I've been using LyX for a couple of months now and reading the list's messages with interest.
I've had no major problems using LyX yet (and I'm writing a book!) but I wonder if the following can either be solved here and in this version (1.3.2) or if they can be easily added to the upcoming release:
1. A real-time View Update would be nice, instead of continuously clicking to have the DVI/PDF display refresh;
2. A weird limitation doesn't allow LyX to open files in directories containing spaces for DVI/PDF viewing "Cannot run LaTeX: The path to the lyx file cannot contain spaces." Why? Isn't this slightly ridiculous?
3. An easier accented characters pasting facility. Personally, I still can't paste accented letters from the character selector, nor with any combination of keys. The help file on the matter is rather cryptic on the issue. What I did was select the passage from the help file containing the accents, copy it, and keep it as a handy "Accents.lyx" file from which I can copy and paste onto my document. Not elegant at all, but that's the only thing I was able to do. Is there a 1-2-3 clear and easy method, without being a Linux guru, to do this?
4. Finally, the PDF/Acrobat problem: I've read the help file on the poor quality of LyX to PDF output when displayed through Acrobat Reader and, despite my best attempts, couldn't understand how to fix this. Again, is there a "clear" 1-2-3 method to work around this rather irritating issue? (I'm using RH 9)
So, on the one hand, LyX is great, yes. I've been using it for a while with not ONE SINGLE crash. Display fonts are great, the printing output is first class, and everything works perfectly, especially the WYSIWYM feature which lets me concentrate on what I'm writing, not on how I want it to look. And LyX takes care of the formating (spaces, font sizes, pagination, footnotes and endnotes, etc.) in an amazingly professional way. Thumbs up!
On the other hand, I marvel at how, to me, silly things like the above are allowed to have made their way into this great program. So, is it me and my ignorance, or is it LyX?
Thanks for the comments,
Paul Jahshan, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of American Studies Editor for the Humanities, Palma Journal Notre Dame University Zouk Lebanon
