On 24.07.17 10:30, "Uwe Stöhr" wrote: >> back to the UserGuide, perhaps what we could actually do is, to >> simplify the UserGuide so that it can compile without the need for >> installing additional packages besides a minimal latex >> installation > > The point is that almost nothing works out of the box. Not simple > documents, not the tutorial. Because only texlive-bin package is > installed together with LyX. I will report to the packagers that they > should add more texlive packages to the install dependencies.
When I was new to LyX I suffered the same fate. "Nothing worked", since I wanted to load the program, type new words, hit print and feel smug (about using Latex). That was the way I used other apps, that was also the way I interpreted how LyX was "advertised." We know it doesn't work like that. Although splash.lyx still has this kind of 'false advertising' in place. Together with Uwe's experience, referring to 3,4 in splash.lyx There it tries to hide too much of the the complexities involved. Having a system within LyX to automagically pull all dependencies on-the-fly might be attractive. But it's a huge task, not really compatible with unix-philosophy in general, specific distros in particular. For having UserGuide compiled it's also already covered with having TeXLive-full installed. Using LaTeX/LyX is not the same as using office-processors. But currently UserGuide already says: 1.5 "You can edit documents in LyX without having LaTeX installed, but you will not be able to create PDFs or print your documents unless you do have it installed." And it's been a while, but doesn't the "smaller" Win-installer lead a potential new user into a similar situation? On Mac LyX doesn't pull or offer MacTex/TeXLive, and I do not know what happens if a frugal user chooses to try the much smaller basicTeX. On debian nothing from TeXLive is in the depends section of the package description. What you bemoan is really different things: Help-docs are nowadays usually built into the app, under 'Help' – LyX has that. (But it's different enough from most other apps and their concepts.) Manuals, like UserGuide.lyx are usually shipped as PDFs, if at all – LyX gives you a pretty readable source to generate these PDFs. This last step may fail as we both learned be making mistakes. But you can read the relevant info within LyX. That's several steps up from "lost". And having a low-distracting _user-readable_ source is THE killer point for LyX anyway. You want a new user to be able to open an example file, hit compile and then read the PDF and marvel about the "Beauty of TeX" – a Job for Intro.lyx and "examples". To not alienate new users. That is a noble goal I totally support. But this suffers from the crux that total newbies will be bewildered with the fact they have to compile PDFs in the first place. Among other idiosyncrasies if being either a total neophyte or used to office apps. None of these arguments are likely applicable for LyX-newbies coming the other way: being fed up with plain text editors and the convoluted LaTeX source display. When actually writing or (proof) reading LyX bests them all. My conclusion from this presents several options: – Amend the first-launch-ever readme splash.lyx. Really urging totally new users with even stronger words to start their way into LyX by opening and reading Intro and UserGuide, esp UG-1.5. With further amendments concerning PDF generation and further dependencies. Better explaining there that LyX, as is, is just an editor, but that it is really meant to be a a frontend on a huge mountain of a system of software packages. – Simplify UserGuide in regard to dependencies –– test this on a wider range of likely base systems – Maybe: attach a LyX-Note to the top of the respective docs listing potentially unusual dependencies and how to get them (giving at least optimized search engine search terms) greetings Mike
