Bo Peng wrote:
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.
Now, the critical question is why someone would like to embed any file
outside of the document directory. I doubt this is a valid question
because why don't you then disallow the use of such files in the
*current* lyx version? They are evil because they can cause problems!
Such a lyx file can not be compiled under another system! All I am
saying, and nobody has ever answered this, is that this is not a
problem *introduced* by embedding, it is exactly the problem this
feature tries to address.
The new problems embedding causes are security problems when these files
are unbundled, as Andre has pointed out. And see my private message for
an even worse scenario than his. As Andre said, here there be dragons,
and even if we could solve these problems, would we be sure we'd solved
them all?
Your approach solves the easy problem of
bundling files under the document directory, but does nothing in this
case. I do not see why people criticize my approach as not addressing
the problem good enough, whereas your approach tries to avoid it
altogether.
Right, but I only require this in the bundling scenario. And I propose
to help people out by allowing them to select an arbitrary file in (say)
the graphics dialog but then to copy it to where it needs to be, popping
up a message to that effect.
Then, if you still ask why I would like to embed any file outside of
the document directory. Open your user's guide and see how many such
files are there. We keep out images under a common directory and all
documents use them through something like ../../images.
Sure. But (a) we don't bundle that and (b) we could always soft-link to
that directory from a subdirectory of doc/. That seems like quite a
general solution, in fact.
In my case, I simply do not want to have a copy of my bib file for all
the papers I write so I keep them in a common directory. I also have a
folder for all the logos I might use in my slides and posters. Another
example would be referring to figures in my paper directory from a
poster folder. Sure enough, I can use symbolic or hard link but we all
know the OS differences in such links. I can also use advanced svn
external handling which may cause some other problems. The point is,
if a user has to try all these because lyx imposes a restriction, it
is easier just to toss lyx away.
Sure, there are compromises here. But I think tossing LyX away is a bit
much. The obvious thing to do here is to soft-link to these other
directories from where your LyX files is, as proposed above. This is a
perfectly general solution. Of course, when things unbundle on your
co-workers' machines, these won't be soft-links but real directories.
But I don't see a problem with that.
In any event, the security worries must be paramount. Allowing bundling
of files from arbitrary locations is asking for trouble, even if they're
not arbitrary files.
Richard
