miktex to do a complete install of every conceivable 
package. However, I know Lyx can run fine with a much smaller set, and that's 
what I'm really asking about / suggesting here. I reckon my questions below 
still apply.

(In fact, despite my optimism in yesterday's email, the Miktex mega-update did 
in fact crash partway thru its 5-hour marathon. I haven't noticed a problem 
yet, but that's probably because the un-updated packages are fine anyway...)

Defaulting to a CTAN mirror in Germany is a minor aspect, I think-- though it 
might be preferable to not have a default, and force the user to choose. I 
freely admit to knowing very little about Miktex or Tex generally (which is one 
reason why I think Lyx is so wonderful-- I don't have to learn that stuff!).

Mark Bravington
CSIRO CMIS
Marine Lab
Hobart
Australia
 
 From: Manveru [manv...@manveru.pl]
 Sent: 21 December 2010 17:49
 To: Bravington, Mark (CMIS, Hobart)
 Cc: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: Re: [correction] LyXWinInstaller for LyX 1.6.0 -- similar for 1.6.8
 
 2010/12/20 Mark Bravington mark.braving...@csiro.au:
  I'm just going through a similar painful process with Lyx 1.6.8 and
  LyxWinInstaller. I certainly appreciate the efforts of the LyxWinInstaller
  developers, but I do think there is a big problem with the current 
  version-- and
  it doesn't warn you properly.
 
  My story is this. I have existing Lyx 1.6.7 and Miktex installations that 
  work
  absolutely fine together. I want to upgrade Lyx to 1.6.8. Because I was 
  worried
  that the standard LyX installer might decide to re-install Miktex from 
  scratch
  or something like that (I can't remember whether it actually does, but I 
  didn't
  want to find out the hard way), I tried WinInstaller instead-- I thought it
  would be quicker. Because I hadn't used it before, I chose the Small 
  variant.
  The WinInstaller webpage seems to say it won't try to re-install Miktex if 
  it
  doesn't have to, but WinInstaller still decided it needed to update 100s of
  Miktex packages. From Germany!
 
  (I live in Australia. I have no idea where I last installed Miktex packages
  from, so I trusted the box that said use same place as last time 
  (Germany)?...
  which it clearly)
 
  It's going to take about 5 hours, and there are scary warnings on this 
  thread
  about what will happen if I just stop the process. This time, I'll probably 
  be
  lucky: work pays for the download, it's morning so I don't need to turn the
  computer off overnight, and the connection probably won't go down over the
  5-hour period. None of these need be true if I am at home (so I guess I will
  avoid WinInstaller altogether on my home machine). For something this slow, 
  I
  don't think just wait until it finishes is OK advice.
 
  From what little I can remember of the last time I installed a new Lyx 
  version
  with the standard installer, the whole process was much quicker, whether or 
  not
  it actually did re-install Miktex. (It was still slow enough that I wanted 
  an
  alternative that didn't fiddle with Miktex, but not this one...)
 
  So... some questions/requests!
 
  Is this extremely slow process going to happen again if I use WinInstaller 
  in
  update mode next time?

[Might be a bit faster if I chose a better mirror site, but not much I suspect]

 
  Is there any way to tell WinInstaller, don't bother to update every single
  miktex package ever written-- I'll wait for that to happen during normal Lyx
  usage, if  when a package is actually needed? [Since I already had a 
  perfectly
  good Miktex installation for my Lyx needs.]

[I'd still like to know...]

 
  Can the introductory documentation please warn that just saying yes is 
  going
  to lead to an incredible delay? [Maybe it's there already, but it wasn't 
  obvious
  to me.]

[Still applies I think...]

 
  Again, I do appreciate the efforts, and probably there is something simple 
  that
  the developers can do to fix it -- but I am currently wishing I hadn't used
  WinInstaller!
 
 But slow MikTeX update is not a WinInstaller fault, rather yours. You
 do not switch MikTeX to CTAN mirror near you. It is always safe to do
 that on every MikTeX update. This is a process implements by MikTeX
 author, not any of LyX authors.
 
 --
 Manveru
 jabber: manv...@manveru.pl
  gg: 1624001
http://www.manveru.pl
 

RE: [correction] LyXWinInstaller for LyX 1.6.0 -- similar for 1.6.8

[Mark.Bravington]

Hi Manveru

I don't think using a slow CTAN mirror was really the issue. If I compare the 
Miktex installation on the machine where I LyxWinInstalled, vs on my other 
machine where I standard-Lyx-installed, there are now thousands of extra 
directories created on the former (eg 1000 new directories in tex\latex). 
Because of their creation dates, I'm pretty sure LyxWinInstall is responsible. 
It seems to have asked Miktex to do a complete install of every conceivable 
package. However, I know Lyx can run fine with a much smaller set, and that's 
what I'm really asking about / suggesting here. I reckon my questions below 
still apply.

(In fact, despite my optimism in yesterday's email, the Miktex mega-update did 
in fact crash partway thru its 5-hour marathon. I haven't noticed a problem 
yet, but that's probably because the un-updated packages are fine anyway...)

Defaulting to a CTAN mirror in Germany is a minor aspect, I think-- though it 
might be preferable to not have a default, and force the user to choose. I 
freely admit to knowing very little about Miktex or Tex generally (which is one 
reason why I think Lyx is so wonderful-- I don't have to learn that stuff!).

Mark Bravington
CSIRO CMIS
Marine Lab
Hobart
Australia
 
 From: Manveru [manv...@manveru.pl]
 Sent: 21 December 2010 17:49
 To: Bravington, Mark (CMIS, Hobart)
 Cc: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: Re: [correction] LyXWinInstaller for LyX 1.6.0 -- similar for 1.6.8
 
 2010/12/20 Mark Bravington mark.braving...@csiro.au:
  I'm just going through a similar painful process with Lyx 1.6.8 and
  LyxWinInstaller. I certainly appreciate the efforts of the LyxWinInstaller
  developers, but I do think there is a big problem with the current 
  version-- and
  it doesn't warn you properly.
 
  My story is this. I have existing Lyx 1.6.7 and Miktex installations that 
  work
  absolutely fine together. I want to upgrade Lyx to 1.6.8. Because I was 
  worried
  that the standard LyX installer might decide to re-install Miktex from 
  scratch
  or something like that (I can't remember whether it actually does, but I 
  didn't
  want to find out the hard way), I tried WinInstaller instead-- I thought it
  would be quicker. Because I hadn't used it before, I chose the Small 
  variant.
  The WinInstaller webpage seems to say it won't try to re-install Miktex if 
  it
  doesn't have to, but WinInstaller still decided it needed to update 100s of
  Miktex packages. From Germany!
 
  (I live in Australia. I have no idea where I last installed Miktex packages
  from, so I trusted the box that said use same place as last time 
  (Germany)?...
  which it clearly)
 
  It's going to take about 5 hours, and there are scary warnings on this 
  thread
  about what will happen if I just stop the process. This time, I'll probably 
  be
  lucky: work pays for the download, it's morning so I don't need to turn the
  computer off overnight, and the connection probably won't go down over the
  5-hour period. None of these need be true if I am at home (so I guess I will
  avoid WinInstaller altogether on my home machine). For something this slow, 
  I
  don't think just wait until it finishes is OK advice.
 
  From what little I can remember of the last time I installed a new Lyx 
  version
  with the standard installer, the whole process was much quicker, whether or 
  not
  it actually did re-install Miktex. (It was still slow enough that I wanted 
  an
  alternative that didn't fiddle with Miktex, but not this one...)
 
  So... some questions/requests!
 
  Is this extremely slow process going to happen again if I use WinInstaller 
  in
  update mode next time?

[Might be a bit faster if I chose a better mirror site, but not much I suspect]

 
  Is there any way to tell WinInstaller, don't bother to update every single
  miktex package ever written-- I'll wait for that to happen during normal Lyx
  usage, if  when a package is actually needed? [Since I already had a 
  perfectly
  good Miktex installation for my Lyx needs.]

[I'd still like to know...]

 
  Can the introductory documentation please warn that just saying yes is 
  going
  to lead to an incredible delay? [Maybe it's there already, but it wasn't 
  obvious
  to me.]

[Still applies I think...]

 
  Again, I do appreciate the efforts, and probably there is something simple 
  that
  the developers can do to fix it -- but I am currently wishing I hadn't used
  WinInstaller!
 
 But slow MikTeX update is not a WinInstaller fault, rather yours. You
 do not switch MikTeX to CTAN mirror near you. It is always safe to do
 that on every MikTeX update. This is a process implements by MikTeX
 author, not any of LyX authors.
 
 --
 Manveru
 jabber: manv...@manveru.pl
  gg: 1624001
http://www.manveru.pl
 

RE: [correction] LyXWinInstaller for LyX 1.6.0 -- similar for 1.6.8

[Mark.Bravington]

Hi Manveru

I don't think using a slow CTAN mirror was really the issue. If I compare the 
Miktex installation on the machine where I LyxWinInstalled, vs on my other 
machine where I standard-Lyx-installed, there are now thousands of extra 
directories created on the former (eg >1000 new directories in tex\latex). 
Because of their creation dates, I'm pretty sure LyxWinInstall is responsible. 
It seems to have asked Miktex to do a complete install of every conceivable 
package. However, I know Lyx can run fine with a much smaller set, and that's 
what I'm really asking about / suggesting here. I reckon my questions below 
still apply.

(In fact, despite my optimism in yesterday's email, the Miktex mega-update did 
in fact crash partway thru its 5-hour marathon. I haven't noticed a problem 
yet, but that's probably because the un-updated packages are fine anyway...)

Defaulting to a CTAN mirror in Germany is a minor aspect, I think-- though it 
might be preferable to not have a default, and force the user to choose. I 
freely admit to knowing very little about Miktex or Tex generally (which is one 
reason why I think Lyx is so wonderful-- I don't have to learn that stuff!).

Mark Bravington
CSIRO CMIS
Marine Lab
Hobart
Australia
> 
> From: Manveru [manv...@manveru.pl]
> Sent: 21 December 2010 17:49
> To: Bravington, Mark (CMIS, Hobart)
> Cc: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
> Subject: Re: [correction] LyXWinInstaller for LyX 1.6.0 -- similar for 1.6.8
> 
> 2010/12/20 Mark Bravington :
> > I'm just going through a similar painful process with Lyx 1.6.8 and
> > LyxWinInstaller. I certainly appreciate the efforts of the LyxWinInstaller
> > developers, but I do think there is a big problem with the current 
> > version-- and
> > it doesn't warn you properly.
> >
> > My story is this. I have existing Lyx 1.6.7 and Miktex installations that 
> > work
> > absolutely fine together. I want to upgrade Lyx to 1.6.8. Because I was 
> > worried
> > that the standard LyX installer might decide to re-install Miktex from 
> > scratch
> > or something like that (I can't remember whether it actually does, but I 
> > didn't
> > want to find out the hard way), I tried WinInstaller instead-- I thought it
> > would be quicker. Because I hadn't used it before, I chose the "Small" 
> > variant.
> > The WinInstaller webpage seems to say it won't try to re-install Miktex if 
> > it
> > doesn't have to, but WinInstaller still decided it needed to update 100s of
> > Miktex packages. From Germany!
> >
> > (I live in Australia. I have no idea where I last installed Miktex packages
> > from, so I trusted the box that said "use same place as last time 
> > (Germany)?"...
> > which it clearly)
> >
> > It's going to take about 5 hours, and there are scary warnings on this 
> > thread
> > about what will happen if I just stop the process. This time, I'll probably 
> > be
> > lucky: work pays for the download, it's morning so I don't need to turn the
> > computer off overnight, and the connection probably won't go down over the
> > 5-hour period. None of these need be true if I am at home (so I guess I will
> > avoid WinInstaller altogether on my home machine). For something this slow, 
> > I
> > don't think "just wait until it finishes" is OK advice.
> >
> > From what little I can remember of the last time I installed a new Lyx 
> > version
> > with the standard installer, the whole process was much quicker, whether or 
> > not
> > it actually did re-install Miktex. (It was still slow enough that I wanted 
> > an
> > alternative that didn't fiddle with Miktex, but not this one...)
> >
> > So... some questions/requests!
> >
> > Is this extremely slow process going to happen again if I use WinInstaller 
> > in
> > "update" mode next time?

[Might be a bit faster if I chose a better mirror site, but not much I suspect]

> >
> > Is there any way to tell WinInstaller, "don't bother to update every single
> > miktex package ever written-- I'll wait for that to happen during normal Lyx
> > usage, if & when a package is actually needed"? [Since I already had a 
> > perfectly
> > good Miktex installation for my Lyx needs.]

[I'd still like to know...]

> >
> > Can the introductory documentation please warn that "just saying yes" is 
> > going
> > to lead to an incredible delay? [Maybe it's there already, but it wasn't 
> > obvious
> > to me.]

[Still applies I think...]

> >
> > Again, I do appreciate the efforts, and probably there is something simple 
> > that
> > the developers can do to fix it -- but I am currently wishing I hadn't used
> > WinInstaller!
> 
> But slow MikTeX update is not a WinInstaller fault, rather yours. You
> do not switch MikTeX to CTAN mirror near you. It is always safe to do
> that on every MikTeX update. This is a process implements by MikTeX
> author, not any of LyX authors.
> 
> --
> Manveru
> jabber: manv...@manveru.pl
>  gg: 1624001
>