Am 06.03.2018 um 16:37 schrieb Jean-Marc Lasgouttes:
In general: I have no problem in being criticized. But I have a problem
that I am talking directly to the MiKTeX developer to find a solution
and when I do what he proposes you are telling me that it can be done
better.
The goal is definitely not that you become quiet, which would mean "This
is my last word. Either you accept my solution or you have no windows
installer".
No, it is was only my last attempt to explain the situation. I have the
feeling that I can write pages but are not understood.
What if the user set "Install missing packages on the fly: never"? Do
you still insist that this user should have to do a double update that
was explicitly opted-out?
You can of course do this. Then you could assure that your LaTeX system
won't be updated. The consequence is that if you have a missing package
you cannot install it, because to do this, the package handling will be
updated.
I cannot state what happens if you set "never" and configuring LyX. The
reconfiguration invokes MiKTeX to update internally file links, to
recreate font files etc.
I'll try this out after LyX 2.3.0 was finally released because I am
running out of time right now. I must admit that I haven't tested the
"never" case for a long time.
What is not clear to me is why we change the default update mechanism.
Because of the bug. Again, the installer for LyX 2.3.0 acts different
than all installers before because of this.
Miktex documentation explicitly recommends to use the Miktex Console to
get updates, and does not set the update mechanism to automatic.
The MiKTeX Console (introduced around end of January) is the new update
mechanism. Before, there was no MiKTeX Console. Also many new options
you see in the MiKTeX docs didn't exist before and can therefore not be
used for LyX users having older installations.
This is why we should not change a system that works
See my last mail in this thread. It is not LyX that breaks something, it
is MiKTeX itself.
I started with Windows 2.0, then 3.0, 3.1, etc. up to windows 10 (OK, I
skipped a few). These days I use windows 7 and windows 10 on a
daily/weekly basis. Do I qualify?
Yes ;-) Also very good to know.
If you want to reproduce what I am talking about:
- uninstall MiKTeX
- install LyX 2.3.0RC1 bundle (Contains old MiKTeX installer from
October); deny to update MiKTeX
- reconfigure LyX or try to compile a LyX file that uses a package you
don't have yet.
As currently some MiKTeX packages are incompletely uploaded to the
mirror servers, maybe today you won't notice anything because every
MiKTeX update/installation action is currently not working. As soon as
this is working again (hopefully tomorrow) it might be (not for sure)
that you get a broken MiKTeX.
Today I found one of the problems, which is funny: Some MiKTeX versions
use its update program for the update. During the update they try to
delete this program (itself) which is of course impossible. As result
you get a MiKTeX with still all packages there but latex cannot find
them anymore because all links to them were not reset in the new package
system.
This particular bug existed only during a certain time period, therefore
especially users with an older LyX/MiKTeX installation won't see this.
I understand how frustrating the thing can be. But working alone on this
is probably the source of many issues. It is never good to have an own
niche where only one voice counts. We are a team, and this is where our
strength comes from.
Sure, but then please start your Win laptops and try installing
different MiKTeX versions to see the different results LyX users will
get. Some won't see any problems, some will get a completely broken
MiKTeX. Testing this costs hours - it took a long time before I could
the first time reproduce what users reported back on our mailing lists.
Well, the OS of choice of elegant people is macOS and you cannot argue
that they do not care that thing do not "just work". Yet, they install
MacTeX, which come in only one size (3G), maybe the 500M of extras if
they are very fussy and they are happy with it. It does not update, but
once a year one can install a new one.
I won't discuss about OSes. Users made their choice. I focus on Win
users. They have 2 options:
- they have background knowledge or the time to learn about LaTeX. They
can setup TeXLive or MiKTeX as they like since they know what a package is.
- they just need a working LyX and are not interested in how things work
behind LyX
The latter is the vast majority.
Are these people so different to what you describe as windows users? We
are not talking about children here.
I work in the machine building industry. I have clever colleagues, some
with a Ph.D. So they are not children, but they have to focus on their
job. For example, recently I was informed on Monday that on Wednesday
the operation manual of a new device must be ready. These are more than
40 pages in 2 days but this is a standard task. Therefore I cannot
fiddle around with software things, I have to spend all my time on the
text (to fulfill all norms, that no info is missing etc.)
My daily experience is that nobody cares what software you are using (if
it generates no cost), as long as you do your job in time. If you are
faster with LibreOffice than with PowerPoint to prepare your
presentations, then do it. There is no excuse if you are not ready in
time because of a software problem.
So what software will I use? One that works and don't stress me with
internals and questions. Time is limited, we all work already longer
every day and it should not be even more because of software things.
Just an incident: I once had to prepare a document containing the Rupee
currency symbol. I got an error message that my document cannot be
compiled. As LyX developer I can read this and learned that the
"tfrupee" package needs to be installed and I know how I can achieve
this. My colleagues of course would fail on this task. Therefore I added
tfrupee on the list of packages that will automatically be installed
with LyX because you can never know what LyX users might need during
their work.
You might now argue that I should not automatically install packages. My
example makes clear why I am convinced that it helps much, much more
than it harms. Even more, I cannot see any harm in having a package
installed that might never be used. Storage is cheap and some MB more or
less are negligible.
Personally, for urgent texts I use LibreOffice because even for me
LyX/LaTeX is too time consuming.
If I like e.g. to wavy underline some words, I just want to do this
and not to get cryptic error messages that a package is not available.
How should I know that the missing package is necessary because of my
wavy underline?
<joke>
People who use wavy underlines deserve whatever happen ;)
</joke>
This is an attitude I don't like. This is respectless to users. There
are so many cases where you cannot decide on your own. Look at all the
norms around. Sometimes they require things that are typographically
stupid (e.g. I recently stumbled over "italic, underlined") or your boss
likes strange things.
Also if you are free to decide, if a software offers me a feature I
like, I expect that I can use it.
regards Uwe
