Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

Andre Poenitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>> William R. Buckley schrieb:
>>> Interesting to me is
>>> that Andre Pönitz vociferously and rudely suggested to me
>>> that the problem must be resident in Window, the OS.

As somebody who has enjoyed the ``André experience'', describing him
as 'vociferous' is quite a stretch. 'Rude', on the other hand...

JMarc

Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Uwe Stöhr]

William R. Buckley schrieb:


Telling me, even suggesting to me, how I should react to the
written words of others is rude.
The telling is what is rude.

> You treated me rudely when you suggested how I should be
> affected by the written words of others.

What, it is rude that I said you shouldn't take André's reply personally?


LyX can satisfy all my needs.  However, in Ventura Publisher,
I can set every characteristic of each and every character in 
a document, even one that is thousands of pages, and hundreds

of thousands of words, setting each different from all others.

A different typeface for every character!


Yes, but unreadable. You doubt the power of LaTeX, but why use every publisher company I have worked 
with LaTeX? Surely not for its lack of power but for its strengths.



This is the power available.  If LyX/LaTeX/TeX cannot supply
this kind of capability, well, so be it.


Damn, read the link I have sent you and learn how the font stuff is done you will see that you can 
do everything with LaTeX.


I'm out as my patience is.

Uwe

Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Uwe Stöhr]

William R. Buckley schrieb:


For instance,  consider the attached paper, which includes
many different fonts.
I should add that this paper has been published.


This is no excuse ;-), I have read books, written in Word and directly 
published.


One font is not always a desirable condition.

> Again, see the attached paper. Four different fonts are used in
> the construction of the paper: Arial, Times New Roman, Lucida
> Bright Math Symbol, and a Swiss 721 font.

But you also get the same, when you set in the document settings to use Arial for sansserif, Times 
New Roman for roman, and Lucida Console for typewriter. The character dialog offers to you to set 
the characters to one these three font shapes and in fact you get up to three different font in your 
document. The number of fonts depend on what you have set in the document settings for the fonts.

Also in LyX a different special math font is used.
When you look at the PDF document properties of the compiled UserGuide, you can see that behind the 
scenes even 37! different font files were used and embedded to the PDF.
If you really need a different font handling, LaTeX of course also supports this, but this is not 
supported by LyX. I refer to

http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/

LaTeX can do anything with text you can imagine of and with LyX you have access to this, if 
something is not supported by LyX, you can always use ERT to call LaTeX commands directly.



I take all of the diatribe personally and, don't tell me how I should
react to the words and actions of others.  In this regard, you are
rude.


What are you talking about? Nobody has sent you a diatribe, but you often wrote that you've been 
treated rude, but I never did. Of course people have different opinions and a discussion is the way 
to come to a conclusion.
I answered to my best knowledge about fonts, so why is this rude? My question how the reader should 
distinguish between the different fonts was not a joke, it really interest me.

It seems to me that you quickly loose the contenance and wonder why the people 
on the mailing list
reply rude to you. I had the feeling that you are forced to switch from Ventura 
but don't want this.
This is not our problem, its yours, so either accept how LaTeX works as we cannot change it - LyX is 
just the frontend to LaTeX, or use another system.


Uwe

Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Andre Poenitz]

On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 11:57:55AM +0200, Uwe Stöhr wrote:
> William R. Buckley schrieb:
>> Interesting to me is
>> that Andre Pönitz vociferously and rudely suggested to me
>> that the problem must be resident in Window, the OS.

Are you refering to
 
  http://www.mail-archive.com/lyx-users@lists.lyx.org/msg63573.html

?

If not, what else?

Andre'

Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Juergen Spitzmueller]

Juergen Spitzmueller wrote:

> (or found, for traditionalists)

I feel the traditionalists attacking. Of course, it's spelled "fount".

Jürgen

Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Juergen Spitzmueller]

Rich Shepard wrote:

> It seems a very common misconception. Too many people use the word 'font'
> when they refer to 'typeface.' A 'font' is a particular typeface
> (Palatino, Amerigo, Bookman), shape (Roman, Slant, Italic), weight
> (normal, bold, thin), and size (10pt, 11pt, 12pt). That's why you'll see
> so many entries in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ with the same family name.

Depends. Actually, a font is a kind of "economic" entity. It's a collection
of shapes and sizes (or a specific shape) of a given type face, as it is
sold by the type _foundry_ (e.g. Linotype or Adobe). Historically, a font
(or found, for traditionalists) was indeed a set of metal types,
distributed and sold as an entity. Nowadays, a font is a file which
contains information about glyphs, metrics etc. for a subset (or the whole)
of a typeface.

So, strictly speaking, font is just the material "container", the thing you
install on your computer. What you select in the application are type
faces, shapes, sizes etc.

Jürgen

Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Rich Shepard]

On Wed, 9 Apr 2008, Uwe Stöhr wrote:


You mix "fonts" and "font shapes".


  It seems a very common misconception. Too many people use the word 'font'
when they refer to 'typeface.' A 'font' is a particular typeface (Palatino,
Amerigo, Bookman), shape (Roman, Slant, Italic), weight (normal, bold,
thin), and size (10pt, 11pt, 12pt). That's why you'll see so many entries in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ with the same family name.

  In the days when all printed documents were hand-set with metal type,
typesetters had many large wooden trays, each with numerous small
compartments (one for each character in that font set). Each tray contained
a single font.

  Now, with computers doing all the work, we've lost sight of the
distinctions in terms, call everything a 'font,' and end up
miscommunicating.

  In most documents, only two typefaces are used: a serif typeface as the
body text and a san-serif typeface as the headline (part, chapter, section,
etc.) text. Within the body text, emphasis is usually by changing the shape
to Italic or slant (if the former is not available). Bold and underline are
not used. (Take a look at a newspaper, book, or magazine and see if you can
find bold or underlined text used.) Underlined text is a hold-over from
typewriter days, and I suspect (but do not know) that bold is the creation
of the earlier word processors (e.g., Wang and those on monochrome-monitored
PCs) that could not display Italic fonts. Current word processors (Wurd,
OO.o., AbiWord) continue to provide these typographic oddities, and writers
continue to use them.

  If we all use typographic terms with precision we'll communicate much more
clearly and effectively.

Your local curmudgeon,

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Uwe Stöhr]

William R. Buckley schrieb:


On this point, you and I strongly disagree.  There are many
times when a document could benefit by the use of more
than one font.  I can send you example documents which
do use several fonts, and would be difficult to fathom if only
one font were used.


You mix "fonts" and "font shapes". LyX offers you three major font shapes: italic/slanted, roman 
(serif), sansserif, and the font styles emphasized and noun (capitals). In math you can even use 
blackboard and calligraphic letters. That's enough and no book I know uses more.


Having more than one font, I don't mean not font styles or shapes, is bad typography. Every 
typography books tells you this, you can also talk to publishers or typographers when you don't 
believe me.



If this is a limitation of LyX/LaTeX/Tex, that only one font
can be supported per document, then these tools are
grossly underpowered compared to even the lowly Ventura
Publisher.


As said above, you misunderstood "font".


Consequently, many times I need special fonts to represent
the states of my cellular automatons.


Are the different font styles and shapes not enough? I mean how could distinguish you automatons by 
using different fonts as the difference between e.g. the fonts Verdana and Tahoma are not visible on 
the first look and by every reader.



It is interesting that another reply from another respondent
directed their effort to (i) assure me that strike-through is
available, if only I'd (ii) read the documentation.


It is available, but you need to use ERT (LaTeX commands directly).
Due to the Unicode problematic, we don'tr offer support for now as I wrote.


The observation reported respecting file browsing behavior
was met with such discord as to discourage any other
such report.  The more telling behavior is that another
developer (Joost) noted the error was in LyX implementation,
and that he corrected the problem.


Yep, it'S fixed for the next LyX version 1.5.5.


Interesting to me is
that Andre Pönitz vociferously and rudely suggested to me
that the problem must be resident in Window, the OS.


These are the usual "Windows is a bad OS comments", don't take this personally.

regards Uwe

Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Uwe Stöhr]

William R. Buckley schrieb:


I have learned from where most of the text formatting is controlled,
and it is surprisingly easy.  Don't understand why I can't there also
find *strikeout* among the forms.


Because the LateX-packages that support this are not yet ready for Unicode (non latin) characters, 
but we offer Unicode. We plan to build in support for this with LyX 1.7.



Also, why not add ability to
select the font, when also selecting weight (bold, medium) and
other features (normal, italic, slant)?


You can set the font in the document settings. A document should only have one font and in the 
document settings you can define what font should be used for typewriter, sansserif, and roman 
(serif) shapes in your document.

(The most consistent way is btw. to use a fon like latin modern that offers all 
three font shapes.)

regards Uwe

Re: WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[Andre Poenitz]

On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 11:15:13AM -0700, William R. Buckley wrote:

Hi Francis.

> First, I vote for LICK.

Usually the right of naming a child belongs to the parents, so I really
wonder why _this_ discussion pops up every second year or so...

Andre'

PS: I surely forgot one or two of those again: :-) :-) :-) 

WRB - Summary of Experience with LyX

[William R. Buckley]

First, I vote for LICK.

If the goal is to be a TeX product, then extend the language, and
avoid the sound of plurality,

Second, I think LyX has a wonderful potential, and a magnificently
executed actual.

I have learned from where most of the text formatting is controlled,
and it is surprisingly easy.  Don't understand why I can't there also
find *strikeout* among the forms.  Also, why not add ability to
select the font, when also selecting weight (bold, medium) and
other features (normal, italic, slant)?  Yet, these are minor points,
and surely there are other mechanisms to which a LyX user should
turn.

Some of my experience is akin to that of one who transitions
between editors, like those of use who use Borland Turbo Pascal
for a number of years, and then moved to BRIEF.  Ventura Publisher
has its mechanisms, and LyX has a different sent.  Sometimes, 
the mechanisms are homomorphic, sometimes not.

In learning to use the mathematics interface took a little time,
mostly because of not reading the manual I should think but,
it is quite natural now.  The integration of the mechanism with
the corresponding keystroke is wonderful  For example, when I
need a variable that is subscripted, such as a label in a figure
to which a text reference is needed, I simply select the proper
font, which opens a box in the text, and there, I type, for instance,
A_i, and the subscript box automatically opens, ready to receive
the i.  Behavior like this is quite natural, and smoothly implemented.

Third, the political sensibilities of some participants hinders the
collective goal.  The generally friendly manner of postings does
much to attract the interest of others; attacking those who show
interest is a contrary force.

I frankly have no preference for operating systems, nor for the
systems which others provide.  Complaining to me about the
political struggle between Microsoft and Sun, or Microsoft and
the free-software movement, is like preaching to an atheist.

I don't care about such things.  In their stead, I accept that the
marketplace of ideas will win the struggle for truth, and that will
bring minds.  All good things to those who wait.

I do care about helping the occasional activity, such as that
which is LyX, and offer therefore those observations which may
be useful.  If they get used, fine; if they get ignored, fine.  It is
all the same to me.

Fourth, I got some very good assistance from the developers
and senior users, for which I am quite grateful.  Even in those
cases where replies were less patient, I got valuable replies
that allowed me to greatly reduce the time to both acquire
knowledge of the tool and produce a timely submittal of paper
to conference.

Now, with more leisure, I may turn to the online documentation,
and gain more thorough familiarity with LyX.

I am comfortable with LyX, and know a smidge of TeX.  So, I
am reasonably confident of being able to master the tool, even
if it does now seem as if I am aboard a row-boat, in the middle
of the Pacific.

wrb