David Soukal wrote:
Paul, thanks a lot you for the tip. I happened to have Cygwin installed
one my machine, so I gave it a try. My setup is the following: I have
windows version of LyX 1.3.5 downloaded from LyX.org. I tried to create
the sym-link in Cygwin and run LyX from there.
However, it did not work. The command "ln -s a b" run from Cygwin simply
creates Windows shortcut. But LyX run from Cygwin won't recognize the
shortcut as a link... obviously it ignores Cygwin altogether.
I just tried Cygwin's version of ln and had the same experience you did.
If you use Windows Explorer to look at the directory where you created
the symbolic link, you see a Windows link icon. You're right, LyX won't
follow a Windows link (.lnk).
You mentioned MinSYS being required for LyX 1.3.6. What does it mean?
Actually, MinSYS is not exactly required -- what's required is sh.exe,
and MinSYS is (I think) the way the LyX 1.3.6 installer suggests getting
it (if it doesn't find sh.exe already installed, as for instance it
would if you had Cygwin on the system).
Does it mean that LyX will understand shortcuts in Windows?
Not in the sense of interpreting .lnk files, but if you use the ln.exe
that comes with MinSYS, what Windows Explorer shows you is not a .lnk
icon but a folder icon.
Prior to Win 2000 (I think), the Windows file system had no real
symbolic link capability at all resembling what Unix has. I'm not sure
if it was a consequence of switching to the NTFS file system, but Win XP
(and I think Win 2K) have the ability to create actual symbolic links
now. The catch, if I recall correctly, is that the command line
application to do so does not install automatically but comes from a
toolkit CD (which may cost extra -- again, not sure).
I suspect that the version of ln that comes with MinSYS has been
compiled to use the Win XP/Win 2K API calls to create symbolic links. I
don't know if this will work on a FAT drive; it may well be restricted
to NTFS partitions.
I'm going to try to install MinSYS now.
If you're installing on the same machine that has Cygwin (and not
uninstalling Cygwin), be sure to use the full path to ln so that you get
the MinSYS version of it. Follow up here if it still doesn't work.
Paul
