On 14.03.05, Helge Hafting wrote:
> G. Milde wrote:
>
> >On 14.03.05, Helge Hafting wrote:
> >>G. Milde wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>I would prefer, if LyX did not accept "illegal" characters in a
> >>>label, so I am able to find this label in the form I entered in the
> >>>LaTeX output (which I share with my co-workeres) and in the LyX
> >>>source (which I tend to edit with regexp-replace from time to time.
> >>>
> >>>But maybe others prefer automatic conversion in order to have easier
> >>>remembrable labels.
> >>I don't normally use "[]{}\/" in label names, but I frequently
> >>use non-ascii characters like æøåôé because they are part
> >>of my language. I _can_ avoid them because I happen to know
> >>what "ASCII" is, but the common user does not know that
> >>letters beyond a-z is special.
At least my experiences with computers gave me fairly much hints on the
problems with non-ASCII chars (Unix-DOS-Windows incompatibility, failed
searches in web-pages, Emails with missing or very strange looking chars,
...)
Out of this I assume anyone with a bit of computer experience will know
that "special chars" are special, how often they may be needed in the
native language.
So, while possibly true for the average PC user, this will not hold for
the average LyX user...
> >An illegal label made with ERT (or pure LaTeX in an imported document)
> >will trigger a long search and a "but it worked fine in LyX" groan.
> >
> You can't use ERT inside a label? Have you tried this, or did
> I misunderstand you?
I can user ERT to create a label. I agree, that this is nothing that
LyX garantees to succeed.
> Importing broken latex may break further in lyx - that's ok.
However, when I import a part of my document (be it something that is
updated by a spreadsheet or script or by a non-lyxing coworker), I
have to use different label in this part than in the rest of my LyX
document. While this is not a bug, I do not like this feature and
would prefer a consistent labeling policy (which unfortunately is
fixed by TeX to exclude äöüß).
> >This is why I opt for a insert-label dialog that refuses illegal
> >characters and explains the reason in the status line (as we already do
> >when the user enters 2 spaces in "normal" mode). This way the common user
> >will "learn by doing".
> I don't think you see the problem.
I see the problem from a different angle. For me, live would be easier
with the possibility to use e.g. my name in a label, however it would
be harder with the label being "G=252nter" in the LaTeX source...
> People don't think that way. See the problem people have with "no
> spaces in filenames/paths." They cannot see why that would be a
> problem.
Their main problem is, IMHO, that some commonly used OS already did set
up their directories to contain spaces. Thus they expect the LyX
developers to solve this problem rather than having to move everything
used by LyX to a place with a conforming path name.
But also here a discussion is going on about "how much deviation from
simple/clean/robust/known coding is allowed to please the average
windows user?" and "is this worth the effort?"
> And they will get pissed off if they cannot even use normal single
> words from their language for a label. A few languages is like english
> in that words only contain a-z. Most languages have more letters than
> that, and they are used all the time.
I cannot even spell my name properly without...
> People dislike such arbitrary limitations, try hacking lyx such that 5
> arbitrary letters in the a-z range get illegal for label names.
Why 5? I see 22 small letters in the latin-1 high-bit char table ;-)
> please understand that the division into ascii and non-ascii letters
> seems _random_ to the average non-technical user!
While I dislike all the limitations of the use of äöüßÄÖÜ in a lot of
software, I assume everyone that speaks at least one foreign languae (or
has learned at least one programming language) will recognise a
distinction between a-z and ß-ÿ.
> If lyx encodes all "label text" with latex-legal characters then no
> problems happen with latex.
Unless you happen to edit the latex source. Then, no hard problem, but a
annoyance appeares.
So my initial post reflected my personal rating on which problem is more
annoying - LyX-LaTeX inconsistency or a limited set of label-forming
letters.
Maybe, it is a point of looking at LyX either as a "LaTeX frontend" or as
a "Document preparation system" that happens to use LaTeX for
typesetting...
If I knew, that LaTeX 3 allows for non-ascii chars in labels (and we do
not have to wait another 10 years for LaTeX 3 to appear), I would
immediately opt for unlimited labels with a LaTeX2e hack.
Günter
--
G.Milde web.de
