> From: Uwe Stöhr <uwesto...@web.de>
> 1. the installer doesn't recognize if Ghostscript is already installed
> 2. the installer doesn't recognize if Python is already installed
> 3. the installer doesn't recognize if Imagemagick is already installed
>
> For computers where these are installed, we unnecessarily take 42 MB of
> disk space.
Personally, am I happy to sacrifice 40MB of disk space if it means that
uninstalling other programs doesn't suddenly stop LyX from working. This is the
"Windows way" sadly - since there is no package manager, things end up
duplicated (e.g. your list doesn't include detection of QT .dlls).
>
> 4. the installer doesn't recognize if Inkscape is already installed
>
> Because of this, SVG images look broken within LyX.
In contrast to 1-3, of course I agree with this: I don't suggest bundling all
of
Inkscape with LyX. (If there were an easy way to bundle a small part of it and
get SVG conversion I would support that, I but presume that there isn't.)
>
> 5. The latest version of the metafile2eps printer gives an error message when
> it is first used: When I compile a LyX file containing a wmf-image, I get
> the error message that the printer could not be successfully be initialized.
> For all further uses of the printer, I don't get this error. However, the
> WMF-image is still rotated by 90° in the output, so that WMF-images can still
> not be used for real-life documents. I can send you a LyX test file showing
> the problematic.
I have a related question, which came up on lyx-users recently. What happens if
you install two copies of LyX (e.g. 2.0.x and 1.6.x)? Presumably the second
installation doesn't "harm" the metafile2eps printer, but when one of them is
uninstalled, is the printer gone forever?
>
> 10. The last installer page should have an option to start LyX after
> installing it, as in my installer. This behaviour is more or less a standard
> and many people expect that the program is opened after installing.
Actually, this is an anachronism, and I ask that it is _not_ added.
The problem is, the installation could easily have been "run as" an admin user.
This is increasingly common thanks to UAC in Vista/7, and I think it should be
treated as the default use case.
In this case, LyX would be run as this admin user too. The user might not even
notice till they have played with the settings, saved a document (in the admin
user's documents folder), only to rerun it and find everything disappeared!
>
> 6. When LyX is uninstalled, the registry key HKCU\Software\LyX\lyx20 is not
> deleted. This causes problems when LyX is reinstalled, because there the
> toolbar settings etc. are stored.
Presumably when LyX is installed for one user in their profile folder (rather
than for all users in program files) the registry key is in a different
location
too. If so, this feature should only be added if this is taken into account.
I have mixed feelings about the "delete user settings" option existing at all.
In the situation I discussed in 10, this option has no effect, and worse the
user has no way of knowing this. So I think it should only be present if LyX
was
installed in a user profile folder (not the program files directory).
Regardless of when and how it is implemented, I certainly think it should be
OFF
by default!
>
> 11. When installing LyX the first time, and therefore also MiKTeX is
> installed the first time, the configure.py file should be run in a console
> window. This is very important because the first installation will install
> more than 50 LaTeX-packages and take approximately half an hour. In the
> console window the user can see that there is some progress. Without this
> information, many users will kill the install process because they think it
> hung up.
An even better idea, if it is possible, is to capture the stdout/stderr of this
and redirect it to a list box in the installer, possibly hidden behind a "more
details" button. Until the "more details" button is clicked, a simple warning
about the length of the process could be shown.
Jim
