Hi
I have started to use a program called ipe. It is excellent for good
locking figures using lines.
It has the capability to save both eps and pdf, while its "native" format is
.xml
I tried to make it possible to insert such xml files and have LyX do the
right conversion to the right format depending on what export type I use.
When running latex I'd like it to do
ipetoipe -eps $$i $$o
and when running pdflatex
ipetoipe -pdf $$i $$o
For the view in LyX this should be run
ipetopng 1 72 $$i $$o
meaning first page of the file with resolution 72 dpi
So I tried to define a file format and some converters. There the
problems started.
Using the Preferences GUI I defined a new file format resulting in
\format "Ipe" "xml" "Ipe" ""
and a converter with
\converter "Ipe" "eps" "ipetoipe -eps $$i $$o" ""
Trying to export to ps, LyX says
"No information for converting from xml to eps"
Thought maybe LyX need a converter for viewing I defined
\converter "Ipe" "png" "ipetopng 1 72 $$i $$o" ""
but still the same result. It seem as if LyX does not recognize my Ipe
file type.
So I change the file format to be named xml by manually changing the
preferences file
\format "xml" "xml" "Ipe" ""
\converter "xml" "eps" "ipetoipe -eps $$i $$o" ""
\converter "xml" "png" "ipetopng 1 72 $$i $$o" ""
(I first tried to change this via the GUI but as soon I pressed Save after
having changed the format to xml, lyx crashed hard)
Now it worked, I can view the ipe file in LyX and also export to eps.
However when exporting with pdflatex I lose all nice lineart because it is
first converted to png. So I define a ipetopdf
\converter "xml" "pdf" "ipetoipe -pdf $$i $$o" ""
To my surprise that does not help, it still includes the pdf-file.
Removing the xml to png converter will make LyX use the xml to pdf converter
but:
1. The convert script does not recognize the bounding box of pdf so the
figure is shown in some papersize.
"lyx -dbg graphics" revealed that ipetoipe -pdf was executed and after
that
convert <name>.pdf XPM:<name>
so I guess the problem is not in the LyX scripts but in convert.
2. When using pdflatex LyX still asks for a png resulting in no output.
When doing the conversion to pdf manually and including them into the lyx
file everyting looks as it should with the right bounding box.
To conclude I have found
1. LyX does not recognize the newly defined file-format Ipe
2. LyX does not convert to pdf even if the converter is defined,
But note: only when executing pdflatex.
I use lyx 1.3.5-qt on a RedHat 9.
Are those bugs or some converter I forgot to define. Should I post a bug
to bugzilla?
/johan
