On 04/25/2013 12:05 PM, Elmar Hinz wrote:
Hello all,
my name is Elmar and I am new to this list.
What I am interested in is customization of LyX for special usecases.
That means
* reducing features to a defined minimum
* setting custom sets of markup
* creating exporters for the new markup to new languages
To give an example, I am thinking to redesign LyX to a Markdown Edtior.
Lets call the product MarkdownLyx. The markup of markdown is rather
minimal.
So I am thinking of a reduced interface to match this minimalism.
Now my questions are:
1.) Are the sources and configurations of LyX modularized in a way,
that I could reach this goal as a one-man-show?
Reducing the interface is pretty trivial, in a sense, since all the menu
defintions are simply kept in text files. These can be found, in a
typical installation, at /usr/share/lyx/ui/. All you would need to do is
write new menu definitions. The same goes for toolbars, etc. Since what
menu set one uses can be chosen from within LyX, you do not really need
a separate application.
Exporting the markup syntax is a different issue. I can think of a
couple ways to do it. The first, and most involved, would be to write
export routines, in the LyX source itself, similar to the LyXHTML export
routines. Another would be to write some kind of simple converter that
would convert some format LyX already exports (perhaps the plaintext
format?) to Markdown.
2.) Are there already projectes like this?
Not so far as I know.
3.) Is there a documentation that describes the customization process
of LyX?
This depends what you mean. But see the Customization manual, under the
Help menu.
4.) Where do you suggest to host such a project, as branch of the LyX
repository or external?
The kind of thing you are describing would be welcome in the LyX
sources, I believe. As I said, you don't really need a separate
application, unless you really want one. Presumably, you'd want to
benefit from other bug-fixing work that gets done.
Richard
