Hello,
I want to join to this discussion again and would like to clarify my previous post that had suggested a totally different approach. I am a very frequent user of MikTeX in the sense that I update it almost weekly basis. MikTeX is a very “good” TeX system but sometimes it acts awkward. For example, sometimes the mirror that has been set to be used is not working. You have to quit the updater and use another program to select a working mirror. Sometimes, it gives some error out of nowhere and nothing can be updated. I have to wait one or two days, and when I retry to update it just works fine. Sometimes, I need to do several consecutive updates to achieve a successful update and to be sure the system updated correctly, and I have to restart my windows. Sometimes, I just feel that I have to restart my PC after an update to get it right because Windows (e.g. version 10) is also changing frequently (e.g. admin policies) due to its new approach of updating. Sometimes, although many packages are available for update, MikTeX will not update them but make an update to MikTeX itself. İf this is the case, I need to re-run the updater to update the packages. Sometimes, I download packages to my PC and update them from the PC without using Internet. This also happens if I have some issue with my PC’s internet… In one case, when I updated MikTeX, it removed the setting of the local TeX folders, which I had to setup again. There are other cases, where MikTeX looks like updated correctly and without an issue, but in fact, it will not run correctly. I have seen many posts to TeX SE, where users encounters this sort of issues. Most of the time, waiting one or two days solves the issue, which I believe MikTeX developer(s) fix the associated problem. With the new version of MikTeX, I can see that the updater, package manager and configurer are all collected in a new GUI called “MikTeX console” (at least just last week I saw it), and I can see that some of the features of the previous GUI are not transferred to the new GUI. Maybe update process will be more smooth from now on… In overall, MikTeX update “most of the time” is efficient, but there are cases, where the user needs to do additional attempts/operations to complete it. This requires a level of understanding TeX, LaTeX and MikTeX. Similar to MikTeX, I also like to follow the updates of LyX and use them whenever they are available. In the past, I intended to use MikTeX update feature of LyX several times, and just by chance I encounter one of the issues listed above that required additional steps to complete MikTeX update. Therefore, I had to cancel LyX update in all of these cases. This was more problematic, because it gives the feeling that I may have messed up with LyX installation. After these experiences, I have never used LyX feature of updating MikTeX, and whenever I am updating LyX, I first update MikTeX separately. If there is something work with MikTeX, although it looks like it is updated correctly, I go back o basic and fix it by running simple “hello world” type .tex documents on editor-type programs (e.g. TeXMaker, WinEdt). I understand that the intend of LyX is make sure that the user does not get into the LaTeX, TeX or MikTeX, particulary for new and novice users. However, they will eventually need to understand the basics of LaTeX and MikTeX, to juggle around when they want to do more things in LaTeX. I also understand that it would be really convenient for the first time users of LyX to have this feature, but the possibilities of having additional operations and users canceling LyX setup should also be evaluated. So, as a conclusion, my suggestion is not incorporate MikTeX update into LyX setup, and leave that responsibility of having a working (Mik)TeX system to the user in the first place. Bests, BE PS: Even if LyX is not changed this way, I hope the detailed experience I give above is helpful for the developers. Sorry for the long post. Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10 ________________________________ From: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org <lyx-users@lists.lyx.org> on behalf of Scott Kostyshak <skost...@lyx.org> Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2018 8:38:43 PM To: LyX Users Subject: Feedback on dialog for Windows installer (round 2) Dear all, I have two separate questions: 1. If no edits are made to the following dialog, do you believe the dialog would be confusing to the *average* LyX user on Windows during the LyX 2.3.0 installation process? LyX requires MiKTeX 2.9 or later. Your version is X.X. Choose "Continue" to automatically update MiKTeX now, or "Cancel" to stop the LyX installation. If you do not understand this message, you should choose "Continue". Cancel Continue 2. Do you have any suggested edits to improve the clarity of the above message to the *average* LyX user on Windows? Note that this email follows a previous thread [1]. If you did not follow that thread, no problem at all since it would be good to have a fresh view. Thank you for your help! Scott [1] https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=mid&q=20180313221335.6asbmcrohug4rrzf%40steph
