I think I have a rough idea as to how can we implement the layout editor, in Lyx I have made a Qt prototype http://postimg.org/image/j9g22xphx/ described as below! **********GUI*********** Available Additions : A QComboBox used to choose from a list of available options "ClassOptions" , "Paragraph styles", "Floats", "Flex insets and InsetLayout", "Counters", "Font description", and their possible suboptions like a "Paragraph style" can have "Font Description" as its subtype
Layout elements: A QListWidget containing the new Class elements "ClassOptions" , "Paragraph styles", "Floats", "Flex insets and InsetLayout", "Counters", "Font description". The user will select any one of them and he will be shown the available options in the element specifics section. for e.g if the user chooses "Paragraph styles" then he would be shown with options like "Align", "BottomSep", "Copy Style" etc. as much as possible without any coding stuff, this would be shown in layout specifics section. Layout specifics: It will contain yet another QListWidget which would display the suboptions which are possible to add into it, and it will have Values section as each option will have to take values like number, color, option etc. some type of values might be common while others might be unique to the option, which would be shown to the user appropriately. Layout Preview: It is a QGraphicsWidget which will try to display in as much capacity as possible the combined look showing the usage of every layout element created, added or edited. For eg if I created two paragraph styles, style1 and style2 then it will show two sentences instantiating the styles. Layout file: section would be meant for advanced users to directly modify the code, or add some Latex stuff to their liking. ******BACKEND****** The backend structure which would be supporting the GUI would have the simple task of parsing the .layout file based on the layout elements created by the user listed in the Layout Elements List. Implementation of this can be done in the following way: ->We create a class LayoutElements and then introduce methods in it which would parse it into lines of code readable to a .layout file. ******ENSURING ROBUSTNESS***** To ensure robustness one has to make visibility of preview as dynamic as possible. Also the methods which parses the LayoutElements objects into lines of readable .layout code should minimize errors caused due to user's carelessness. Mentors kindly review this for me and point out loopholes and suggestions if any.
