Hi all,
The documents under the help menu for 1.5.3 use the phrase "character style"
in two very different contexts, creating confusion. One or the other should
be called something else.
Some parts discuss what I mean by a character style -- a custom style that can
be applied, over and over again, to pieces of text. Other parts of the docs
discuss something more like fine tuning, where you apply typefaces, shapes
and weights to pieces of text on an individual basis. IMHO the latter is a
very poor way to organize a document.
For instance, in the userguide, this section from 3.6.1 appears to discuss the
custom style applied many places:
"Many modern typesetting and markup languages have begun to move towards
specifying character styles rather than specifying a particular font. For
example, instead of changing to an italicized version of the current font to
emphasize text, you use an ``emphasized style'' instead. This concept fits in
perfectly with LyX. In LyX, you do things based on contexts, rather than
focusing on typesetting details."
Section 3.6.3 discusses the Emph and Noun buttons as character styles. They
may be, but they're not user created character styles. Then 3.6.4 discusses
the text style dialog as a "character style" (first sentence of the section),
and goes on to discuss fine tuning, and finally admonishes not to overuse
fonts, which although true sounds like it might be an admonishment not to
overuse user defined character styles, which is IMHO very false.
Section 5.3.6 of the Customization document discusses character styles as I
generally define them -- user defined and applicable to any text.
Perhaps in future documentation versions we should call what I call character
styles as "user defined character styles", stuff from the buttons (emph and
noun) as LyX-provided character styles, and stuff from the text style dialog
as "text fine tuning". That way the documentation will be much clearer to
newbie and expert alike.
Thanks
SteveT
Steve Litt
Books written in LyX:
Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist
Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting: Just the Facts
