Stacia Hartleben wrote:
There is a GUI for figures in LyX?? I was thinking more like something
that Word or OO has where you have a little figure drawing toolbar and
you can insert shapes into the document. I don't think LyX has that. I
like that program because you can use a GUI to make things and you
don't have to rely on numbers and code to draw a figure.
Use xfig - it has a GUI - no numbers or code unless you want it.
And it works from within lyx.
Insert->file->external material
or just insert->external depending on your lyx version.
You get a dialog box. Set the type to xfig instead of the
default "chessdiagram". Then, enter a suitable filename
and press "edit".
Now you get a xfig window - a GUI for figures.
Now,you won't get a toolbar inside lyx this way - xfig really
is an app of its own. But you manage your figures from within
lyx, I hope that is good enough. In the future, we might be
able to stuff the xfig file into something like file.lyx.tar so
it may be transferred as a single file too.
But I don't think you'll ever see a figure editing toolbar inside
lyx, for the developers generally follow the unix philosophy
of "do _one_ thing and do it well". Lyx does documents well.
Other apps to figures well, and lyx currently provides a nice
interface to a few of those. Interfaces to other graphichs apps
are easy to add, as long as there is a way to convert the
other app's files into something lyx/latex can understand.
This approach is actually better than an integrated editor:
1. We support the same operations as an integrated editor,
i.e. you see a preview of your figure in lyx at all times, and
you have a gui for changing it too.
2. It is easy to add support for anybody's favourite figure tool, so
we are not in any way limited here.
3. A crash/bug in some graphics editor will _not_ bring lyx down
with it! An important argument for running separate apps in
processes of their own. (Lyx uses this approach in many other
cases as well - a crash in image conversion, preview generation
or output generation will not crash lyx either.)
4. This apporach support more than just graphichs. Anything that
generates output that might be useful in a document works with
this approach. Want to include spreadsheets? Add a template
for your favourite one, assuming it can be made to generate
postscript without user intervention.
Helge Hafting
