Sirs,
I encountered a particular loop while installing LyX 1.3.6,
which I thought might be useful.
I installed gsview and acrobat, first in C:/Program
Files/Ghostgum and C:/Program Files/Adobe, and then again later
(trying to solve LyX path problems), directly into C:
The loop was this:
1. In Edit->Preferences->File Formats->{PDF (dvipdfm), Postscript}-> Viewer
I would manually insert strings "acrord32" and "gsview32" and "Modify"
2. This worked, View->->{PDF (dvipdfm), Postscript} became
functional (LyX could find the executables)
3. I ran Edit->Reconfigure,
3.b. configure couldn't find the viewers (they were not in the
path used by configure)
4. configure re-wrote the preferences file, and the viewers quite working.
5. Repeat, (reinstalling and moving viewers, etc).
What I found was that I had to manually install the paths to
the viewers in the environment variable PATH, at
Control Panel->System->Advanced->Environment Variables.
What is striking is not so much that the viewers were not
found and were lost, in steps 3 and 4; but that "acrord32" and
"gsview32" were in the path used to execute the viewers in step 2.
This seems to imply that the execution from LyX operates with a path
that includes directories not included in the path used by configure.
Two possibilities that could add value
a) Form the conjunction of the path currently used by configure with
the path by which executables are found (these should no doubt be
the same, I don't know if mine are different because I've deranged
things or because paths are handled in unstable ways by Windows),
and run configure using this larger path (or maybe the path used
by configure should be simply the path known to the executing
LyX).
b) When reconfigure is going to delete an executable from the
configuration because it isn't found; test for it first by trying
to execute it (e.g., before deleting "gsview32" as the postscript
view, try executing it from LyX (maybe not from the configure
script)).
A totally separate item,
Just to pass it on, I was totally fooled by the grayed-out
"ispell" in
Edit -> Preferences -> Language Settings -> Spellchecker
and kept trying to get Aspell correctly installed long after it was
installed correctly. If the "Spell checker program" box woke up and
said "Aspell" when Aspell is found, that would be helpful.
Finally returning to the line
"check spelling if you installed Aspell, with Edit->Spellchecker."
in the install notes, and realizing to directly test the
spellchecker; I felt like Gandalf when he deciphered the line
"Speak Friend and Enter."
Thanks
Brian
(LyX user since 1998)
