I think the original problem (apart from installation) was that there
are things people expect to work and they simply don't. Tweaking
appearance is not one of these. For majority of journals/conferences
there are already layouts... As for department-specific thesis
requirements, that's different, but at the time one is finished writing
the thesis, she/he won't have a problem to adjust the few things.
But the original problem was something different: LyX allowed the user
to insert something that he shouldn't have been allowed to. Well this is
clearly a bug, but I understand how it happend. People who know LaTeX
simply know that \times is a Math operator/symbol...
What can we do? Should be assume and say somewhere that there are
problems like these (and there'll alway be!!) or should we ask the
developers to disallow such things?
I don't have a solution. If the user is allowed to make these mistakes
then she/he might be scared away. This particular thing with \times is
obvious... But it happened to me when I was starting that I'd insert
something delete it, changed environment (align/gather) and for some
reason LyX would compile and I wouldn't *SEE* what might be wrong. But
deleting the formula and rewriting it would help and eventually I'd
realize what went wrong... (For example I type the "flexible"
brackets/parentheses by typying \left and \right in LyX, but LyX won't
parse display them correctly.. but if I deleted either of the
parentheses, I'd be in trouble.)
On the other hand, asking the developers to take care of these thing's
not feasible. There are simply too many of these. Especially when users
start using AMS capabilities which LyX sometimes understands, but
sometimes it doesn't...) or Beamer or others...
I guess we should ephasize the relationship of LaTeX to LyX (or vice
versa) and ask developers to take care of the VERY *basic* and *most*
frequently happening "inconsistencies." LyX simply isn't unrelated to
LaTeX and that's a good thing!
Good luck!
David
ps. The reaction of your advisor (saying LyX is a poor man's Scientific
Worksplace) is really making me furious... I had similar episode with my
advisor...
People should APPRECIATE the hard work of the developers and be happy.
LyX does what it promises to do and it does it, at least for me,
absolutely the BEST! LyX's files are compact, they always work and are
editable. Also LyX is lightning-fast and extremelly robust. I never lost
anything and I could always open my files and be happy about their contents.
So, thank you guys who spend time helping LyX grow!
