Bo Peng wrote:
I guess I don't see this, quite. Sure, you can specify the the distant file
when you choose it, but once it is embedded, the distant file has nothing to
do with it. It can only be extracted to a subdirectory (if you're still
doing a general unbundling, as opposed to selective unbundling, as Andre
suggested). So you might as well have copied it to that location for them.
I forgot to mention one important trick: if the files are there so
there is no need to overwrite, unbundling would succeed and they do
not have to be unbundled to the document directory. This is because we
compare file checksum before we extract.
So if the files are there and are unchanged, then we don't need to
extract them. OK. But if they aren't there, or if they have changed,
then we have to write them to a subdirectory. We do not happily copy a
file to /usr/bin/. So we will often have to write to a subdirectory,
and, for many workflows, this will happen early enough in the process
that, in effect, everything will be in the subdirectory anyway. The only
reason not to require this is because you'd like to be able to keep your
files elsewhere in your tree. I'm prepared to allow that this could be
convenient. But I don't see any reason you really have to do that.
You know that I desperately want to embed such files (My work depends
on this) so I am willing to compromise a little bit. The point here is
that my windows co-authors can work in bundled mode, and when I get my
file back, I can unbundle the file to its original location
successfully.
But only if it's unchanged. Otherwise, we cannot under permit this. It
is too large a security risk. And I just don't see why allowing for this
is so important. Surely you can use links of some sort to manage this
situation. Or perhaps you should just move all your graphics (etc) to a
subdirectory of where you keep your LyX files. (Or, heck, if this is
Windows, you can put your LyX files in c:\ and everything will be under
that directory.) I can see a lot of other solutions. So I find it hard
to see how your work could really depend upon doing it one way rather
than another.
Note that novice users do not have to know these. They just click ok
without knowing what they are doing, and the mentioned problem will be
resolved.
As JMarc said, this is very dangerous. Much too dangerous.
rh
