>>>>> "Angus" == Angus Leeming <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Angus> On Thursday 19 December 2002 11:29 am, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes Angus> wrote: >> ** Xforms frontend >> >> New features: >> >> - Angus?? Angus> Oooh, owww. I don't think that there are any new features. Angus> Actually that's not quite true. I added your blurb and updated on cvs. Here is what I am left with. Feel free to criticize the english. JMarc What's new in version 1.3.0? ---------------------------- As with the previous major version 1.2.0, many things make this new release an exciting one. This should not however hide the fact that the `under the hood' changes to the code have been (again) very important. One of these invisible changes that have been going on for a long time is the so-called GUI-independence project. We are glad to announce that version 1.3.0 shows the first results of this. ** Qt frontend This is of course the most visible new feature. This frontend supports either Qt 2.x or 3.0.x and is mostly feature complete. The dialogs are not copies of those of xforms, but that some different design choices have been made. There are a few caveats though: - John??? ** Xforms frontend The avent of the Qt frontend does not mean that the historical xforms frontend is dead. Actually, it is still the one which is the best implemented, since we had much time to polish it. In this release, most of the dialogs have been redesigned to be tighter. Note also that the xforms library has been very recently updated to version 1.0. This version has been released under the LGPL (Lesser General Public License), and the availability of the source means that many bugs that have been plaguing LyX have been fixed in xforms. You are advised to upgrade to xforms 1.0 to enjoy all these new fixes. As a matter of fact, LyX 1.3.0 does not support anymore versions of xforms older than 0.89.5. In most cases the dialogs have been designed to make it impossible to input invalid parameters. The exception to this rule is the input of length data. Power LaTeX users can still input obtuse "glue lengths", but the widgets are highlighted in red if this input is invalid or incomplete. This visual feedback makes it easy to see why LyX won't allow you to Apply your changes. ** Gnome frontend Unfortunately, the development of the Gnome frontend has mostly stopped recently and we have therefore chosen to disable it. We strongly invite anyone willing to revive this port to volunteer on the developpers list. ** Instant preview preview-latex is an emacs package for LaTeX that allows "instant previews" of LaTeX code, so you can immediately see the visual rendering of the LaTeX in the document. With the help of David Kastrup, the author, current CVS LyX can harness this functionality to allow instant previews in the LyX window of math equations and figures. This feature can be immensely useful for making sure the rendering of your equation will look right in the final output. The preview is only displayed (when enabled) when you're not editing the actual equation, so it's unobtrusive too. ** Math editor There have been few visible and some not-so-visible changes. On the visible side we have better visual feedback regarding the structure of a formula by showing the nesting by small purple decorations in the formula itself and by revealing the names of the nesting levels in the minibuffer. There is now native support for symbols from the wasy package containing e.g. the zodiac symbols. New is also the internal structure of font changes which are now proper "insets" as anything else from a square root to an array. This does not only simplify the code greatly but also allows the same editing tricks as for the "regular" math. However, it was not possible to tweak the visible behaviour to mimic 1.2 in all cases, so this might take some time to get accustomed to. On the pro side, the new structure allowed implementing support for LaTeX's \mbox and \fbox and general "switching back to text mode within math", so a lot of "evil red text" trickery is not needed anymore. ** Reading old files LyX now has a new script lyx2lyx which allows to read any old file produced by LyX versions as old as 0.12. 0.10 series is in the works for 0.10 (1.4 time line) and still older files are in the forge. Basically if lyx wrote it lyx will read it. :-) There is also a strong demand for being able to read files produced by _newer_ versions of LyX. While lyx2lyx has an infrastructure in place to do such things, the filters to `downgrade' LyX files (from 1.3.0 to 1.2.x, for example) have not yet been written. ** Miscellaneous changes - LyX now automatically uses TeX fonts for screen rendering if they are available (it is not necessary anymore to configure your font server). - The Insert>Short Title allows to add an optional text for section headings and captions that is designed to be used in table of contents. - The Insert>Float>Floatflt Figure menu item restores the capability of wrapping a text around an image which was present in 1.1.6 and removed in 1.2.0
