On Thu, 1 Jun 2000, Dekel Tsur wrote:
> Here is another small patch.
> It prevents errors if you use prettyref with a label in incorrect format
> (type:namel) by replacing the prettyref by a regular \ref command in the
> latex output.
I believe that this is wrong from UI point of view. The user if he is not
a knowledgeable latex user will most probably use it incorrectly and will
not receive any feedback about this. LyX should at the very least pop-up a
warning about this, saying that the user used prettyref improperly, and
ask should it continue with regular refs or stop. The user should also be
pointed to the documentation.
<so far was the reply, now on the same theme, generally>
In the same theme, but probably only after GUI independence has reached
we'll need some sort of online help for LyX. Some way to let the user
understand what each option is. We will first need to decide if LyX is
intended to those who can and will learn latex at least enough to
understand what is possible and what is everything in lyx, or we also
target the user who wants a "word processor" (ofcourse he receives a
document processor, but he is illiterate :-) The whole UI should be
derived from this decision, currently I do not see a guiding decision.
I would like to see LyX be useable by "illiterate" users (those that are
not computer savvy users, and who wont bother going to the depths of an
intricate system like latex).
To achieve this LyX will not better integration with Latex, possibly a
method to explain a .cls or .sty file to LyX such that it will be able to
use at least some if not all of the class options. Also needed is online
help, with at the very least a way to popup the latex package doc for the
user, but preferably a short version of as it will be seen from lyx. One
need that I see for this is the ability to describe (and generate) option
dialogs for the class files on the fly, preferably in a GUI independent
way so that you'll write the class description once and it will work on
GTK, QT and Win.
--
Baruch Even
http://techst02.technion.ac.il/~sbaruch/ (My Site)
http://rpghost.com/jindor/ (My brothers AD&D site)
" Learn to laugh ... it's the path to true love! "
- The Angel in the movie Michael
