Andre Poenitz wrote:
On Wed, Oct 03, 2007 at 03:36:05AM +0100, John Levon wrote:
On Tue, Oct 02, 2007 at 10:30:47PM -0400, Richard Heck wrote:
There's also the question how all of this gets written to a LyX file.
Especially once we're doing XML, it'll be essential that everything be
properly nested (unless each character is supposed to be written with
all of its associated formatting information, which is insane). Insets
are a natural correlate to that, because they nest. This does NOT mean
that they have to appear to the user as insets, only that the underlying
data structure nests properly.
However, insets imply all sorts of things about cursor movement and
mouse placement. Unless things in this area got *massively* cleaned up
since I last looked at the code, getting correct cursor movement with
char-ranges-as-insets will not be easy.
This, of course, depends on what is considered correct cursor movement.
I, for instance, actually prefer having two separate positions at a font
boundary.
For the sole purpose of supporting dissolving?
I can see a problem - what if some word is wrapped in several insets?
I.e. it is both "foreign" (needs special spellcheck and that blue underline)
and also a "programming language construct" so it is set with a
special font. Finally, it might be emphasized too due to the sentence it
is in.
Do you want 4 cursor positions in front of this word? And what inset will
dissolve when the user press backspace? "Do you feel lucky?"...
Or should "many styles applied to the same range" be handled by a
single inset applying all those styles? Now there is only one
extra cursor position, and dissolving removes everything.
Of course this would emphasize structure and would not be acceptable
by the finger painting faction as that's not what they used to.
Do "structure" have to mean "hierarchical structure" that disallow
overlapping ranges?
Funnily enough though, the people bitching at finger painting at this list
are also the ones that want non-structured fonts on screen.
This is so illogical that I basically gave up participating in this kind
of debate...
I do not mind that LyX is different in many ways. I just hope we
won't get limitations that feel very artifical, and that gets in the way
of normal work.
Helge Hafting
