Georg Baum wrote:
Timothy Reaves wrote:
A lot of the responders are missing the point, and are holding to their
'if I can figures it out, so should anyone else' mentality.
I don't think that anybody has missed the point. For example, the suggestion
to grey out the glossary entry if the package is not available makes sense.
I don't remember anybody writing that it is not needed, and hopefully
somebody (Abdel?) will implement that. There are reasons not to go much
further, see below.
Well, to be fair, that was only one point; of course an app shouldn't
provide a feature hat won't work! Not the same as making additional
features available.
Many people
have mentioned relying on their OS'es package management system. Oh,
wait, only the UNIX variants have them. Windows and OS X do not. So,
LaTeX and LyX are only for Linux users. Gotcha!
There are things that try and act like package management systems on
both Windows and Mac, and none of them work very well. I won't argue
that point here (just see above is this thread for the comment on
MiKTeX, and the various issues with the several different Mac systems on
offer).
If there were some 'official' TeX package management system, ported to
the different platforms, I'd see some of the detractors points. And I'm
not saying LyX users should be forced to use a LyX package management
system. I'm saying it's needed for more wide-spread adoption. Perhaps
that's no ones goal, and I understand that too.
A LyX package management system will create far too much support and
maintenance work, so we can't afford it. We have seen that the automatic
miktex stuff does not work, since it interferes with firewalls, adds long
delays when nobody expects them or even stalls LyX completely because of a
strict firewall.
We don't have the resources to create and maintain a package manager, so the
only thing we can do is to document what is needed and give good error
messages. In your case, if you try to typeset a document with glossaries an
error message should tell that the nomencl package is needed, but not
avvailable.
I think you're over-engineering here. I never mentioned things like
networks, firewalls, and package managers as part of a 'solution' .
Reading way too much into it!
Mac's have a wonderful setup of ~/Library/Application Support where
such files could be downloaded. On Windows, there is the users (seldom
used for much) home directory. On UNIX, there is the ubiquitous '.'
directories in ~. Most LyX users are just going to want these files
installed, and wouldn't be using them outside of LyX.
Again, perhaps wide spread adoption isn't a goal; but if it is, why do
you think so many people would try LyX, and give it up after a few hours
to go back to OpenOffice? People want to USE their computers, not play
with them configuring them correctly for use (which is why it's one of
the most important usability guidelines). Try not to forget that.
Sure. But please don't forget that there are not enough developer resources
available to implement everything that would be useful.
Georg
And this is a valid point. Again, you have to decide who your target
audience is, and aim for them. I guess that's been done.
