----- Original Message -----
From: "Enrico Forestieri" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <lyx-users@lists.lyx.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: No VIEW->DVI in LyX Win32 Works!
<snip>
Given that, it is possible to use a native LyX with all cygwin apps
but you must know what you are doing and a casual user is perhaps
overwhelmed by the task of making it work.
I would stick with the three cases above only, without taking into
consideration the possibility of using native LyX with all cygwin apps
or, conversely, using a cygwin LyX with all native apps. These cases
would be considered as perversions ;-)
IMHO, of course ;-)
--
Enrico
That is all well and good. I got confused about the purpose of the
batfiles. LyX137v2 works with all cygwin apps and x11 if LyX137
is started from startwinx.bat shell. The batfiles have no apparent
effect whether they are contained in ~/lyx/bin or they are not there.
I had a desktop shortcut linked to ~/lyx/bin/lyx.bat for LyX137.
Double-clicking on the shortcut did not open LyX137 so that
it could use the Cygwin apps. I thought the batfiles were intended
to make LyX137 started from the shortcut work so as to use the
Cygwin apps. But they didn't. So I made a bad assumption and
decided to try to make LyX137 function in the same manner as
lyx-winbin. That worked I assume because it started the Xserver.
So I don't know what the batfiles are for? They are a bit tricky.
I'm wondering why in the past eight months whenever there was
a request from a poster for a version of LyX which worked with
Cygwin, there was no positive response, maybe a suggestion to
try building LyX on Cygwin with complicated terse instructions.
Nobody said run the LyX136or137 binary and choose all Cygwin
apps; you will need these files... LyX will need to be started with an
Xserver, so use startxwin and navigate to your /Lyx/bin and type
lyx.bat. Put such and such in your Path prefix.
Not many instructions are needed and they are easy to follow. This
approach was available before you developed the simplified build
instructions for LyX140. But I didn't read about it in LyX or any of
the other relevant forums. Here is an example of the common perception
of LyX and Cygwin which I used to share and is far from reality.
-----------------------------------------------------
Lyx 1.4 for Windows (comp.text.tex)
"have not tried this, but about a year ago it was a real pain to get
lyx on cygwin working. If this works at all, it is terrific.
Building yourself can be a pain. Even getting a prebuild running using
Cygwin can be terrible since lyx needs so many components, tex, dvips,
acroread, display, eps tools, etc. If this installer works, I would
take whatever it gives me rather than configure lyx on cygwin myself."
--------------------------------------------------------------
But the installer does work with Cygwin, you don't need to build
anything. There are two time-consuming tasks. 1. Downloading and
installing Cygwin which is not that big if you already have a working
version of Cygwin. 2. Figuring out how to start LyX so that it could
make use of the Cygwin apps. Perhaps it should be obvious as it was
to you that lyx-x11 didn't need an Xserver started but that lyx-winbin
did, and so did LyX137v2. But I had forgotten it. Otherwise, using the
binary is easier than your easy Cygwin LyX140 build advice, especially
compared to CygLyx1.3.1 or even 1.3.5. With the help of a short Howto.
Anyway, I never saw using a binary with Cygwin mentioned as a possibility
on the User list or developer although I didn't read all the developer
posts. So
that is why I am surprised that nobody mentioned a 10 times easier method.
I saw Chuck undertake this task with three days of experience and make
good progress, but he expressed doubts about undertaking the build.
EF: "Given that, it is possible to use a native LyX with all cygwin apps
but you must know what you are doing and a casual user is perhaps
overwhelmed by the task of making it work."
SH: They may be a bit daunted but not nearly as aghast as when
they are considering building Cygwin, especially in the past. That
doesn't seem like a reason for nobody at all to mention it here on
the mailing list. The most likely cause for the conspiracy of silence is
that almost noone knew it. Have you ever seen it mentioned?
Well, there may be more to this. I thought the batfiles were meant to
contribute the function of communicating from the native WinLyx
binary and employing the Cygwin apps. Which led me away from
thinking all I needed to do was start LyX in an Xserver shell. I
wasn't trying to be perverse. I just should have asked what purpose
the batfiles were intended to accomplish. It appears to me that they
don't help access the Cygwin Viewers, so they must do something
else. I mistakenly thought they were to enable the Viewers. I was hazy
about how it was to be done, I suspected it was native windows, but
not out of a perverse desire to disenfranchise X11. I put /c/cygwin/usr
/X11R6/bin in my Path prefix and I thought I didn't have to do any more.
But if the batfiles are needed (and are tricky) it does explain why using
a WinLyx binary with Cygwin was never recommended as an option.
I didn't mean to be obscure. It was obvious to me and I thought it
would be obvious to you that several people could have been steered
toward using a binary with Cygwin which was certainly is a lot easier than
building LyX on Cygwin before your very recent major improvement. So
I didn't elaborate, just kidded Angus in case he was reading. I was happy
that I got it to work, the solution was so simple. I got around to asking
what the batfiles did. And the only imperfection that I noticed was that
Tex Information didn't populate. I tried hacking TeXFiles.sh to no avail.
It occurs to me that I could just post this paragraph and delete the rest
of the reply. But I put too much work into it, so it may be a perversion
that I don't delete it, or at least obsessive compulsive retention. :-)
Regards,
Stephen
Regards,
Stephen
