subject:"Re\: WRB \- Observations"


Paul A. Rubin wrote:
On my XP Home box, every program I've tested that uses the Windows file 
open dialog can follow a shortcut (.lnk) to a directory.  So either 
something is amiss with your system, or maybe you have some registry 
setting mucking things up.


If I remember correctly, there is indeed some special registry setting 
for shortcuts and I may have modified things there :) I'll have a look 
and it and see whether I can fix the LyX dialogs.


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations


William R. Buckley wrote:

I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.


I can now reproduce this bug. It's because LyX doesn't use *.* to show 
all files, which is how it should be done on Windows. If you type *.* in 
the filename box and press enter, it works. I'll prepare a fix.


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread Andre Poenitz

On Tue, Apr 01, 2008 at 05:53:57AM -0700, William R. Buckley wrote:
 There was an assumption then, that I know what Qt is,
 and therefore should have understood the mention.

Well, that's an assumption e.g. I rarely make.

However, I usually assume that literate people using the internet for
email also have access to a web browser and are able to type is  any
given two-letter 'word' into, say, Google's search input field.
Incidentally nine out of the ten first hits are helpful in this
particular case...
 
 Frankly, as far as I can tell, from the messages posted,
 Qt is part of the LyX product.

Frankly, it isn't.

 [...] Give full and complete information.

Well. That obviously depends on how much you are willing to pay
and on the phase of the Moon...

 That is what you expect to obtain from those who seek assistance with
 your product.  Give the same as you expect.

No. The positions are not symmetric.

Andre'

Re: WRB - Observations


G. Milde wrote:

There was a suggestion to report the bug to where it belongs, i.e. the
QT library. QT is actively supported, tries to do the operating system
universality in a clean and sensible way. Maybe this bug is even fixed
in a current version of QT (or labelled as wontfix even there if the
Windows version that exhibits the bug is rarely used). 
In this sense it can be classified as reassign to QT.


It actually is a LyX bug. I have mailed a patch to the development list.

Joost

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread Michael Wojcik


William R. Buckley wrote:


What really surprises me is the effort various members have
expended to encourage me not to help your project.

I quite think your efforts are misguided.


Well, I suspect this particular issue (the treatment of Windows 
shortcuts in some of the LyX file-open dialogs, on some systems) has 
met with resistance for a handful of reasons. Some of the regulars 
here do not care for Windows, and given the opportunity will voice 
that opinion. Some pointed out that LyX does not own the file-open 
dialogs; they're part of Qt, so this might be a Qt bug. And so forth.


With most LyX issues, I think you'll find people are interested in at 
least identifying the problem and searching for a workaround. And the 
LyX team does release updates quite frequently, with many a bug fixed. 
Some issues, like this one, prove controversial, but the great 
majority are accepted by the developers and experienced users.


I might point out that my original posting on this particular subject 
was not in response to you, but to Richard; and it was simply to note 
that shortcuts are not a feature of the base Windows OS, but of 
Explorer. (As I pointed out in another note, they're by no means 
universally supported in any consistent manner by Windows itself.) I 
did suggest in that note that not following shortcuts to directories 
in a file-open dialog could be considered a missing feature.


And that's been my position all along, which is why I also suggested 
that it would be worth investigating the discrepant behavior - even 
suggested that *I* might do so, if I can find the time.


I don't think people here are actually trying to discourage you from 
contributing to the improvement of LyX, and I'm sorry you feel they 
are. Rather, I'd interpret this thread as a fairly vigorous and 
opinionated discussion on the issue at hand, its possible underlying 
causes, and the nature of the problem (a bug? a missing feature? an 
annoyance? a quirk? in LyX or Qt or Microsoft controls or Windows?) - 
and the last, though it's not entirely relevant to fixing the problem, 
does have some weight in evaluating its importance.


--
Michael Wojcik

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread G. Milde


On 31.03.08, William R. Buckley wrote:
 Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following a Windows
 shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position is therefore that
 LyX should be less than it might be, when other open source tools have
 no problem with a simple if arcane function.

The stated position was that this is either problem of the underlying QT
library or Windows itself. 

It is a LyX well considered design decision to delegate the OS
interface functions to QT.

Creating a workaround in LyX or using a different widget library was
ruled out as too much work or not appropriate for a not so important
issue in a function that should be handled by the supporting library
without extra efforts. In this sense the bug can be classified as
wontfix or works for me.

 The proper ideal for any open source tool should be operating
 system universality, 
...

There was a suggestion to report the bug to where it belongs, i.e. the
QT library. QT is actively supported, tries to do the operating system
universality in a clean and sensible way. Maybe this bug is even fixed
in a current version of QT (or labelled as wontfix even there if the
Windows version that exhibits the bug is rarely used). 
In this sense it can be classified as reassign to QT.

 What really surprises me is the effort various members have
 expended to encourage me not to help your project.

Please be patient with the developers that sometimes feel hurt if LyX is
blamed for something that is not their fault.

Ignoring these parts of the response helps to keep traffic on this list
on a reasonable level.

Contacting the QT people might be the best idea if you want your help to
find the right adressee (as this bug might affect a lot of other
applications that use QT as well).  


MfG

Guenter

RE: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread William R. Buckley

There was an assumption then, that I know what Qt is,
and therefore should have understood the mention.

Frankly, as far as I can tell, from the messages posted,
Qt is part of the LyX product.

I am not a developer of your tool, so would not, and should
not be expected to, know how it is built, nor of what it is
built,  nor of the external sources of some components.

Simply state so clearly, as done below, and all will be
well understood.

Don't just mention a component, as if newbies have any
idea what you are talking about.

Be clear in your exposition, and maybe misunderstandings
will be avoided.

Heck, I'm lucky to know about wxWidgets, and this only
because of the cellular automata tool called Golly - a Game
of Life simulator - uses it for Windows portability - otherwise,
it is a solid *nix tool.

Never assume that I know what you are talking about.

Give full and complete information.  That is what you expect
to obtain from those who seek assistance with your product.
Give the same as you expect.

wrb

 -Original Message-
 From: G. Milde [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 12:18 AM
 To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
 
 
 On 31.03.08, William R. Buckley wrote:
  Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following 
 a Windows 
  shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position is therefore 
  that LyX should be less than it might be, when other open 
 source tools 
  have no problem with a simple if arcane function.
 
 The stated position was that this is either problem of the 
 underlying QT library or Windows itself. 
 
 It is a LyX well considered design decision to delegate the 
 OS interface functions to QT.
 
 Creating a workaround in LyX or using a different widget 
 library was ruled out as too much work or not appropriate for 
 a not so important issue in a function that should be handled 
 by the supporting library without extra efforts. In this 
 sense the bug can be classified as wontfix or works for me.
 
  The proper ideal for any open source tool should be 
 operating system 
  universality,
 ...
 
 There was a suggestion to report the bug to where it 
 belongs, i.e. the QT library. QT is actively supported, 
 tries to do the operating system universality in a clean 
 and sensible way. Maybe this bug is even fixed in a current 
 version of QT (or labelled as wontfix even there if the 
 Windows version that exhibits the bug is rarely used). 
 In this sense it can be classified as reassign to QT.
 
  What really surprises me is the effort various members have 
 expended 
  to encourage me not to help your project.
 
 Please be patient with the developers that sometimes feel 
 hurt if LyX is blamed for something that is not their fault.
 
 Ignoring these parts of the response helps to keep traffic on 
 this list on a reasonable level.
 
 Contacting the QT people might be the best idea if you want 
 your help to find the right adressee (as this bug might 
 affect a lot of other applications that use QT as well).  
 
 
 MfG
 
 Guenter

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread Paul A. Rubin


Joost Verburg wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:

Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following
a Windows shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position
is therefore that LyX should be less than it might be, when other
open source tools have no problem with a simple if arcane
function.


On my system it's not even possible in Microsoft Word :) Does this 
Maxima tool use the standard Windows dialog?




What about Notepad?  Are you talking about a shortcut to a file or to a 
directory?


On my XP Home box, every program I've tested that uses the Windows file 
open dialog can follow a shortcut (.lnk) to a directory.  So either 
something is amiss with your system, or maybe you have some registry 
setting mucking things up.


Anyway, I just did some digging, and I suspect the offending behavior in 
the LyX dialogs may be a function of something goofy in the call to the 
Windows file-open dialog.  Initially, I found it odd that File - Open 
and Insert - Graphics - Browse would invoke identical dialogs (other 
than the dialog's title) that acted differently.  On my system at least, 
File - Open follows shortcuts to directories and files, whereas I - G 
- B just stuffs the path of the .lnk file into the file field.  Then I 
realized the dialogs are not quite identical: F - O comes with the file 
type defaulting to .lyx, whereas I - G - B comes with the file type 
defaulting to all files.


If I change the file type in the F - O dialog to all files and try to 
follow a link, even a link to a LyX file, I get an error message.  The I 
- G - B dialog has no option other than all files for file type, but 
you can fake a file type in the Windows file-open dialog by putting 
*.extension (e.g., *.png) in the file name field.  Sure enough, if I do 
this the dialog follows links.


This behavior is not replicated in either Notepad or NoteTab (the latter 
a Windows-native FOSS replacement for NoteTab).  So I suspect that it's 
not intrinsic to the file-open dialog, but rather the result of some 
subtle difference in the flags used to call the dialog.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations


Paul A. Rubin wrote:
On my XP Home box, every program I've tested that uses the Windows file 
open dialog can follow a shortcut (.lnk) to a directory.  So either 
something is amiss with your system, or maybe you have some registry 
setting mucking things up.


If I remember correctly, there is indeed some special registry setting 
for shortcuts and I may have modified things there :) I'll have a look 
and it and see whether I can fix the LyX dialogs.


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations


William R. Buckley wrote:

I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.


I can now reproduce this bug. It's because LyX doesn't use *.* to show 
all files, which is how it should be done on Windows. If you type *.* in 
the filename box and press enter, it works. I'll prepare a fix.


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread Andre Poenitz

On Tue, Apr 01, 2008 at 05:53:57AM -0700, William R. Buckley wrote:
 There was an assumption then, that I know what Qt is,
 and therefore should have understood the mention.

Well, that's an assumption e.g. I rarely make.

However, I usually assume that literate people using the internet for
email also have access to a web browser and are able to type is  any
given two-letter 'word' into, say, Google's search input field.
Incidentally nine out of the ten first hits are helpful in this
particular case...
 
 Frankly, as far as I can tell, from the messages posted,
 Qt is part of the LyX product.

Frankly, it isn't.

 [...] Give full and complete information.

Well. That obviously depends on how much you are willing to pay
and on the phase of the Moon...

 That is what you expect to obtain from those who seek assistance with
 your product.  Give the same as you expect.

No. The positions are not symmetric.

Andre'

Re: WRB - Observations


G. Milde wrote:

There was a suggestion to report the bug to where it belongs, i.e. the
QT library. QT is actively supported, tries to do the operating system
universality in a clean and sensible way. Maybe this bug is even fixed
in a current version of QT (or labelled as wontfix even there if the
Windows version that exhibits the bug is rarely used). 
In this sense it can be classified as reassign to QT.


It actually is a LyX bug. I have mailed a patch to the development list.

Joost

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread Michael Wojcik


William R. Buckley wrote:


What really surprises me is the effort various members have
expended to encourage me not to help your project.

I quite think your efforts are misguided.


Well, I suspect this particular issue (the treatment of Windows 
shortcuts in some of the LyX file-open dialogs, on some systems) has 
met with resistance for a handful of reasons. Some of the regulars 
here do not care for Windows, and given the opportunity will voice 
that opinion. Some pointed out that LyX does not own the file-open 
dialogs; they're part of Qt, so this might be a Qt bug. And so forth.


With most LyX issues, I think you'll find people are interested in at 
least identifying the problem and searching for a workaround. And the 
LyX team does release updates quite frequently, with many a bug fixed. 
Some issues, like this one, prove controversial, but the great 
majority are accepted by the developers and experienced users.


I might point out that my original posting on this particular subject 
was not in response to you, but to Richard; and it was simply to note 
that shortcuts are not a feature of the base Windows OS, but of 
Explorer. (As I pointed out in another note, they're by no means 
universally supported in any consistent manner by Windows itself.) I 
did suggest in that note that not following shortcuts to directories 
in a file-open dialog could be considered a missing feature.


And that's been my position all along, which is why I also suggested 
that it would be worth investigating the discrepant behavior - even 
suggested that *I* might do so, if I can find the time.


I don't think people here are actually trying to discourage you from 
contributing to the improvement of LyX, and I'm sorry you feel they 
are. Rather, I'd interpret this thread as a fairly vigorous and 
opinionated discussion on the issue at hand, its possible underlying 
causes, and the nature of the problem (a bug? a missing feature? an 
annoyance? a quirk? in LyX or Qt or Microsoft controls or Windows?) - 
and the last, though it's not entirely relevant to fixing the problem, 
does have some weight in evaluating its importance.


--
Michael Wojcik

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread G. Milde

On 31.03.08, William R. Buckley wrote:
> Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following a Windows
> shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position is therefore that
> LyX should be less than it might be, when other open source tools have
> no problem with a simple if arcane function.

The stated position was that this is either problem of the underlying QT
library or Windows itself. 

It is a LyX well considered design decision to "delegate" the OS
interface functions to QT.

Creating a workaround in LyX or using a different widget library was
ruled out as too much work or not appropriate for a not so important
issue in a function that should be handled by the supporting library
without extra efforts. In this sense the bug can be classified as
"wontfix" or "works for me".

> The proper ideal for any open source tool should be operating
> system universality, 
...

There was a suggestion to report the bug to "where it belongs", i.e. the
QT library. QT is actively supported, tries to do the "operating system
universality" in a clean and sensible way. Maybe this bug is even fixed
in a current version of QT (or labelled as wontfix even there if the
Windows version that exhibits the bug is rarely used). 
In this sense it can be classified as "reassign to QT".

> What really surprises me is the effort various members have
> expended to encourage me not to help your project.

Please be patient with the developers that sometimes feel hurt if LyX is
blamed for something that is not their fault.

Ignoring these parts of the response helps to keep traffic on this list
on a reasonable level.

Contacting the QT people might be the best idea if you want your help to
find the right adressee (as this bug might affect a lot of other
applications that use QT as well).  

MfG

Guenter

RE: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread William R. Buckley

There was an assumption then, that I know what Qt is,
and therefore should have understood the mention.

Frankly, as far as I can tell, from the messages posted,
Qt is part of the LyX product.

I am not a developer of your tool, so would not, and should
not be expected to, know how it is built, nor of what it is
built,  nor of the external sources of some components.

Simply state so clearly, as done below, and all will be
well understood.

Don't just mention a component, as if newbies have any
idea what you are talking about.

Be clear in your exposition, and maybe misunderstandings
will be avoided.

Heck, I'm lucky to know about wxWidgets, and this only
because of the cellular automata tool called Golly - a Game
of Life simulator - uses it for Windows portability - otherwise,
it is a solid *nix tool.

Never assume that I know what you are talking about.

Give full and complete information.  That is what you expect
to obtain from those who seek assistance with your product.
Give the same as you expect.

wrb

> -Original Message-
> From: G. Milde [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 12:18 AM
> To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
> Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
> 
> 
> On 31.03.08, William R. Buckley wrote:
> > Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following 
> a Windows 
> > shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position is therefore 
> > that LyX should be less than it might be, when other open 
> source tools 
> > have no problem with a simple if arcane function.
> 
> The stated position was that this is either problem of the 
> underlying QT library or Windows itself. 
> 
> It is a LyX well considered design decision to "delegate" the 
> OS interface functions to QT.
> 
> Creating a workaround in LyX or using a different widget 
> library was ruled out as too much work or not appropriate for 
> a not so important issue in a function that should be handled 
> by the supporting library without extra efforts. In this 
> sense the bug can be classified as "wontfix" or "works for me".
> 
> > The proper ideal for any open source tool should be 
> operating system 
> > universality,
> ...
> 
> There was a suggestion to report the bug to "where it 
> belongs", i.e. the QT library. QT is actively supported, 
> tries to do the "operating system universality" in a clean 
> and sensible way. Maybe this bug is even fixed in a current 
> version of QT (or labelled as wontfix even there if the 
> Windows version that exhibits the bug is rarely used). 
> In this sense it can be classified as "reassign to QT".
> 
> > What really surprises me is the effort various members have 
> expended 
> > to encourage me not to help your project.
> 
> Please be patient with the developers that sometimes feel 
> hurt if LyX is blamed for something that is not their fault.
> 
> Ignoring these parts of the response helps to keep traffic on 
> this list on a reasonable level.
> 
> Contacting the QT people might be the best idea if you want 
> your help to find the right adressee (as this bug might 
> affect a lot of other applications that use QT as well).  
> 
> 
> MfG
> 
> Guenter
> 
>

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread Paul A. Rubin


Joost Verburg wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:

Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following
a Windows shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position
is therefore that LyX should be less than it might be, when other
open source tools have no problem with a simple if arcane
function.


On my system it's not even possible in Microsoft Word :) Does this 
Maxima tool use the standard Windows dialog?




What about Notepad?  Are you talking about a shortcut to a file or to a 
directory?


On my XP Home box, every program I've tested that uses the Windows file 
open dialog can follow a shortcut (.lnk) to a directory.  So either 
something is amiss with your system, or maybe you have some registry 
setting mucking things up.


Anyway, I just did some digging, and I suspect the offending behavior in 
the LyX dialogs may be a function of something goofy in the call to the 
Windows file-open dialog.  Initially, I found it odd that File -> Open 
and Insert -> Graphics -> Browse would invoke identical dialogs (other 
than the dialog's title) that acted differently.  On my system at least, 
File -> Open follows shortcuts to directories and files, whereas I -> G 
-> B just stuffs the path of the .lnk file into the file field.  Then I 
realized the dialogs are not quite identical: F -> O comes with the file 
type defaulting to .lyx, whereas I -> G -> B comes with the file type 
defaulting to "all files".


If I change the file type in the F -> O dialog to "all files" and try to 
follow a link, even a link to a LyX file, I get an error message.  The I 
-> G -> B dialog has no option other than "all files" for file type, but 
you can fake a file type in the Windows file-open dialog by putting 
*.extension (e.g., *.png) in the file name field.  Sure enough, if I do 
this the dialog follows links.


This behavior is not replicated in either Notepad or NoteTab (the latter 
a Windows-native FOSS replacement for NoteTab).  So I suspect that it's 
not intrinsic to the file-open dialog, but rather the result of some 
subtle difference in the flags used to call the dialog.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations


Paul A. Rubin wrote:
On my XP Home box, every program I've tested that uses the Windows file 
open dialog can follow a shortcut (.lnk) to a directory.  So either 
something is amiss with your system, or maybe you have some registry 
setting mucking things up.


If I remember correctly, there is indeed some special registry setting 
for shortcuts and I may have modified things there :) I'll have a look 
and it and see whether I can fix the LyX dialogs.


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations


William R. Buckley wrote:

I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.


I can now reproduce this bug. It's because LyX doesn't use *.* to show 
all files, which is how it should be done on Windows. If you type *.* in 
the filename box and press enter, it works. I'll prepare a fix.


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread Andre Poenitz

On Tue, Apr 01, 2008 at 05:53:57AM -0700, William R. Buckley wrote:
> There was an assumption then, that I know what Qt is,
> and therefore should have understood the mention.

Well, that's an assumption e.g. I rarely make.

However, I usually assume that literate people using the internet for
email also have access to a web browser and are able to type is  any
given two-letter 'word' into, say, Google's search input field.
Incidentally nine out of the ten first hits are helpful in this
particular case...

> Frankly, as far as I can tell, from the messages posted,
> Qt is part of the LyX product.

Frankly, it isn't.

> [...] Give full and complete information.

Well. That obviously depends on how much you are willing to pay
and on the phase of the Moon...

> That is what you expect to obtain from those who seek assistance with
> your product.  Give the same as you expect.

No. The positions are not symmetric.

Andre'

Re: WRB - Observations


G. Milde wrote:

There was a suggestion to report the bug to "where it belongs", i.e. the
QT library. QT is actively supported, tries to do the "operating system
universality" in a clean and sensible way. Maybe this bug is even fixed
in a current version of QT (or labelled as wontfix even there if the
Windows version that exhibits the bug is rarely used). 
In this sense it can be classified as "reassign to QT".


It actually is a LyX bug. I have mailed a patch to the development list.

Joost

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-04-01 Thread Michael Wojcik


William R. Buckley wrote:


What really surprises me is the effort various members have
expended to encourage me not to help your project.

I quite think your efforts are misguided.


Well, I suspect this particular issue (the treatment of Windows 
"shortcuts" in some of the LyX file-open dialogs, on some systems) has 
met with resistance for a handful of reasons. Some of the regulars 
here do not care for Windows, and given the opportunity will voice 
that opinion. Some pointed out that LyX does not own the file-open 
dialogs; they're part of Qt, so this might be a Qt bug. And so forth.


With most LyX issues, I think you'll find people are interested in at 
least identifying the problem and searching for a workaround. And the 
LyX team does release updates quite frequently, with many a bug fixed. 
Some issues, like this one, prove controversial, but the great 
majority are accepted by the developers and experienced users.


I might point out that my original posting on this particular subject 
was not in response to you, but to Richard; and it was simply to note 
that shortcuts are not a feature of the base Windows OS, but of 
Explorer. (As I pointed out in another note, they're by no means 
universally supported in any consistent manner by Windows itself.) I 
did suggest in that note that not following shortcuts to directories 
in a file-open dialog could be considered a missing feature.


And that's been my position all along, which is why I also suggested 
that it would be worth investigating the discrepant behavior - even 
suggested that *I* might do so, if I can find the time.


I don't think people here are actually trying to discourage you from 
contributing to the improvement of LyX, and I'm sorry you feel they 
are. Rather, I'd interpret this thread as a fairly vigorous and 
opinionated discussion on the issue at hand, its possible underlying 
causes, and the nature of the problem (a bug? a missing feature? an 
annoyance? a quirk? in LyX or Qt or Microsoft controls or Windows?) - 
and the last, though it's not entirely relevant to fixing the problem, 
does have some weight in evaluating its importance.


--
Michael Wojcik

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-31 Thread Paul A. Rubin


Joost Verburg wrote:

Paul A. Rubin wrote:
I don't think so.  Contrast the behavior of the Insert - Graphics 
dialog with the File - Open dialog. 


With both dialogs I get exactly the same behavior (the .lnk file is 
opened). File - Open hides shortcuts by default because it's looking 
for .lyx files while Insert - Graphics shows all files (*.*).




Perhaps my PC is charmed?  I just created 'Lecture Notes.lnk' on my 
desktop, pointing to a folder several levels deep under My Documents. 
This is on XP Home.  In LyX 1.5.4, I click File - Open..., click the 
button for the Desktop, and see icons for My Documents, My Computer, My 
Network Places, all the folders on my desktop, the link, and all the 
.lyx files on the desktop.  I double click the link icon, and the dialog 
display switches to all the .lyx files in the target folder to which the 
link points.


I also tried this with a link pointing directly to a LyX file. 
Selecting that link from the desktop in the File - Open... dialog 
entered file_name.lyx.lnk in the file name field, but when I clicked 
open it did indeed open the correct LyX file.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 11:57:47PM +0200, Joost Verburg wrote:
 Rich Shepard wrote:
 However, if you want to use open source applications built
 to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were 
 originally
 build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the 
 developers
 use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
 requirement.

 LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work fine on 
 all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these platform should 
 get more support than others.

There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open Source
project has to encourage the use of a proprietary operating system
and spend resources on fixing funny behaviour on such platforms.

If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of _developers_
on that platform, such development will eventually happen.

Andre'

RE: WRB - Observations

  Rich Shepard wrote:
  However, if you want to use open source applications built to open 
  standards, then understand that almost all of these were 
  originally 
  build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the 
  developers use, and making them available to the Windows 
  world is a 
  courtesy, not a requirement.
 
  LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should 
  work fine 
  on all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these 
  platform 
  should get more support than others.
 
 There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open 
 Source project has to encourage the use of a proprietary 
 operating system and spend resources on fixing funny 
 behaviour on such platforms.
 
 If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of 
 _developers_ on that platform, such development will 
 eventually happen.
 
 Andre'

On this point, I quite agree: if there if enough interest, a developer will
attend the issue, and the open source tool will improve.  I would not
expect anything more.  Indeed, that is the whole point of open source,
that anyone with sufficient interest can improve the tool.  By extension,
it should therefore not bring indigestion for one to note behavior in said
tool.  All this information constitutes knowledge of the tool, and provides
suggestions to developers who care about that knowledge.  I don't see
any reason for negative reaction to acquisition of knowledge, and since
I did not present the observation in negative words (like those of a
university professor a few weeks back), some reaction obtained is
unexpected.

wrb

Re: WRB - Observations

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 01:18:00PM -0700, William R. Buckley wrote:
   LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work
   fine on all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these
   platform should get more support than others.
  
  There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open Source
  project has to encourage the use of a proprietary operating system
  and spend resources on fixing funny behaviour on such platforms.
  
  If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of
  _developers_ on that platform, such development will eventually
  happen.
  
  Andre'
 
 On this point, I quite agree: if there if enough interest, a developer
 will attend the issue, and the open source tool will improve.  I would
 not expect anything more.  Indeed, that is the whole point of open
 source, that anyone with sufficient interest can improve the tool.  By
 extension, it should therefore not bring indigestion for one to note
 behavior in said tool.  All this information constitutes knowledge of
 the tool, and provides suggestions to developers who care about that
 knowledge.  I don't see any reason for negative reaction to
 acquisition of knowledge, and since I did not present the observation
 in negative words (like those of a university professor a few weeks
 back), some reaction obtained is unexpected.

Well, for one, OS developers traditionally get touchy when the 'M' or
'W' words are mentioned...

Apart from that: I personally have no problems to acknowledge the
existence of software outside the OS world. I've actually used (and
coded myself for a living...) software in this 'M' and 'W' world for a
few years, so even if I consider it an extremely hostile environment
(mostly technically, and only partially for political reasons) I believe
I can handle it comparatively well. At least I can compare it to other
environments I used.

I also think that I am generally open for knowledge. I have managed to
survive in academia for a dozen years or so. However, especially in this
'M' and 'W' world you get swamped with a kind of knowledge that is
completely useless outside. Have you ever wondered why Custom Action
Type 39 for MSI Installers was declared deprecated by Redmond after
it has been out in the wild for a few years? No? Well, I had to...
And I think even typing this into a google search would be a waste of
_your_ lifetime, too.

So, no, knowledge does not imply good by itself. And, no, in my
spare time I am in no way obliged to gather more knowledge in an area
in which I feel I spent far too much time already. [Well, this, of
course, depends on whether you consider job time as my time or not
;-)]. Maybe that explains the possibility of negative reactions here...

Andre'

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-31 Thread Michael Wojcik


rgheck wrote:

Michael Wojcik wrote:


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.


Agreed, though it would be good to know why people report different 
behavior in different dialogs, and different behavior on different 
systems. It's conceivable that something LyX is doing is either 
triggering a Qt bug in some circumstances (which might be avoidable), 
or at least causing differing behavior where we could be consistent.


If I weren't in the middle of about a zillion other things I'd grab 
the current sources and take a look. (Maybe over the summer I'll 
finally get a chance to dig into the LyX source.)


Though, pace William, the *real* problem, as I wrote above, is that 
shortcuts are not part of the Windows OS. They're purely an 
application-layer artifact. Certainly not all Windows programs handle 
them the way William would like. (Windows users can try cd'ing across 
a shortcut in a shell window - no go. cd'ing across junctions works 
just fine, however, because they *are* first-class filesystem objects.)


--
Michael Wojcik

Re: WRB - Observations

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 05:45:30PM -0400, Michael Wojcik wrote:
 rgheck wrote:
 Michael Wojcik wrote:

 I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
 feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
 They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.

 LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work correctly, 
 it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.

 Agreed, though it would be good to know why people report different 
 behavior in different dialogs, and different behavior on different systems. 
 It's conceivable that something LyX is doing is either triggering a Qt bug 
 in some circumstances (which might be avoidable), or at least causing 
 differing behavior where we could be consistent.

There have been bugs in Qt's file dialogs around 4.1.1 (+/- 2 subminor
versions perhaps). So if you want to dig deeper make sure you have the
same version as the reporter...

Andre'

RE: WRB - Observations

 -Original Message-
 From: Michael Wojcik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 2:46 PM
 To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: Re: WRB - Observations

 rgheck wrote:
  Michael Wojcik wrote:

  I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
  feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects 
 in Windows.
  They're files that are treated in a special manner by 
 Windows Explorer.

  LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
  correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.

 Agreed, though it would be good to know why people report 
 different behavior in different dialogs, and different 
 behavior on different systems. It's conceivable that 
 something LyX is doing is either triggering a Qt bug in some 
 circumstances (which might be avoidable), or at least causing 
 differing behavior where we could be consistent.

 If I weren't in the middle of about a zillion other things 
 I'd grab the current sources and take a look. (Maybe over the 
 summer I'll finally get a chance to dig into the LyX source.)

 Though, pace William, the *real* problem, as I wrote above, 
 is that shortcuts are not part of the Windows OS. They're 
 purely an application-layer artifact. Certainly not all 
 Windows programs handle them the way William would like. 
 (Windows users can try cd'ing across a shortcut in a shell 
 window - no go. cd'ing across junctions works just fine, 
 however, because they *are* first-class filesystem objects.)

 --
 Michael Wojcik

Please, it is not about how I would like things.  Rather, it is not
what one would expect, given familiarity with Windows.  I do not
expect that this is of concern to all, or even to any.  It is only a
noted behavior, which looks inconsistent with typical expectation.

If the issue is indeed a Windows idiosyncrasy, then by all means
just document it as unsupported.  If the inclination is beyond just
documentation, then by all means.

Actually, I have not typically experienced this behavior, because I
typically don't use shortcuts.  Typically, I will use Windows Explorer
and drill down manually in the hierarchy, typically shown to the left
in the WE gui.  In this one case, I have recently created the
shortcut, in order to speed my access to the subtree that contains
the papers I write.  So, it was just by serendipity that I found this
*bug*

So, in truth, I don't think I've previously tried to use a shortcut in this
way.

wrb

RE: WRB - Observations

Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following
a Windows shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position
is therefore that LyX should be less than it might be, when other
open source tools have no problem with a simple if arcane
function.

The proper ideal for any open source tool should be operating
system universality, and I am sure that various tool makers
provide mechanisms to facilitate the interface between disparate
philosophies.  While I don't know all the various tools, it appears
that wxWidgets satisfies some of these idiosyncrasies and allows
a very complex product to work.

Bitterness at Microsoft?  Why?  The war is already won, and in the
end, Windows too will become open source.

Unix is the worst of all possible operating systems, except when
compared to all other operating systems.

There is no reason that this condition should persist.  Rather, quite
the opposite, and that will entail the incorporation of all available
tools.

What really surprises me is the effort various members have
expended to encourage me not to help your project.

I quite think your efforts are misguided.

wrb 

 -Original Message-
 From: Steve Litt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 7:57 PM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
 
 On Monday 31 March 2008 19:19, William R. Buckley wrote:
 
  Please, it is not about how I would like things.  Rather, it is not 
  what one would expect, given familiarity with Windows.
 
 Windows matters why? At best it's one more operating system 
 that the best of class LyX bookwriter runs on. At worst it's 
 a tool used by an illegal monopoly (Judge Jackson's and the 
 appeals court's words, not mine).
 
 SteveT
 
 Steve Litt
 Books written in LyX:
   Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist
   Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
   Troubleshooting: Just the Facts

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-31 Thread Joost Verburg


William R. Buckley wrote:

Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following
a Windows shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position
is therefore that LyX should be less than it might be, when other
open source tools have no problem with a simple if arcane
function.


On my system it's not even possible in Microsoft Word :) Does this 
Maxima tool use the standard Windows dialog?


Joost

RE: WRB - Observations

Joost:

I really do not the particulars of the product.  It would be best for you to
download it from its sourceforge.net project site, and test for yourself.

On WindowsXPsp2 (I think that is the latest - the system is configured
for web-based automatic upgrading), and using Word 2003, I clicked
File:Open  and then from the dialog box (which always starts in
My Documents) used the pull-down menu to select the D hard drive,
and then double-clicked on the shortcut, which brings me to the 
corresponding directory, where I am able to view the files there stored.

What version of Word are you using?

 -Original Message-
 From: news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joost Verburg
 Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 8:37 PM
 To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
 
 William R. Buckley wrote:
  Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following 
 a Windows 
  shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position is therefore 
  that LyX should be less than it might be, when other open 
 source tools 
  have no problem with a simple if arcane function.
 
 On my system it's not even possible in Microsoft Word :) Does 
 this Maxima tool use the standard Windows dialog?
 
 Joost

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-31 Thread Paul A. Rubin


Joost Verburg wrote:

Paul A. Rubin wrote:
I don't think so.  Contrast the behavior of the Insert - Graphics 
dialog with the File - Open dialog. 


With both dialogs I get exactly the same behavior (the .lnk file is 
opened). File - Open hides shortcuts by default because it's looking 
for .lyx files while Insert - Graphics shows all files (*.*).




Perhaps my PC is charmed?  I just created 'Lecture Notes.lnk' on my 
desktop, pointing to a folder several levels deep under My Documents. 
This is on XP Home.  In LyX 1.5.4, I click File - Open..., click the 
button for the Desktop, and see icons for My Documents, My Computer, My 
Network Places, all the folders on my desktop, the link, and all the 
.lyx files on the desktop.  I double click the link icon, and the dialog 
display switches to all the .lyx files in the target folder to which the 
link points.


I also tried this with a link pointing directly to a LyX file. 
Selecting that link from the desktop in the File - Open... dialog 
entered file_name.lyx.lnk in the file name field, but when I clicked 
open it did indeed open the correct LyX file.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 11:57:47PM +0200, Joost Verburg wrote:
 Rich Shepard wrote:
 However, if you want to use open source applications built
 to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were 
 originally
 build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the 
 developers
 use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
 requirement.

 LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work fine on 
 all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these platform should 
 get more support than others.

There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open Source
project has to encourage the use of a proprietary operating system
and spend resources on fixing funny behaviour on such platforms.

If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of _developers_
on that platform, such development will eventually happen.

Andre'

RE: WRB - Observations

  Rich Shepard wrote:
  However, if you want to use open source applications built to open 
  standards, then understand that almost all of these were 
  originally 
  build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the 
  developers use, and making them available to the Windows 
  world is a 
  courtesy, not a requirement.
 
  LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should 
  work fine 
  on all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these 
  platform 
  should get more support than others.
 
 There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open 
 Source project has to encourage the use of a proprietary 
 operating system and spend resources on fixing funny 
 behaviour on such platforms.
 
 If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of 
 _developers_ on that platform, such development will 
 eventually happen.
 
 Andre'

On this point, I quite agree: if there if enough interest, a developer will
attend the issue, and the open source tool will improve.  I would not
expect anything more.  Indeed, that is the whole point of open source,
that anyone with sufficient interest can improve the tool.  By extension,
it should therefore not bring indigestion for one to note behavior in said
tool.  All this information constitutes knowledge of the tool, and provides
suggestions to developers who care about that knowledge.  I don't see
any reason for negative reaction to acquisition of knowledge, and since
I did not present the observation in negative words (like those of a
university professor a few weeks back), some reaction obtained is
unexpected.

wrb

Re: WRB - Observations

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 01:18:00PM -0700, William R. Buckley wrote:
   LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work
   fine on all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these
   platform should get more support than others.
  
  There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open Source
  project has to encourage the use of a proprietary operating system
  and spend resources on fixing funny behaviour on such platforms.
  
  If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of
  _developers_ on that platform, such development will eventually
  happen.
  
  Andre'
 
 On this point, I quite agree: if there if enough interest, a developer
 will attend the issue, and the open source tool will improve.  I would
 not expect anything more.  Indeed, that is the whole point of open
 source, that anyone with sufficient interest can improve the tool.  By
 extension, it should therefore not bring indigestion for one to note
 behavior in said tool.  All this information constitutes knowledge of
 the tool, and provides suggestions to developers who care about that
 knowledge.  I don't see any reason for negative reaction to
 acquisition of knowledge, and since I did not present the observation
 in negative words (like those of a university professor a few weeks
 back), some reaction obtained is unexpected.

Well, for one, OS developers traditionally get touchy when the 'M' or
'W' words are mentioned...

Apart from that: I personally have no problems to acknowledge the
existence of software outside the OS world. I've actually used (and
coded myself for a living...) software in this 'M' and 'W' world for a
few years, so even if I consider it an extremely hostile environment
(mostly technically, and only partially for political reasons) I believe
I can handle it comparatively well. At least I can compare it to other
environments I used.

I also think that I am generally open for knowledge. I have managed to
survive in academia for a dozen years or so. However, especially in this
'M' and 'W' world you get swamped with a kind of knowledge that is
completely useless outside. Have you ever wondered why Custom Action
Type 39 for MSI Installers was declared deprecated by Redmond after
it has been out in the wild for a few years? No? Well, I had to...
And I think even typing this into a google search would be a waste of
_your_ lifetime, too.

So, no, knowledge does not imply good by itself. And, no, in my
spare time I am in no way obliged to gather more knowledge in an area
in which I feel I spent far too much time already. [Well, this, of
course, depends on whether you consider job time as my time or not
;-)]. Maybe that explains the possibility of negative reactions here...

Andre'

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-31 Thread Michael Wojcik


rgheck wrote:

Michael Wojcik wrote:


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.


Agreed, though it would be good to know why people report different 
behavior in different dialogs, and different behavior on different 
systems. It's conceivable that something LyX is doing is either 
triggering a Qt bug in some circumstances (which might be avoidable), 
or at least causing differing behavior where we could be consistent.


If I weren't in the middle of about a zillion other things I'd grab 
the current sources and take a look. (Maybe over the summer I'll 
finally get a chance to dig into the LyX source.)


Though, pace William, the *real* problem, as I wrote above, is that 
shortcuts are not part of the Windows OS. They're purely an 
application-layer artifact. Certainly not all Windows programs handle 
them the way William would like. (Windows users can try cd'ing across 
a shortcut in a shell window - no go. cd'ing across junctions works 
just fine, however, because they *are* first-class filesystem objects.)


--
Michael Wojcik

Re: WRB - Observations

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 05:45:30PM -0400, Michael Wojcik wrote:
 rgheck wrote:
 Michael Wojcik wrote:

 I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
 feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
 They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.

 LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work correctly, 
 it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.

 Agreed, though it would be good to know why people report different 
 behavior in different dialogs, and different behavior on different systems. 
 It's conceivable that something LyX is doing is either triggering a Qt bug 
 in some circumstances (which might be avoidable), or at least causing 
 differing behavior where we could be consistent.

There have been bugs in Qt's file dialogs around 4.1.1 (+/- 2 subminor
versions perhaps). So if you want to dig deeper make sure you have the
same version as the reporter...

Andre'

RE: WRB - Observations

 -Original Message-
 From: Michael Wojcik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 2:46 PM
 To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: Re: WRB - Observations

 rgheck wrote:
  Michael Wojcik wrote:

  I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
  feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects 
 in Windows.
  They're files that are treated in a special manner by 
 Windows Explorer.

  LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
  correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.

 Agreed, though it would be good to know why people report 
 different behavior in different dialogs, and different 
 behavior on different systems. It's conceivable that 
 something LyX is doing is either triggering a Qt bug in some 
 circumstances (which might be avoidable), or at least causing 
 differing behavior where we could be consistent.

 If I weren't in the middle of about a zillion other things 
 I'd grab the current sources and take a look. (Maybe over the 
 summer I'll finally get a chance to dig into the LyX source.)

 Though, pace William, the *real* problem, as I wrote above, 
 is that shortcuts are not part of the Windows OS. They're 
 purely an application-layer artifact. Certainly not all 
 Windows programs handle them the way William would like. 
 (Windows users can try cd'ing across a shortcut in a shell 
 window - no go. cd'ing across junctions works just fine, 
 however, because they *are* first-class filesystem objects.)

 --
 Michael Wojcik

Please, it is not about how I would like things.  Rather, it is not
what one would expect, given familiarity with Windows.  I do not
expect that this is of concern to all, or even to any.  It is only a
noted behavior, which looks inconsistent with typical expectation.

If the issue is indeed a Windows idiosyncrasy, then by all means
just document it as unsupported.  If the inclination is beyond just
documentation, then by all means.

Actually, I have not typically experienced this behavior, because I
typically don't use shortcuts.  Typically, I will use Windows Explorer
and drill down manually in the hierarchy, typically shown to the left
in the WE gui.  In this one case, I have recently created the
shortcut, in order to speed my access to the subtree that contains
the papers I write.  So, it was just by serendipity that I found this
*bug*

So, in truth, I don't think I've previously tried to use a shortcut in this
way.

wrb

RE: WRB - Observations

Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following
a Windows shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position
is therefore that LyX should be less than it might be, when other
open source tools have no problem with a simple if arcane
function.

The proper ideal for any open source tool should be operating
system universality, and I am sure that various tool makers
provide mechanisms to facilitate the interface between disparate
philosophies.  While I don't know all the various tools, it appears
that wxWidgets satisfies some of these idiosyncrasies and allows
a very complex product to work.

Bitterness at Microsoft?  Why?  The war is already won, and in the
end, Windows too will become open source.

Unix is the worst of all possible operating systems, except when
compared to all other operating systems.

There is no reason that this condition should persist.  Rather, quite
the opposite, and that will entail the incorporation of all available
tools.

What really surprises me is the effort various members have
expended to encourage me not to help your project.

I quite think your efforts are misguided.

wrb 

 -Original Message-
 From: Steve Litt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 7:57 PM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
 
 On Monday 31 March 2008 19:19, William R. Buckley wrote:
 
  Please, it is not about how I would like things.  Rather, it is not 
  what one would expect, given familiarity with Windows.
 
 Windows matters why? At best it's one more operating system 
 that the best of class LyX bookwriter runs on. At worst it's 
 a tool used by an illegal monopoly (Judge Jackson's and the 
 appeals court's words, not mine).
 
 SteveT
 
 Steve Litt
 Books written in LyX:
   Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist
   Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
   Troubleshooting: Just the Facts

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-31 Thread Joost Verburg


William R. Buckley wrote:

Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following
a Windows shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position
is therefore that LyX should be less than it might be, when other
open source tools have no problem with a simple if arcane
function.


On my system it's not even possible in Microsoft Word :) Does this 
Maxima tool use the standard Windows dialog?


Joost

RE: WRB - Observations

Joost:

I really do not the particulars of the product.  It would be best for you to
download it from its sourceforge.net project site, and test for yourself.

On WindowsXPsp2 (I think that is the latest - the system is configured
for web-based automatic upgrading), and using Word 2003, I clicked
File:Open  and then from the dialog box (which always starts in
My Documents) used the pull-down menu to select the D hard drive,
and then double-clicked on the shortcut, which brings me to the 
corresponding directory, where I am able to view the files there stored.

What version of Word are you using?

 -Original Message-
 From: news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joost Verburg
 Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 8:37 PM
 To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
 
 William R. Buckley wrote:
  Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following 
 a Windows 
  shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position is therefore 
  that LyX should be less than it might be, when other open 
 source tools 
  have no problem with a simple if arcane function.
 
 On my system it's not even possible in Microsoft Word :) Does 
 this Maxima tool use the standard Windows dialog?
 
 Joost

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-31 Thread Paul A. Rubin


Joost Verburg wrote:

Paul A. Rubin wrote:
I don't think so.  Contrast the behavior of the Insert -> Graphics 
dialog with the File -> Open dialog. 


With both dialogs I get exactly the same behavior (the .lnk file is 
opened). File -> Open hides shortcuts by default because it's looking 
for .lyx files while Insert -> Graphics shows all files (*.*).




Perhaps my PC is charmed?  I just created 'Lecture Notes.lnk' on my 
desktop, pointing to a folder several levels deep under My Documents. 
This is on XP Home.  In LyX 1.5.4, I click File -> Open..., click the 
button for the Desktop, and see icons for My Documents, My Computer, My 
Network Places, all the folders on my desktop, the link, and all the 
.lyx files on the desktop.  I double click the link icon, and the dialog 
display switches to all the .lyx files in the target folder to which the 
link points.


I also tried this with a link pointing directly to a LyX file. 
Selecting that link from the desktop in the File -> Open... dialog 
entered file_name.lyx.lnk in the file name field, but when I clicked 
open it did indeed open the correct LyX file.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 11:57:47PM +0200, Joost Verburg wrote:
> Rich Shepard wrote:
>> However, if you want to use open source applications built
>> to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were 
>> originally
>> build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the 
>> developers
>> use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
>> requirement.
>
> LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work fine on 
> all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these platform should 
> get more support than others.

There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open Source
project has to encourage the use of a proprietary operating system
and spend resources on "fixing" "funny behaviour" on such platforms.

If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of _developers_
on that platform, such development will eventually happen.

Andre'

RE: WRB - Observations

> > Rich Shepard wrote:
> >> However, if you want to use open source applications built to open 
> >> standards, then understand that almost all of these were 
> >> originally 
> >> build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the 
> >> developers use, and making them available to the Windows 
> >> world is a 
> >> courtesy, not a requirement.
> >
> > LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should 
> > work fine 
> > on all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these 
> > platform 
> > should get more support than others.
> 
> There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open 
> Source project has to encourage the use of a proprietary 
> operating system and spend resources on "fixing" "funny 
> behaviour" on such platforms.
> 
> If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of 
> _developers_ on that platform, such development will 
> eventually happen.
> 
> Andre'

On this point, I quite agree: if there if enough interest, a developer will
attend the issue, and the open source tool will improve.  I would not
expect anything more.  Indeed, that is the whole point of open source,
that anyone with sufficient interest can improve the tool.  By extension,
it should therefore not bring indigestion for one to note behavior in said
tool.  All this information constitutes knowledge of the tool, and provides
suggestions to developers who care about that knowledge.  I don't see
any reason for negative reaction to acquisition of knowledge, and since
I did not present the observation in negative words (like those of a
university professor a few weeks back), some reaction obtained is
unexpected.

wrb

Re: WRB - Observations

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 01:18:00PM -0700, William R. Buckley wrote:
> > > LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work
> > > fine on all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these
> > > platform should get more support than others.
> > 
> > There surely is. There is no particular reason why an Open Source
> > project has to encourage the use of a proprietary operating system
> > and spend resources on "fixing" "funny behaviour" on such platforms.
> > 
> > If it happens to work and/or there is enough interest of
> > _developers_ on that platform, such development will eventually
> > happen.
> > 
> > Andre'
> 
> On this point, I quite agree: if there if enough interest, a developer
> will attend the issue, and the open source tool will improve.  I would
> not expect anything more.  Indeed, that is the whole point of open
> source, that anyone with sufficient interest can improve the tool.  By
> extension, it should therefore not bring indigestion for one to note
> behavior in said tool.  All this information constitutes knowledge of
> the tool, and provides suggestions to developers who care about that
> knowledge.  I don't see any reason for negative reaction to
> acquisition of knowledge, and since I did not present the observation
> in negative words (like those of a university professor a few weeks
> back), some reaction obtained is unexpected.

Well, for one, OS developers traditionally get touchy when the 'M' or
'W' words are mentioned...

Apart from that: I personally have no problems to acknowledge the
existence of software outside the OS world. I've actually used (and
coded myself for a living...) software "in this 'M' and 'W' world" for a
few years, so even if I consider it an extremely hostile environment
(mostly technically, and only partially for political reasons) I believe
I can handle it comparatively well. At least I can compare it to other
environments I used.

I also think that I am generally open for knowledge. I have managed to
survive in academia for a dozen years or so. However, especially in this
'M' and 'W' world you get swamped with a kind of knowledge that is
completely useless outside. Have you ever wondered why "Custom Action
Type 39" for MSI Installers was declared "deprecated" by Redmond after
it has been out in the wild for a few years? No? Well, I had to...
And I think even typing this into a google search would be a waste of
_your_ lifetime, too.

So, no, "knowledge" does not imply "good" by itself. And, no, in my
spare time I am in no way obliged to gather more "knowledge" in an area
in which I feel I spent far too much time already. [Well, this, of
course, depends on whether you consider "job time" as "my time" or not
;-)]. Maybe that explains the possibility of negative reactions here...

Andre'

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-31 Thread Michael Wojcik


rgheck wrote:

Michael Wojcik wrote:


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.


Agreed, though it would be good to know why people report different 
behavior in different dialogs, and different behavior on different 
systems. It's conceivable that something LyX is doing is either 
triggering a Qt bug in some circumstances (which might be avoidable), 
or at least causing differing behavior where we could be consistent.


If I weren't in the middle of about a zillion other things I'd grab 
the current sources and take a look. (Maybe over the summer I'll 
finally get a chance to dig into the LyX source.)


Though, pace William, the *real* problem, as I wrote above, is that 
shortcuts are not part of the Windows OS. They're purely an 
application-layer artifact. Certainly not all Windows programs handle 
them the way William would like. (Windows users can try cd'ing across 
a shortcut in a shell window - no go. cd'ing across junctions works 
just fine, however, because they *are* first-class filesystem objects.)


--
Michael Wojcik

Re: WRB - Observations

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 05:45:30PM -0400, Michael Wojcik wrote:
> rgheck wrote:
>> Michael Wojcik wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
>>> feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
>>> They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.
>>>
>> LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work correctly, 
>> it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.
>
> Agreed, though it would be good to know why people report different 
> behavior in different dialogs, and different behavior on different systems. 
> It's conceivable that something LyX is doing is either triggering a Qt bug 
> in some circumstances (which might be avoidable), or at least causing 
> differing behavior where we could be consistent.

There have been bugs in Qt's file dialogs around 4.1.1 (+/- 2 subminor
versions perhaps). So if you want to dig deeper make sure you have the
same version as the reporter...

Andre'

RE: WRB - Observations

> -Original Message-
> From: Michael Wojcik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 2:46 PM
> To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
> Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
> 
> rgheck wrote:
> > Michael Wojcik wrote:
> >>
> >> I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
> >> feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects 
> in Windows.
> >> They're files that are treated in a special manner by 
> Windows Explorer.
> >>
> > LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
> > correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.
> 
> Agreed, though it would be good to know why people report 
> different behavior in different dialogs, and different 
> behavior on different systems. It's conceivable that 
> something LyX is doing is either triggering a Qt bug in some 
> circumstances (which might be avoidable), or at least causing 
> differing behavior where we could be consistent.
> 
> If I weren't in the middle of about a zillion other things 
> I'd grab the current sources and take a look. (Maybe over the 
> summer I'll finally get a chance to dig into the LyX source.)
> 
> Though, pace William, the *real* problem, as I wrote above, 
> is that shortcuts are not part of the Windows OS. They're 
> purely an application-layer artifact. Certainly not all 
> Windows programs handle them the way William would like. 
> (Windows users can try cd'ing across a shortcut in a shell 
> window - no go. cd'ing across junctions works just fine, 
> however, because they *are* first-class filesystem objects.)
> 
> --
> Michael Wojcik

Please, it is not about how I would like things.  Rather, it is not
what one would expect, given familiarity with Windows.  I do not
expect that this is of concern to all, or even to any.  It is only a
noted behavior, which looks inconsistent with typical expectation.

If the issue is indeed a Windows idiosyncrasy, then by all means
just document it as unsupported.  If the inclination is beyond just
documentation, then by all means.

Actually, I have not typically experienced this behavior, because I
typically don't use shortcuts.  Typically, I will use Windows Explorer
and drill down manually in the hierarchy, typically shown to the left
in the WE gui.  In this one case, I have recently created the
shortcut, in order to speed my access to the subtree that contains
the papers I write.  So, it was just by serendipity that I found this
*bug*

So, in truth, I don't think I've previously tried to use a shortcut in this
way.

wrb

RE: WRB - Observations

Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following
a Windows shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position
is therefore that LyX should be less than it might be, when other
open source tools have no problem with a simple if arcane
function.

The proper ideal for any open source tool should be operating
system universality, and I am sure that various tool makers
provide mechanisms to facilitate the interface between disparate
philosophies.  While I don't know all the various tools, it appears
that wxWidgets satisfies some of these idiosyncrasies and allows
a very complex product to work.

Bitterness at Microsoft?  Why?  The war is already won, and in the
end, Windows too will become open source.

Unix is the worst of all possible operating systems, except when
compared to all other operating systems.

There is no reason that this condition should persist.  Rather, quite
the opposite, and that will entail the incorporation of all available
tools.

What really surprises me is the effort various members have
expended to encourage me not to help your project.

I quite think your efforts are misguided.

wrb 

> -Original Message-
> From: Steve Litt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 7:57 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
> 
> On Monday 31 March 2008 19:19, William R. Buckley wrote:
> 
> > Please, it is not about how I would like things.  Rather, it is not 
> > what one would expect, given familiarity with Windows.
> 
> Windows matters why? At best it's one more operating system 
> that the best of class LyX bookwriter runs on. At worst it's 
> a tool used by an illegal monopoly (Judge Jackson's and the 
> appeals court's words, not mine).
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt
> Books written in LyX:
>   Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist
>   Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
>   Troubleshooting: Just the Facts
> 
>

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-31 Thread Joost Verburg


William R. Buckley wrote:

Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following
a Windows shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position
is therefore that LyX should be less than it might be, when other
open source tools have no problem with a simple if arcane
function.


On my system it's not even possible in Microsoft Word :) Does this 
Maxima tool use the standard Windows dialog?


Joost

RE: WRB - Observations

Joost:

I really do not the particulars of the product.  It would be best for you to
download it from its sourceforge.net project site, and test for yourself.

On WindowsXPsp2 (I think that is the latest - the system is configured
for web-based automatic upgrading), and using Word 2003, I clicked
File:Open  and then from the dialog box (which always starts in
My Documents) used the pull-down menu to select the D hard drive,
and then double-clicked on the shortcut, which brings me to the 
corresponding directory, where I am able to view the files there stored.

What version of Word are you using?

> -Original Message-
> From: news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joost Verburg
> Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 8:37 PM
> To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
> Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
> 
> William R. Buckley wrote:
> > Well, the open source tool Maxima has no problem following 
> a Windows 
> > shortcut in its browsing function.  So, your position is therefore 
> > that LyX should be less than it might be, when other open 
> source tools 
> > have no problem with a simple if arcane function.
> 
> On my system it's not even possible in Microsoft Word :) Does 
> this Maxima tool use the standard Windows dialog?
> 
> Joost
> 
> 
>

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-30 Thread Michael Wojcik


rgheck wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:


I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work perfectly 
fine in Linux.


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


The real bug is that Microsoft introduced them in the first place, 
rather than using a proper filesystem mechanism; and the fix is to 
avoid them whenever possible, since they're a clumsy, half-implemented 
hack.


The closest analog to soft links in Windows are NTFS junctions, and 
they work fine with Qt and LyX, as far as I can see.


--
Michael Wojcik

RE: WRB - Observations

It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community
to avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
The proper solution, distasteful as it may be, is to implement code
which facilitates this *hack* (I always think of a hack as a desirable
gem of programming prowess, but I digress).  Otherwise, you have
a product that does not really work in the Windows world.

wrb

 -Original Message-
 From: Michael Wojcik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 11:24 AM
 To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
 
 rgheck wrote:
  William R. Buckley wrote:
 
  I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file 
 of a figure 
  inserted into a document via the LyX user interface, and 
 upon trying 
  to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more efficiently select the 
  proper directory that is to be browsed), it happens that 
 LyX copies 
  the shortcut to the Graphics dialog box, instead of opening the 
  directory indicated by the shortcut.  I believe this 
 behavior is not 
  what LyX developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on 
 the shortcut 
  should result in an opening of the indicated directory.

  If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links 
 work perfectly 
  fine in Linux.
 
 I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a 
 missing feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem 
 objects in Windows. 
 They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows 
 Explorer.
 
 The real bug is that Microsoft introduced them in the first 
 place, rather than using a proper filesystem mechanism; and 
 the fix is to avoid them whenever possible, since they're a 
 clumsy, half-implemented hack.
 
 The closest analog to soft links in Windows are NTFS 
 junctions, and they work fine with Qt and LyX, as far as I can see.
 
 --
 Michael Wojcik

RE: WRB - Observations

2008-03-30 Thread Rich Shepard


On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote:


It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community to avoid a
mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.


  However, William, I think it's reasonable to expect the entire Windows
using community to defenestrate to linux, *BSD, even OS X or open solaris.
All open source projects have fits trying to work with Microsoft's
proprietary, patented, non-standards-compliant way of doing things. Heck,
even Microsoft's web browsers and Word cannot be backwards compatible with
their own former specs.

  I've heard and read all the reasons why one must remain a Microserf. And,
as far as I'm concerned, that's a personal or business decision that's none
of my business. However, if you want to use open source applications built
to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were originally
build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the developers
use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
requirement. I, as a linux user for more than a decade, have to suffer from
web sites and Microsoft-specific data file formats that just don't play
nicely with any of the options available to me. However, the developers of
tools such as OpenProject do a fantastic job of reverse engineering data
file formats, and each release is better than the one before. In the
meantime, I live with what's available to me.

  I'm confident that there is a current replacement for Ventura Publisher
that is designed for all the quirks, bugs, and other features of Windows.
Perhaps that would better serve your needs. You might also look at VMware's
free offerings that will let you run a virtual linux distribution on your
Windows box, and use linux versions of applications with that linux
distribution. Or, grab a live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, whatever) that will boot
linux on your machine, allow you to run linux apps and save your work, then
leave your machine totally untouched when you halt it and remove the disk.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: WRB - Observations


Rich Shepard wrote:

However, if you want to use open source applications built
to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were originally
build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the developers
use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
requirement.


LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work fine on 
all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these platform should 
get more support than others.


About this shortcut issue: LyX uses the standard Windows dialog for file 
selection. So this is a bug/feature of Windows itself. I guess it is 
designed this way because selecting a shortcut itself should also be 
possible.


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations


Joost Verburg wrote:

Rich Shepard wrote:

However, if you want to use open source applications built
to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were 
originally
build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the 
developers

use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
requirement.


LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work fine on 
all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these platform should 
get more support than others.


About this shortcut issue: LyX uses the standard Windows dialog for file 
selection. So this is a bug/feature of Windows itself. I guess it is 
designed this way because selecting a shortcut itself should also be 
possible.




I don't think so.  Contrast the behavior of the Insert - Graphics 
dialog with the File - Open dialog.  Suppose I have a shortcut on my 
desktop to C:\whatever\whoever.  In the File - Open dialog, I browse to 
the desktop and double click the shortcut.  This browses to 
C:\whatever\whoever in the dialog, and I can select a file.  In the 
Insert - Graphics dialog, I browse to the desktop and double click the 
shortcut.  This time, the shortcut (.lnk file) is selected as the file 
to insert.  The former behavior is both Windows standard (if that's 
not an oxymoron) and the intended behavior, but in any case I can't see 
a logical reason why the two dialogs should behave differently.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations


William R. Buckley wrote:

It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community
to avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
The proper solution, distasteful as it may be, is to implement code
which facilitates this *hack* (I always think of a hack as a desirable
gem of programming prowess, but I digress).


Well, it is an open-source project.  Have at it!  :-)


 Otherwise, you have
a product that does not really work in the Windows world.


I am firmly (if not happily) rooted in the Windows world, by dint partly 
of circumstance (my college is a Windows shop) and partly of investment 
in software over the years.  At the same time, I have been a happy and 
contented LyX user since version 1.3.something.  So apparently the 
inability to follow a link in the graphic selection dialog, however odd 
(given that the File - Open dialog works fine), is not exactly 
crippling.  It might be a tad inconvenient, but I have to work with four 
different flavors of Windows (XP Home, XP Pro, Server 2003 and Vista 
Home Premium), and it's a tad inconvenient coping with the 
inconsistencies of those.  To say LyX does not really work because the 
graphics dialog doesn't follow LyX is an overstatement.


As Rich notes elsewhere, most FOSS software starts on Linux or another 
Unix variant and, if you're lucky, gets ported to Windows by the grace 
of some unpaid developers.  If there is an occasional vicissitude in 
using a FOSS program on Windows, I can (and do) live with that.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations


Paul A. Rubin wrote:
I don't think so.  Contrast the behavior of the Insert - Graphics 
dialog with the File - Open dialog. 


With both dialogs I get exactly the same behavior (the .lnk file is 
opened). File - Open hides shortcuts by default because it's looking 
for .lyx files while Insert - Graphics shows all files (*.*).


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations


Michael Wojcik wrote:

rgheck wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:


I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work 
perfectly fine in Linux.


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.


The real bug is that Microsoft introduced them in the first place, 
rather than using a proper filesystem mechanism; and the fix is to 
avoid them whenever possible, since they're a clumsy, half-implemented 
hack.



It's arguable that Microsoft is itself a bug.

rh

Re: WRB - Observations


rgheck wrote:

Michael Wojcik wrote:

rgheck wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:


I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work 
perfectly fine in Linux.


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.


As someone else pointed out, this is wrong. The dialogs are native, and 
their behavior is controlled by Microsoft, not by us. Good luck getting 
them to do anything.


rh

RE: WRB - Observations

 Actually, I go back to IBM 370/155 days, the first computer for
which I wrote programs, and the language was APL.  Heck, I
have a PDP 11/34a with core and a 2.9BSD license.  And, just
to state my political position, FreeBSD is the real thing and
wish it had taken root instead of Linux.  On the other hand, I
am much more open to other operating systems, and list among
those I have used the oddities like Irix, and the strange extensions
of C to be found in the VAX world.

As for the use of LyX, I made merely an observation of behavior,
and gave counsel (apparently rejected) as to the value of changing
the behavior of a tool.  I am all for leaving the behavior as is, with
the caveat that it be documented, so that others will know of this
limitation in interfacing, between operating system behavior and
tool expectation.  That you find it insulting suggests a degree of
intolerance warranting others to curb their offerings of observations.
Is that really what you want?

As to the paper, I did mention not long ago that
I had no more questions.  It might have occurred to you
that my reason for having no more questions is that I have
largely completed the task set, producing the paper, and
finding myself now in minor changes to font character, like
boldness, and italics, and slant (don't understand the
difference with italics), etc.  Still have not found strike-though,
nor underscore (these go the length of a field of characters,
like a word, a sentence, or a paragraph, such as you typically
find in the text of laws to be changed by the initiative process,
with strike-through indicating text to be deleted).  But, I don't
need these; just notice that they are not in the same place as
the bold, italic, etc.

This means that Ventura Publisher remains useful to me
when in the Windows world, and LyX remains useful to me
in the Windows world.

Finally, I have been building my computers since the 1970s,
and when I want more than one operating system on a box,
I use removable hard drives.  Would prefer the high dollar
stuff, hot swappable and all that but, powering down, swapping
a bay, and powering up is a good alternative to layers and
layers of abstraction software.  Makes my life simpler.

The only reason that I used LyX on Windows is that you make
it an offering.  I could easily have used it on another computer,
one with FreeBSD or Linux (some redhat variation).

I am reminded of the biblical warning, of not casting pearls.

wrb

 -Original Message-
 From: Rich Shepard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 2:35 PM
 To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: RE: WRB - Observations
 
 On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote:
 
  It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community to 
  avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
 
However, William, I think it's reasonable to expect the 
 entire Windows using community to defenestrate to linux, 
 *BSD, even OS X or open solaris.
 All open source projects have fits trying to work with 
 Microsoft's proprietary, patented, non-standards-compliant 
 way of doing things. Heck, even Microsoft's web browsers and 
 Word cannot be backwards compatible with their own former specs.
 
I've heard and read all the reasons why one must remain a 
 Microserf. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's a personal or 
 business decision that's none of my business. However, if you 
 want to use open source applications built to open standards, 
 then understand that almost all of these were originally 
 build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms 
 the developers use, and making them available to the Windows 
 world is a courtesy, not a requirement. I, as a linux user 
 for more than a decade, have to suffer from web sites and 
 Microsoft-specific data file formats that just don't play 
 nicely with any of the options available to me. However, the 
 developers of tools such as OpenProject do a fantastic job of 
 reverse engineering data file formats, and each release is 
 better than the one before. In the meantime, I live with 
 what's available to me.
 
I'm confident that there is a current replacement for 
 Ventura Publisher that is designed for all the quirks, bugs, 
 and other features of Windows.
 Perhaps that would better serve your needs. You might also 
 look at VMware's free offerings that will let you run a 
 virtual linux distribution on your Windows box, and use linux 
 versions of applications with that linux distribution. Or, 
 grab a live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, whatever) that will boot 
 linux on your machine, allow you to run linux apps and save 
 your work, then leave your machine totally untouched when you 
 halt it and remove the disk.
 
 Rich
 
 -- 
 Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  Integrity  
   Credibility
 Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  
 Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-30 Thread Typhoon

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:04:58 -0700
William R. Buckley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

SNIP
 
 I am reminded of the biblical warning, of not casting pearls.

I think that LyX is a pearl of great beauty.

Alan

 
 wrb
SNIP

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-30 Thread Michael Wojcik


rgheck wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:


I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work perfectly 
fine in Linux.


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


The real bug is that Microsoft introduced them in the first place, 
rather than using a proper filesystem mechanism; and the fix is to 
avoid them whenever possible, since they're a clumsy, half-implemented 
hack.


The closest analog to soft links in Windows are NTFS junctions, and 
they work fine with Qt and LyX, as far as I can see.


--
Michael Wojcik

RE: WRB - Observations

It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community
to avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
The proper solution, distasteful as it may be, is to implement code
which facilitates this *hack* (I always think of a hack as a desirable
gem of programming prowess, but I digress).  Otherwise, you have
a product that does not really work in the Windows world.

wrb

 -Original Message-
 From: Michael Wojcik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 11:24 AM
 To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
 
 rgheck wrote:
  William R. Buckley wrote:
 
  I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file 
 of a figure 
  inserted into a document via the LyX user interface, and 
 upon trying 
  to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more efficiently select the 
  proper directory that is to be browsed), it happens that 
 LyX copies 
  the shortcut to the Graphics dialog box, instead of opening the 
  directory indicated by the shortcut.  I believe this 
 behavior is not 
  what LyX developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on 
 the shortcut 
  should result in an opening of the indicated directory.

  If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links 
 work perfectly 
  fine in Linux.
 
 I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a 
 missing feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem 
 objects in Windows. 
 They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows 
 Explorer.
 
 The real bug is that Microsoft introduced them in the first 
 place, rather than using a proper filesystem mechanism; and 
 the fix is to avoid them whenever possible, since they're a 
 clumsy, half-implemented hack.
 
 The closest analog to soft links in Windows are NTFS 
 junctions, and they work fine with Qt and LyX, as far as I can see.
 
 --
 Michael Wojcik

RE: WRB - Observations

2008-03-30 Thread Rich Shepard


On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote:


It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community to avoid a
mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.


  However, William, I think it's reasonable to expect the entire Windows
using community to defenestrate to linux, *BSD, even OS X or open solaris.
All open source projects have fits trying to work with Microsoft's
proprietary, patented, non-standards-compliant way of doing things. Heck,
even Microsoft's web browsers and Word cannot be backwards compatible with
their own former specs.

  I've heard and read all the reasons why one must remain a Microserf. And,
as far as I'm concerned, that's a personal or business decision that's none
of my business. However, if you want to use open source applications built
to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were originally
build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the developers
use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
requirement. I, as a linux user for more than a decade, have to suffer from
web sites and Microsoft-specific data file formats that just don't play
nicely with any of the options available to me. However, the developers of
tools such as OpenProject do a fantastic job of reverse engineering data
file formats, and each release is better than the one before. In the
meantime, I live with what's available to me.

  I'm confident that there is a current replacement for Ventura Publisher
that is designed for all the quirks, bugs, and other features of Windows.
Perhaps that would better serve your needs. You might also look at VMware's
free offerings that will let you run a virtual linux distribution on your
Windows box, and use linux versions of applications with that linux
distribution. Or, grab a live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, whatever) that will boot
linux on your machine, allow you to run linux apps and save your work, then
leave your machine totally untouched when you halt it and remove the disk.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: WRB - Observations


Rich Shepard wrote:

However, if you want to use open source applications built
to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were originally
build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the developers
use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
requirement.


LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work fine on 
all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these platform should 
get more support than others.


About this shortcut issue: LyX uses the standard Windows dialog for file 
selection. So this is a bug/feature of Windows itself. I guess it is 
designed this way because selecting a shortcut itself should also be 
possible.


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations


Joost Verburg wrote:

Rich Shepard wrote:

However, if you want to use open source applications built
to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were 
originally
build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the 
developers

use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
requirement.


LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work fine on 
all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these platform should 
get more support than others.


About this shortcut issue: LyX uses the standard Windows dialog for file 
selection. So this is a bug/feature of Windows itself. I guess it is 
designed this way because selecting a shortcut itself should also be 
possible.




I don't think so.  Contrast the behavior of the Insert - Graphics 
dialog with the File - Open dialog.  Suppose I have a shortcut on my 
desktop to C:\whatever\whoever.  In the File - Open dialog, I browse to 
the desktop and double click the shortcut.  This browses to 
C:\whatever\whoever in the dialog, and I can select a file.  In the 
Insert - Graphics dialog, I browse to the desktop and double click the 
shortcut.  This time, the shortcut (.lnk file) is selected as the file 
to insert.  The former behavior is both Windows standard (if that's 
not an oxymoron) and the intended behavior, but in any case I can't see 
a logical reason why the two dialogs should behave differently.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations


William R. Buckley wrote:

It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community
to avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
The proper solution, distasteful as it may be, is to implement code
which facilitates this *hack* (I always think of a hack as a desirable
gem of programming prowess, but I digress).


Well, it is an open-source project.  Have at it!  :-)


 Otherwise, you have
a product that does not really work in the Windows world.


I am firmly (if not happily) rooted in the Windows world, by dint partly 
of circumstance (my college is a Windows shop) and partly of investment 
in software over the years.  At the same time, I have been a happy and 
contented LyX user since version 1.3.something.  So apparently the 
inability to follow a link in the graphic selection dialog, however odd 
(given that the File - Open dialog works fine), is not exactly 
crippling.  It might be a tad inconvenient, but I have to work with four 
different flavors of Windows (XP Home, XP Pro, Server 2003 and Vista 
Home Premium), and it's a tad inconvenient coping with the 
inconsistencies of those.  To say LyX does not really work because the 
graphics dialog doesn't follow LyX is an overstatement.


As Rich notes elsewhere, most FOSS software starts on Linux or another 
Unix variant and, if you're lucky, gets ported to Windows by the grace 
of some unpaid developers.  If there is an occasional vicissitude in 
using a FOSS program on Windows, I can (and do) live with that.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations


Paul A. Rubin wrote:
I don't think so.  Contrast the behavior of the Insert - Graphics 
dialog with the File - Open dialog. 


With both dialogs I get exactly the same behavior (the .lnk file is 
opened). File - Open hides shortcuts by default because it's looking 
for .lyx files while Insert - Graphics shows all files (*.*).


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations


Michael Wojcik wrote:

rgheck wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:


I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work 
perfectly fine in Linux.


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.


The real bug is that Microsoft introduced them in the first place, 
rather than using a proper filesystem mechanism; and the fix is to 
avoid them whenever possible, since they're a clumsy, half-implemented 
hack.



It's arguable that Microsoft is itself a bug.

rh

Re: WRB - Observations


rgheck wrote:

Michael Wojcik wrote:

rgheck wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:


I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work 
perfectly fine in Linux.


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.


As someone else pointed out, this is wrong. The dialogs are native, and 
their behavior is controlled by Microsoft, not by us. Good luck getting 
them to do anything.


rh

RE: WRB - Observations

 Actually, I go back to IBM 370/155 days, the first computer for
which I wrote programs, and the language was APL.  Heck, I
have a PDP 11/34a with core and a 2.9BSD license.  And, just
to state my political position, FreeBSD is the real thing and
wish it had taken root instead of Linux.  On the other hand, I
am much more open to other operating systems, and list among
those I have used the oddities like Irix, and the strange extensions
of C to be found in the VAX world.

As for the use of LyX, I made merely an observation of behavior,
and gave counsel (apparently rejected) as to the value of changing
the behavior of a tool.  I am all for leaving the behavior as is, with
the caveat that it be documented, so that others will know of this
limitation in interfacing, between operating system behavior and
tool expectation.  That you find it insulting suggests a degree of
intolerance warranting others to curb their offerings of observations.
Is that really what you want?

As to the paper, I did mention not long ago that
I had no more questions.  It might have occurred to you
that my reason for having no more questions is that I have
largely completed the task set, producing the paper, and
finding myself now in minor changes to font character, like
boldness, and italics, and slant (don't understand the
difference with italics), etc.  Still have not found strike-though,
nor underscore (these go the length of a field of characters,
like a word, a sentence, or a paragraph, such as you typically
find in the text of laws to be changed by the initiative process,
with strike-through indicating text to be deleted).  But, I don't
need these; just notice that they are not in the same place as
the bold, italic, etc.

This means that Ventura Publisher remains useful to me
when in the Windows world, and LyX remains useful to me
in the Windows world.

Finally, I have been building my computers since the 1970s,
and when I want more than one operating system on a box,
I use removable hard drives.  Would prefer the high dollar
stuff, hot swappable and all that but, powering down, swapping
a bay, and powering up is a good alternative to layers and
layers of abstraction software.  Makes my life simpler.

The only reason that I used LyX on Windows is that you make
it an offering.  I could easily have used it on another computer,
one with FreeBSD or Linux (some redhat variation).

I am reminded of the biblical warning, of not casting pearls.

wrb

 -Original Message-
 From: Rich Shepard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 2:35 PM
 To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
 Subject: RE: WRB - Observations
 
 On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote:
 
  It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community to 
  avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
 
However, William, I think it's reasonable to expect the 
 entire Windows using community to defenestrate to linux, 
 *BSD, even OS X or open solaris.
 All open source projects have fits trying to work with 
 Microsoft's proprietary, patented, non-standards-compliant 
 way of doing things. Heck, even Microsoft's web browsers and 
 Word cannot be backwards compatible with their own former specs.
 
I've heard and read all the reasons why one must remain a 
 Microserf. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's a personal or 
 business decision that's none of my business. However, if you 
 want to use open source applications built to open standards, 
 then understand that almost all of these were originally 
 build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms 
 the developers use, and making them available to the Windows 
 world is a courtesy, not a requirement. I, as a linux user 
 for more than a decade, have to suffer from web sites and 
 Microsoft-specific data file formats that just don't play 
 nicely with any of the options available to me. However, the 
 developers of tools such as OpenProject do a fantastic job of 
 reverse engineering data file formats, and each release is 
 better than the one before. In the meantime, I live with 
 what's available to me.
 
I'm confident that there is a current replacement for 
 Ventura Publisher that is designed for all the quirks, bugs, 
 and other features of Windows.
 Perhaps that would better serve your needs. You might also 
 look at VMware's free offerings that will let you run a 
 virtual linux distribution on your Windows box, and use linux 
 versions of applications with that linux distribution. Or, 
 grab a live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, whatever) that will boot 
 linux on your machine, allow you to run linux apps and save 
 your work, then leave your machine totally untouched when you 
 halt it and remove the disk.
 
 Rich
 
 -- 
 Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  Integrity  
   Credibility
 Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
 http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  
 Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-30 Thread Typhoon

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:04:58 -0700
William R. Buckley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

SNIP
 
 I am reminded of the biblical warning, of not casting pearls.

I think that LyX is a pearl of great beauty.

Alan

 
 wrb
SNIP

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-30 Thread Michael Wojcik


rgheck wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:


I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work perfectly 
fine in Linux.


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


The real bug is that Microsoft introduced them in the first place, 
rather than using a proper filesystem mechanism; and the fix is to 
avoid them whenever possible, since they're a clumsy, half-implemented 
hack.


The closest analog to soft links in Windows are NTFS junctions, and 
they work fine with Qt and LyX, as far as I can see.


--
Michael Wojcik

RE: WRB - Observations

It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community
to avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
The proper solution, distasteful as it may be, is to implement code
which facilitates this *hack* (I always think of a hack as a desirable
gem of programming prowess, but I digress).  Otherwise, you have
a product that does not really work in the Windows world.

wrb

> -Original Message-
> From: Michael Wojcik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 11:24 AM
> To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
> Subject: Re: WRB - Observations
> 
> rgheck wrote:
> > William R. Buckley wrote:
> >>
> >> I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file 
> of a figure 
> >> inserted into a document via the LyX user interface, and 
> upon trying 
> >> to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more efficiently select the 
> >> proper directory that is to be browsed), it happens that 
> LyX copies 
> >> the shortcut to the Graphics dialog box, instead of opening the 
> >> directory indicated by the shortcut.  I believe this 
> behavior is not 
> >> what LyX developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on 
> the shortcut 
> >> should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
> >>   
> > If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links 
> work perfectly 
> > fine in Linux.
> 
> I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a 
> missing feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem 
> objects in Windows. 
> They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows 
> Explorer.
> 
> The real bug is that Microsoft introduced them in the first 
> place, rather than using a proper filesystem mechanism; and 
> the fix is to avoid them whenever possible, since they're a 
> clumsy, half-implemented hack.
> 
> The closest analog to soft links in Windows are NTFS 
> junctions, and they work fine with Qt and LyX, as far as I can see.
> 
> --
> Michael Wojcik
> 
> 
>

RE: WRB - Observations

2008-03-30 Thread Rich Shepard


On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote:


It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community to avoid a
mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.


  However, William, I think it's reasonable to expect the entire Windows
using community to defenestrate to linux, *BSD, even OS X or open solaris.
All open source projects have fits trying to work with Microsoft's
proprietary, patented, non-standards-compliant way of doing things. Heck,
even Microsoft's web browsers and Word cannot be backwards compatible with
their own former specs.

  I've heard and read all the reasons why one must remain a Microserf. And,
as far as I'm concerned, that's a personal or business decision that's none
of my business. However, if you want to use open source applications built
to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were originally
build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the developers
use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
requirement. I, as a linux user for more than a decade, have to suffer from
web sites and Microsoft-specific data file formats that just don't play
nicely with any of the options available to me. However, the developers of
tools such as OpenProject do a fantastic job of reverse engineering data
file formats, and each release is better than the one before. In the
meantime, I live with what's available to me.

  I'm confident that there is a current replacement for Ventura Publisher
that is designed for all the quirks, bugs, and other "features" of Windows.
Perhaps that would better serve your needs. You might also look at VMware's
free offerings that will let you run a virtual linux distribution on your
Windows box, and use linux versions of applications with that linux
distribution. Or, grab a live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, whatever) that will boot
linux on your machine, allow you to run linux apps and save your work, then
leave your machine totally untouched when you halt it and remove the disk.

Rich

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

Re: WRB - Observations


Rich Shepard wrote:

However, if you want to use open source applications built
to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were originally
build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the developers
use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
requirement.


LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work fine on 
all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these platform should 
get more support than others.


About this shortcut issue: LyX uses the standard Windows dialog for file 
selection. So this is a bug/feature of Windows itself. I guess it is 
designed this way because selecting a shortcut itself should also be 
possible.


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations


Joost Verburg wrote:

Rich Shepard wrote:

However, if you want to use open source applications built
to open standards, then understand that almost all of these were 
originally
build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms the 
developers

use, and making them available to the Windows world is a courtesy, not a
requirement.


LyX supports Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X and it should work fine on 
all these platforms. There is no reason why one of these platform should 
get more support than others.


About this shortcut issue: LyX uses the standard Windows dialog for file 
selection. So this is a bug/feature of Windows itself. I guess it is 
designed this way because selecting a shortcut itself should also be 
possible.




I don't think so.  Contrast the behavior of the Insert -> Graphics 
dialog with the File -> Open dialog.  Suppose I have a shortcut on my 
desktop to C:\whatever\whoever.  In the File -> Open dialog, I browse to 
the desktop and double click the shortcut.  This browses to 
C:\whatever\whoever in the dialog, and I can select a file.  In the 
Insert -> Graphics dialog, I browse to the desktop and double click the 
shortcut.  This time, the shortcut (.lnk file) is selected as the file 
to insert.  The former behavior is both "Windows standard" (if that's 
not an oxymoron) and the intended behavior, but in any case I can't see 
a logical reason why the two dialogs should behave differently.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations


William R. Buckley wrote:

It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community
to avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
The proper solution, distasteful as it may be, is to implement code
which facilitates this *hack* (I always think of a hack as a desirable
gem of programming prowess, but I digress).


Well, it is an open-source project.  Have at it!  :-)


 Otherwise, you have
a product that does not really work in the Windows world.


I am firmly (if not happily) rooted in the Windows world, by dint partly 
of circumstance (my college is a Windows shop) and partly of investment 
in software over the years.  At the same time, I have been a happy and 
contented LyX user since version 1.3.something.  So apparently the 
inability to follow a link in the graphic selection dialog, however odd 
(given that the File -> Open dialog works fine), is not exactly 
crippling.  It might be a tad inconvenient, but I have to work with four 
different flavors of Windows (XP Home, XP Pro, Server 2003 and Vista 
Home Premium), and it's a tad inconvenient coping with the 
inconsistencies of those.  To say LyX "does not really work" because the 
graphics dialog doesn't follow LyX is an overstatement.


As Rich notes elsewhere, most FOSS software starts on Linux or another 
Unix variant and, if you're lucky, gets ported to Windows by the grace 
of some unpaid developers.  If there is an occasional vicissitude in 
using a FOSS program on Windows, I can (and do) live with that.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations


Paul A. Rubin wrote:
I don't think so.  Contrast the behavior of the Insert -> Graphics 
dialog with the File -> Open dialog. 


With both dialogs I get exactly the same behavior (the .lnk file is 
opened). File -> Open hides shortcuts by default because it's looking 
for .lyx files while Insert -> Graphics shows all files (*.*).


Joost

Re: WRB - Observations


Michael Wojcik wrote:

rgheck wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:


I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work 
perfectly fine in Linux.


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.


The real bug is that Microsoft introduced them in the first place, 
rather than using a proper filesystem mechanism; and the fix is to 
avoid them whenever possible, since they're a clumsy, half-implemented 
hack.



It's arguable that Microsoft is itself a bug.

rh

Re: WRB - Observations


rgheck wrote:

Michael Wojcik wrote:

rgheck wrote:

William R. Buckley wrote:


I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.
  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work 
perfectly fine in Linux.


I don't think this is a bug in Qt, though arguably it's a missing 
feature. Shortcuts are not first-class filesystem objects in Windows. 
They're files that are treated in a special manner by Windows Explorer.


LyX uses Qt for its file dialogs, etc, so if this doesn't work 
correctly, it's got to do with Qt, bugs or otherwise.


As someone else pointed out, this is wrong. The dialogs are native, and 
their behavior is controlled by Microsoft, not by us. Good luck getting 
them to do anything.


rh

RE: WRB - Observations

 Actually, I go back to IBM 370/155 days, the first computer for
which I wrote programs, and the language was APL.  Heck, I
have a PDP 11/34a with core and a 2.9BSD license.  And, just
to state my political position, FreeBSD is the real thing and
wish it had taken root instead of Linux.  On the other hand, I
am much more open to other operating systems, and list among
those I have used the oddities like Irix, and the strange extensions
of C to be found in the VAX world.

As for the use of LyX, I made merely an observation of behavior,
and gave counsel (apparently rejected) as to the value of changing
the behavior of a tool.  I am all for leaving the behavior as is, with
the caveat that it be documented, so that others will know of this
limitation in interfacing, between operating system behavior and
tool expectation.  That you find it insulting suggests a degree of
intolerance warranting others to curb their offerings of observations.
Is that really what you want?

As to the paper, I did mention not long ago that
I had no more questions.  It might have occurred to you
that my reason for having no more questions is that I have
largely completed the task set, producing the paper, and
finding myself now in minor changes to font character, like
boldness, and italics, and slant (don't understand the
difference with italics), etc.  Still have not found strike-though,
nor underscore (these go the length of a field of characters,
like a word, a sentence, or a paragraph, such as you typically
find in the text of laws to be changed by the initiative process,
with strike-through indicating text to be deleted).  But, I don't
need these; just notice that they are not in the same place as
the bold, italic, etc.

This means that Ventura Publisher remains useful to me
when in the Windows world, and LyX remains useful to me
in the Windows world.

Finally, I have been building my computers since the 1970s,
and when I want more than one operating system on a box,
I use removable hard drives.  Would prefer the high dollar
stuff, hot swappable and all that but, powering down, swapping
a bay, and powering up is a good alternative to layers and
layers of abstraction software.  Makes my life simpler.

The only reason that I used LyX on Windows is that you make
it an offering.  I could easily have used it on another computer,
one with FreeBSD or Linux (some redhat variation).

I am reminded of the biblical warning, of not casting pearls.

wrb

> -Original Message-
> From: Rich Shepard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 2:35 PM
> To: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org
> Subject: RE: WRB - Observations
> 
> On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, William R. Buckley wrote:
> 
> > It is unreasonable to expect the entire Windows using community to 
> > avoid a mechanism that is part of the Windows operating system.
> 
>However, William, I think it's reasonable to expect the 
> entire Windows using community to defenestrate to linux, 
> *BSD, even OS X or open solaris.
> All open source projects have fits trying to work with 
> Microsoft's proprietary, patented, non-standards-compliant 
> way of doing things. Heck, even Microsoft's web browsers and 
> Word cannot be backwards compatible with their own former specs.
> 
>I've heard and read all the reasons why one must remain a 
> Microserf. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's a personal or 
> business decision that's none of my business. However, if you 
> want to use open source applications built to open standards, 
> then understand that almost all of these were originally 
> build for linux or one of the *BSDs, those are the platforms 
> the developers use, and making them available to the Windows 
> world is a courtesy, not a requirement. I, as a linux user 
> for more than a decade, have to suffer from web sites and 
> Microsoft-specific data file formats that just don't play 
> nicely with any of the options available to me. However, the 
> developers of tools such as OpenProject do a fantastic job of 
> reverse engineering data file formats, and each release is 
> better than the one before. In the meantime, I live with 
> what's available to me.
> 
>I'm confident that there is a current replacement for 
> Ventura Publisher that is designed for all the quirks, bugs, 
> and other "features" of Windows.
> Perhaps that would better serve your needs. You might also 
> look at VMware's free offerings that will let you run a 
> virtual linux distribution on your Windows box, and use linux 
> versions of applications with that linux distribution. Or, 
> grab a live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, whatever) that will boot 
> linux on your machine, allow you to run linux apps and save 
> your work, then leave your machine totally untouched when you 
> halt it and remove the disk.
> 
> Rich
> 
> -- 
> Richard B. Shepa

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-30 Thread Typhoon

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:04:58 -0700
"William R. Buckley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> 
> I am reminded of the biblical warning, of not casting pearls.

I think that LyX is a pearl of great beauty.

Alan

> 
> wrb

Re: WRB - Observations


William R. Buckley wrote:

Reminder - WindowsXP installation of LyX1.5.4/MikTeX2.7

I noticed that when trying to browse for the graphic file of
a figure inserted into a document via the LyX user interface,
and upon trying to utilise a shortcut (as the means to more
efficiently select the proper directory that is to be browsed),
it happens that LyX copies the shortcut to the Graphics
dialog box, instead of opening the directory indicated by
the shortcut.  I believe this behavior is not what LyX
developers intend.  Rather, double-clicking on the shortcut
should result in an opening of the indicated directory.

  
If so, then this is a bug in Qt for Windows. Soft links work perfectly 
fine in Linux.



Another difficulty is with the inclusion of a citation (\cite[]{})
in a caption of a figure placed with the Float:Figure insert
function of the LyX user interface.  I can easily hardcode
the citation, and it may be that I just don't understand how
to package the citation in order to get it to *dereference*
into the desired text.

  
There are issues in putting citations into what LaTeX calls moving 
arguments, and you may not actually want to do this. If you have a 
table of figures, for example, the citation will appear there, too. But 
if you do want the citation there, put \protect in ERT (InsertTeX 
Code) immediately before the citation, it should work. Works for me, anyway.



One of the features that I like most about Ventura Publisher
is the *frame*, within which one may place any kind of item,
table, graphic image, text,  what have you, and it will render
in that space, without affect upon any other portion of the
page (that is, the page outside of the frame).  I have not
encountered any kind of corresponding feature in LyX.

  
LyX isn't that kind of program. It's not FrameMaker or Adobe Publisher 
or whatever. But LaTeX does have so-called minipages that can be used 
for this kind of purpose. As far as I know, LyX doesn't have any support 
for this, but of course you can do it manually via LaTeX in ERT.



The placement of figures is now accomplished, though I
do have some complaint about the *compliance* of LyX,
vis-à-vis following directions in the placement of graphics.
I do use the Float:Figure mechanism, and note that the
options for placement are general.  Yet, even if the
selection is for top-of-page, or bottom-of-page, there are
conditions in which the graphic is not placed, or it is
placed on the next page, or it is placed at the end of
the document.

  
This is LaTeX's doing. It will do its best to comply with your wishes, 
but not at the cost of destroying page layout generally.



I would like to have more control over the placement of
graphics and other insertions.  If I understand Don Knuth
correctly, part of the goal of TeX is to free me from having
to make such placement decisions.  This is not a goal
with which I agree.

  
Then you should perhaps use something besides LyX. As I said, it isn't a 
page layout program. It's a writing tool.


Richard

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-26 Thread Jürgen Spitzmüller

rgheck wrote:
  Another difficulty is with the inclusion of a citation (\cite[]{})
  in a caption of a figure placed with the Float:Figure insert
  function of the LyX user interface.  I can easily hardcode
  the citation, and it may be that I just don't understand how
  to package the citation in order to get it to *dereference*
  into the desired text.
 
   

 There are issues in putting citations into what LaTeX calls moving
 arguments, and you may not actually want to do this. If you have a
 table of figures, for example, the citation will appear there, too. But
 if you do want the citation there, put \protect in ERT (InsertTeX
 Code) immediately before the citation, it should work. Works for me,
 anyway.

And if you do not want it to appear there (i.e., only in the caption itself), 
use Insert-Short Title to enter an alternative title for the list of 
figures.

  One of the features that I like most about Ventura Publisher
  is the *frame*, within which one may place any kind of item,
  table, graphic image, text,  what have you, and it will render
  in that space, without affect upon any other portion of the
  page (that is, the page outside of the frame).  I have not
  encountered any kind of corresponding feature in LyX.
 
   

 LyX isn't that kind of program. It's not FrameMaker or Adobe Publisher
 or whatever. But LaTeX does have so-called minipages that can be used
 for this kind of purpose. As far as I know, LyX doesn't have any support
 for this, but of course you can do it manually via LaTeX in ERT.

Minipages? Sure: Insert-Box (a frameless Box is a minipage).

However, as Richard said, LaTeX isn't designed for grid layout. It's not a DTP 
application.

Jürgen

Re: WRB - Observations


Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

Minipages? Sure: Insert-Box (a frameless Box is a minipage).

However, as Richard said, LaTeX isn't designed for grid layout. It's not a DTP 
application.


  
Box isn't very descriptive. I'd never have guessed this. Would there by 
objections to making it Minipage? or Text Box? or ???


rh

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-26 Thread Jürgen Spitzmüller

rgheck wrote:
 Box isn't very descriptive. I'd never have guessed this. Would there by
 objections to making it Minipage? or Text Box? or ???

Minipage is a LaTeXism. And it can contain more than just text.

Jürgen

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-26 Thread Uwe Stöhr

rgheck schrieb:

LyX isn't that kind of program. It's not FrameMaker or Adobe Publisher
or whatever. But LaTeX does have so-called minipages that can be used
for this kind of purpose. As far as I know, LyX doesn't have any support
for this, but of course you can do it manually via LaTeX in ERT.

LyX has full support for this, see the boxes chapter of the EmbeddedObjects
manual.

But as said by Richard, LyX/LaTeX is designed to write books, reports, scientific articles, and
letters. You can even make presentations with it but this is very time consuming. So for
presentations, flyers, posters, etc., you should better use a DTP-program like Scribus, InDesign,
QuarkXpress, PowerPoint, etc.

The placement of figures is now accomplished, though I
do have some complaint about the *compliance* of LyX,
vis-à-vis following directions in the placement of graphics.
I do use the Float:Figure mechanism, and note that the
options for placement are general. Yet, even if the
selection is for top-of-page, or bottom-of-page, there are
conditions in which the graphic is not placed, or it is
placed on the next page, or it is placed at the end of
the document.

Yes, because the placement options rules. E.g. setting the option bottom
leads to:

- try to set the image at the bottom
- if this is not possible (by default when the image is bigger than 30% of the page height) then try
to put it on the next page, first at the top, then the bottom, then on its own page, then on eht
next page, and so on, until the image can be placed.

The rules can also be changed, the EmbeddedObjects manual explains this in
detail.

regards Uwe

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-26 Thread Rich Shepard


On Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Uwe Stöhr wrote:


The placement of figures is now accomplished, though I do have some
complaint about the *compliance* of LyX, vis-à-vis following directions
in the placement of graphics. I do use the Float:Figure mechanism, and
note that the options for placement are general.  Yet, even if the
selection is for top-of-page, or bottom-of-page, there are conditions in
which the graphic is not placed, or it is placed on the next page, or it
is placed at the end of the document.


The rules can also be changed, the EmbeddedObjects manual explains this in 
detail.


  I see too many threads that focus on tweaking appearances to suit a
desired outcome rather than focusing on the outcome itself.

  Perhaps it's just curmudgeonly me, but one of the overwhelming reasons I
like LyX/LaTeX is that I don't have to worry about details; the styles and
page composition standards built in do that for me. I ran into a minor issue
of this genre when the TeXpert at Springer New York asked me to change all
\textellipsis to \ldots in my book (which uses the Springer monograph class
for formatting).

  So, I spent some time researching the differences between \textellipsis
and \ldots. They vary in spacing between the dots, between the last dot and
end-of-sentence punctuation, and other aspects that to me were too subtle
and mattered not. But, I shrugged and did a global search-and-replace, and
the Springer production folks were happy.

  Almost 20 years ago when PCs were just invading business offices on a
large scale I also ran into this obsession. At that time I worked for
another consulting company. For a proposal we were submitting to a
prospective client I prepared an organizational chart using some DOS
software I had. The office manager asked me to put the block for Secretary
on the other side. I told him that I couldn't, the software did it this way.
Well, of course, corporate standards called for it to be on the other side.
The focus on minutiae rather than content amazed me. Still does.

  And, germane to the doubly-quoted text on the top of this message, a
cross-reference will correctly find the figure regardless of where it's
located.

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.   |  IntegrityCredibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.|Innovation
http://www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517  Fax: 503-667-8863

Re: WRB - Observations


Rich Shepard wrote:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Uwe Stöhr wrote:


The placement of figures is now accomplished, though I do have some
complaint about the *compliance* of LyX, vis-à-vis following directions
in the placement of graphics. I do use the Float:Figure mechanism, and
note that the options for placement are general.  Yet, even if the
selection is for top-of-page, or bottom-of-page, there are 
conditions in
which the graphic is not placed, or it is placed on the next page, 
or it

is placed at the end of the document.


The rules can also be changed, the EmbeddedObjects manual explains 
this in detail.


  I see too many threads that focus on tweaking appearances to suit a
desired outcome rather than focusing on the outcome itself.


Right. And a lot of that is due, I think, to Word-itis.

rh

Re: Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-26 Thread Todd Denniston


rgheck wrote, On 12/23/-28158 02:59 PM:
div class=moz-text-flowed style=font-family: -moz-fixedJürgen 
Spitzmüller wrote:

Minipages? Sure: Insert-Box (a frameless Box is a minipage).

However, as Richard said, LaTeX isn't designed for grid layout. It's 
not a DTP application.


  
Box isn't very descriptive. I'd never have guessed this. Would there by 
objections to making it Minipage? or Text Box? or ???


rh

/div


I Agree with this, and as Minipage is a LaTeXism and that is what you are 
doing with this, then using the same name would make it easier for lyx users 
to locate help about them in LaTeX documentation.




BTW this is my first reply to an email from inside a digest... it looks ok 
from here, i.e., title ok and only the content I wanted to reply to, but 
please cut me some slack if Thunderbird quietly makes a mess. :}

--
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter

Re: WRB - Observations

2008-03-26 Thread Paul A. Rubin


Todd Denniston wrote:

Minipages? Sure: Insert-Box (a frameless Box is a minipage).


However, as Richard said, LaTeX isn't designed for grid layout. It's 
not a DTP application.


  
Box isn't very descriptive. I'd never have guessed this. Would there 
by objections to making it Minipage? or Text Box? or ???




I Agree with this, and as Minipage is a LaTeXism and that is what you 
are doing with this, then using the same name would make it easier for 
lyx users to locate help about them in LaTeX documentation.


The catch is that Insert - Box gives you a box that you can toggle 
between minipage and parbox.  If you call it Insert - Minipage, would 
someone know to look there for a parbox?


I have no objection to Insert-Text box.


BTW this is my first reply to an email from inside a digest... it looks 
ok from here, i.e., title ok and only the content I wanted to reply to, 
but please cut me some slack if Thunderbird quietly makes a mess. :}


Would Thunderbird do something rude like that?  ;-)

FWIW, I use T-bird, but reply to posts in GMANE's news feed rather than 
the digest.


/Paul

Re: WRB - Observations