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2651

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 11:47 PM »

If we knew more about the original project requirements here I think it would help determine the best approach though.

- Oshyan

I think Aram mentioned what he was doing in a previous thread. He's creating study review guides to help people prepare for a professional licensing exam.

 

-40hz (March 16, 2011, 09:59 PM)

Ah, must have missed that. Still, professional *what*? Why the math equations? How much are they used?

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (March 16, 2011, 11:42 PM)

Please.  I'll explain it all in a couple of weeks.  Let me finish it up first.  But...in the meantime...the whole thing is chock full of math.

2652

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 11:45 PM »

Actually, 40, had I not suggested mathtype to my partner, he was going to do it just as you said: creating the vector art directly in the program (Indesign, not Illustrator, although he was doing it there also).
Your way is logical, and also just cool.  I actually wouldn't mind doing it (I'm very particular about how to present math solutions properly).  But in our case, it's clearly not a good use of time and resources.  You're more like my partner in this stuff, he enjoys the personal touch in all of this.  

When I used to design more in my early career, I was very proud of my CAD toolbox of symbols I had made.  Very similar to this.  Like math, these are all common engineering symbols, but I liked how I had done everything just the way I like it.  The proportions, the spacing, the snap points, etc.  I felt like I had designed my own font.

Yeah, but for this project, I'd like to automate it as much as possible.  I already save all my calculations using the fantastic SpaceTime program on the ipad and Windows.  So after we publish the books in a couple of weeks, I'm going to go back and try to fine tune all the content as far as automation, consistency, styling, database, all that stuff.  This is part of that effort.  We're already done writing everything, so I don't NEED it.  SO I want to take it to the next level and find a more optimum method.  This is what I waste my time with.  I'm sure my partner will think it's a little over the top.  But this is what I do.

2653

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 04:36 PM »

I suppose the main question is just how much does one really need to fart around with those style files. 90% of the time, those predefined styles are going to work just fine. I do feel there's quite a lot of customize for customization's sake going on.

-timns (March 16, 2011, 04:22 PM)

I think I'm not being clear.  I'm not really disagreeing with you guys.  If I didn't want to create my own styles, latex and lyx are perfectly easy to use, and I'd LOVE to use it specifically because of the math abilities.

My issue is that I REQUIRE the ability to create styles from scratch.  If you tell me:

I do feel there's quite a lot of customize for customization's sake going on.

I don't think that's fair to me, because it's like you are telling me how I should do my work.  I understand that the default styles are adequate in most cases.  I'm telling you, it's not adequate for mine.  So my issue is, how can I create my own styles without getting bogged down with programming?  I'm not going to want to use any languages.  i want buttons, previews, dialogs, drop downs.  If not...I'll just stick to Indesign.

So if there is no tool out there that can create customize latex styles from scratch with a gui, i am not interested.

2654

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 03:16 PM »

Forget it.  Latex is no good.  Indesign all the way.  Now, for the blasted math typography.

Mathtype:
Does everything fine, but the EPS export inside Indesign looks like shit.  All pixelated and barely legible.  prints fine.  Still, I'd like to see what it looks like before printing.  This is on a mac.  I'll have to try on a PC.  Or maybe there's another way to import it into ID.  One thing i don't want to do is import it, and have to still fiddle around with it inside ID.

MathMagic:
haven't tried it, but it's supposed to be the best.  Very expensive...$700 for the professional version needed for Indesign.  it costs more than indesign.  Indesign really needs to add math funcionality to the program.  it's the freaking industry standard, cmon! (Gob).

2655

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 03:11 PM »

The chestnut we used back in the old days was that LaTeX was not a WYSIWYG ("What you see is what you get") editor, but a WYSIWYW ("what you see is what you want") editor. And the way you inform TeX what you want is by editing rawtext stylesheets by hand - essentially, exactly what you (the OP, I mean) said when you pointed out that you don't know how to write your own stylesheets in the XML editor under discussion. And if it doesn't give you what you want, you nudge & fiddle with & otherwise coax that code until your output looks right.
To wrap up, let me share with you my current emotional state: when my grandfather told me tales of the Depression, he'd joke "Oh, it was terrible. Abysmal. Worst times of my life. Can't for the life of me figure out why I feel nostalgia when I tell you stories about it." I feel like grampa, right now.

-superboyac (March 16, 2011, 03:04 PM)

2656

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 03:04 PM »

Are there any nice gui tools for customizing latex styles?  Does it HAVE to be programmed by hand?  i don't see why someone hasn't done this yet.  It's just a matter of a few parameters.  Fonts, sizes, whitespace...there just isn't that much.  Someone has to have created a tool for it.

2657

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 03:03 PM »

I agree, Armando.  I've been looking into it a little more and I think I have to stick to Indesign.  I found this quote:

The learning curve for LaTeX is both deep and broad. In my opinion it's harder to learn than C, C++, Java, Perl and the like. But learn it you must, unless you're willing to accept every LyX default for the document class you've chosen.

I don't want to learn a programming language.  And I have to customize my content, i.e., I'm going to start from scratch.  There's just no way I'm going to use a style that someone else created.  I'm far too picky for that.

So now the question is, what can I do to automate Indesign?  The math stuff is the biggest headache.  All of the tools out there work, but they all have an issue here and there.  And the best one is very expensive, even for me.  It's like $700.  I want to use mathtype, but it has weird, minor issues with placing content into Indesign.  Everything else about it is perfect.

2658

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 09:15 AM »

I think I'm sticking with indesign.  I got a little excited yesterday.

2659

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 09:11 AM »

To sum up:
Why wouldn't somebody want Latex with a live preview?  Let's say it was available right now, and implemented really well.  Most people would NOT prefer to go back to another way.  That's all I'm saying.

2660

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 09:10 AM »

Hmmm...interesting, fodder.
Here's what I make out of all of this.  I like DTP software like Indesign because it has a "modern" interface.  There are buttons, and when I look on the screen, I see pretty much exactly what I'm going to print.  Now, what I find very attractive about Latex is that I can spend some time up front and really get styles just the way I want it, and then I don't have to do it again.  I also like that it can handle math stuff very well.  Indesign has styles also, I just don't know how good they are (I haven't tried it yet).  Also, getting math stuff into Indesign is a pretty big hassle.  I'd like to streamline as much of this as possible...BUT, I need to be able to see live previews of my document as I make changes.  I don't want to go back and forth between printing and a simple interface while trying to check things.

I really like the idea of Latex, I just wish it had a live preview.  All the latex people say that there's no preview because it's intentional.  "It's not WYSIWYG".  But I don't think that's the real reason.  I think the real reason is that it's difficult and takes a lot of time to program an interface that accurately (somewhat) shows to live document with all the styles attached.  And then they defend it with the usual language that programmers like to tell people like me: it's more efficient, keyboard shortcuts are better, I can do more with [insert more difficult method here] way.
Lyx says the same things.  "Don't worry about what it looks like, we'll take care of it."  But they do have some kind of preview interface.  The fonts are styled, there are colors and highlights, the line spacings are there.  It's just a matter of adding more of the interface features like making the window look like a page, showing columns for newspaper style articles.  But I know that takes a lot of work, and this is all freeware stuff, and like most good freeware utilities, it's going to take shortcuts with command line stuff and programming-like elements.  It's always this idea of "We want maximum power.  Whether it's easy to use or not is not our concern."

2661

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 08:55 AM »

Well, here's my first problem with Lyx:
No print preview of any kind.
I'd like to be able to preview what my document is going to look like without having to print to pdf, which takes a while.  I'd like to be able to make some changes, check the changes, fine tune the changes, check it again, etc.  I know, I know, "Lyx doesn't want you worrying about that." Whatever.  I need to see a preview!  It's 2011.

2662

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2011, 08:46 AM »

Edvard, I'd like to discuss the details of your issue here:

But when a few very minor things didn't turn out exactly to my liking, I spent a LOT of time tweaking a Class and after 4 or 5 hours it still wasn't coming out exactly right

These are my questions:
1) What was it exactly that you were trying to do?
2) When you say tweaking, what were you tweaking. (the more specific the better.  An xml file?  A settings dialog?)

I don't think I'd have more than 10 styles I'd use.  It can't be that hard to create 10 styles from scratch, could it?  Let's say it takes me 40 hours.  that's ok.  I'm fine with that.  What I don't want to do is after 40 hours, find out that it's really going to take me 100 more hours to figure this out, and then I just go back to Indesign.  i suppose I should just start playing with it.  I just can't see too many things that need to be tweaked.  Font, font size, font styles (italic, bold), line spacing (top, bottom), indentation, bullet lists, numbered lists.  This is all basic stuff.  Then I'd add some page decorations, like borders, page breaks, horizontal lines.  Is lyx going to fight me in trying to do these things?

2663

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 15, 2011, 10:45 PM »

Eoin, I understand most of what you say.  But it doesn't quite make sense to me.  I understand the whole idea of Latex.  You say you wouldn't use a gui.  i don't understand why not.  To me, you sound like those programmers and computer powerusers who insist that using keyboard shortcuts and programming things from scratch is "better".

Whenever people talk about latex, they keep repeating the same things.  Latex doesn't want you thinking about typesetting, etc.  And they keep repeating it and repeating.  Look, I get it.  I get the philosophy behind the thing.  Now, let's get down to it.  Latex is not a person, it doesn't assume anything.  I just want to define like 5 different styles, and start using them to create content.  Why wouldn't I want a gui?  Can you explain that?

You say:

Frankly LaTeX assumes you, the writer, is useless at typesetting and document design, and will fight you tooth an nail every time you disagree with it. That include small things like page breaks, it believes it knows better than you.

That doesn't make sense to me.  latex is not a person, so you need to explain this without all the abstract talk.  What good is a program if it's going to fight me for trying to get things just the way I want it?  That doesn't make sense.  If it's true, why the hell would I use it?

I want to define when and where page breaks should occur.  I want to define what borders and stuff appear on the page.  I want to define how the paragraphs are styled.  I'm EXTREMELY PICKY.  I'm going to nitpick every line spacing, every white space, the indentations.  I don't want it almost the way I want it.  I want it exactly the way I want it.  I don't want to go around in circles trying to "trick" the program to do it.  I want a program that will easily do these things.  Not with codes or syntax, but with buttons and dialogs and previews, etc.

A lot of people like us scoff at WYSIWYM or WYSIWYG.  Why?  How is that a bad thing?  I just don't understand any of this.

If your recommendation is to go raw latex, my answer is no thanks.  I'll just stick to Indesign.

2664

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 15, 2011, 07:47 PM »

Save yourself from the get-go by picking a Class that looks most like what you envision your end-product to be, and work with it.
Save tweaking up your own for when you have more experience and a few hours to waste. 

-Edvard (March 15, 2011, 06:39 PM)

Well...I plan to be extremely picky about my styling.  That's the whole point.  It's not like any other program makes styling a breeze.

2665

Living Room / Re: USB Madness With Cooked-Off Ports

« Last post by superboyac on March 15, 2011, 06:05 PM »

A) What is shotgun mode?

B) I've never been a fan of USB.  It's convenient and I use it, but I've never been all that impressed with it.  I've always hated the idea of "safely" removing USB stuff.  What's the point of creating this kind of interface when we have to be so concerned about removing it safely.  Why not implement it in such a way so you can pull it out and put it back in  without worrying about it?  And everyone talks about USB speed, and they have benchmarks all over the place with those tech articles, but ALL of my usb speeds have been mediocre at best.  I've never had a USB stick that made me feel like, "Oh shit!  That was pretty fast."  it's always, "What is everyone talking about?  This is not that fast."  I'm talking dozens of different computers and dozens of different sticks.  yes, I know some of you will pull a "well actually" on me...it doesn't matter.  I've tried it with too many different situations to be convinced of anything otherwise.  i don't even know why these tech articles focus so much on those stupid performance graphs anyway.  They never tell me anything.  Just a bunch of bars and colors.  I'll pull up a performance graph from 10 years ago and it'll look exactly the same.  I have no idea what those numbers mean, like in a practical way. 

2666

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 15, 2011, 05:38 PM »

And I love that Lyx can do math stuff. 

-superboyac (March 15, 2011, 03:48 PM)

The other way around, I would say. LYX is a math editor than also can type words and stuff.

Well, what I would say is, that the included CygWin has made some computers unstable.

-Curt (March 15, 2011, 05:05 PM)

Would you say it's anything to worry about?  I'm not saying it will never ever do anything wrong.  Do I have to worry about doing a bunch of work, and then losing it?  It doesn't seem to be the case.

2667

General Software Discussion / Lyx is the answer

« Last post by superboyac on March 15, 2011, 03:48 PM »

I've been writing a lot the past year.  You guys might be familiar with my frustrations with Word and styles and all that.  Well, I think Lyx is the answer for me.  I haven't gotten my hands dirty with it yet, but I've been reading about it and it seems like it's exactly what I'm looking for.

The other reason why I'm just about convinced is because of the intro/tutorial that's included with the program.  It's very clear that they want to make writing and styling very easy.  Not like Word, and not like any other application I've seen.

I've been using Indesign for a side business involving equations and text and graphics.  Indesign is ok, but still a little too much fiddling around for me.  And like any of the big name software, there are a lot of features that are implemented in a weird way.  I'm going to give Lyx a try and I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it a lot.

Word sucks. Extremely unstable.  It's been two fucking decades and it still can't do bullets and numbering without making you nervous.  All the experts say avoid most of the interesting features because it corrupts the document.  And it does.  i remember ignoring that advice, and my documents got corrupted almost immediately.

And I love that Lyx can do math stuff.  Man, Indesign has some pretty annoying issues with math stuff.  You have to bring it in from something like Mathtype, and then it doesn't display nicely if it's a Mac, and it creates an extra step if you want to change anything.  You have to go back to mathtype, bring it back in, etc.  So it's nice to have it in one place.

I'm also going to be interested in automating document creation based on databases and such.  but that's in the future.

So Word is out.  Indesign is out, most likely.  I never was a fan of Quark.  I've had experience with Scientific Notation's Scientific Workplace package, but it's outdated now and not as nice as Lyx.  (This is all Latex stuff, for those of you wondering).  I was never a huge fan of Latex because of it's unix-like environment, but it has matured into nice applications like Lyx now.  And it's free.  Crazy.  I would actually prefer something like Lyx that I can pay for, so I can get support more easily if necessary.  But there doesn't seem to be an equivalent out there.  It's ok, Lyx sounds like it's just right.

I'm pretty excited about it, actually.

2668

Find And Run Robot / Re: How to exclude url link shortcuts?

« Last post by superboyac on March 14, 2011, 03:24 PM »

hmm.. well this is an interesting point.. i do resolve shortcuts for some purposes.. let me look back into this and refresh my memory about whether FARR will score based on resolved filename, and if so, how one would adjust score based on resolving to a url..

-mouser (March 14, 2011, 01:09 PM)

I've been trying to figure out a good way to eliminate them.  But there's nothing that can distinguish it from any other link, other than intuition.

2669

Find And Run Robot / Re: How to exclude url link shortcuts?

« Last post by superboyac on March 14, 2011, 01:04 PM »

yeah if there is nothing special about them from their filenames (like .com in filename or .url in extension or something) then you aren't going to be able to tell farr to filter them out en masse.

-mouser (March 14, 2011, 12:55 PM)

That's what I figured.  What's frustrating is that they always seem to have priority over the program file of the same name.  Maybe it's just in my head, but that's how it appears to me.

2670

Find And Run Robot / Re: How to exclude url link shortcuts?

« Last post by superboyac on March 14, 2011, 10:59 AM »

There seems to be a plugin callback to resolve the link, which one can code to filter out web address, but that's beyond my league. The second way is to manual exclude ".url" from search with "-.url", or give a very low score to .url extensions so they appear at the bottom through pattern scoring, or -9999 to exclude it. The third way  is to put all your shortcut urls in 1 folder and exclude the folder.

I believe the pattern scoring method should be the simplest.

-hanzo (March 14, 2011, 10:44 AM)

but I can't figure out how to exclude url's.  They don't have "url" in them, just "lnk".

2671

Find And Run Robot / How to exclude url link shortcuts?

« Last post by superboyac on March 14, 2011, 09:38 AM »

How can I exclude those shortcuts that are only url's to websites?  I can't figure out a way that excludes them and not other kinds of shortcuts.

2672

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by superboyac on March 13, 2011, 06:26 PM »

You're right, strange it didn't do it when I initially had it going.  Oh well, back to the drawing board, looks like I broke something when I added the All Interfaces.

Did v0.21 work OK, (removes the All Interfaces selection)?  DOH! No one had downloaded it.

Rephrase: Does v0.21 work OK?

Reattached below.

-4wd (February 28, 2011, 11:23 PM)

I just tried this one again.  It works pretty well.  Could you add the additional interface options from 0.25 to 0.21 ?  That would be pretty complete, in my opinion.

2673

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2007 / Re: My System - Index Card Centric

« Last post by superboyac on March 11, 2011, 03:21 PM »

Maybe ndxCards?

ndxCards is a powerful electronic note taking software that helps record, retrieve and recap all your knowledge in whichever form you choose. Anything you read, hear, some boiler plate text or a code snippet - enter it as note cards and ndxCards can manage it all.

• Ahress’s ndxCards Blog
• ndxCards for outlining

I thought app103 and others were using Notezilla in this kind of way?

The beauty of mouser's or other paper-based systems is that they don't need batteries and you can take them anywhere.  But, it would be a real problem to move back and forth between a PC and a written system, and that seems insuperable to me.

-rjbull (March 11, 2011, 02:59 PM)

I remember this program from years ago.  But I didn't like the post-it type layout.  However, thinking about it now, it seems like a really cool application with some very unique features.  I like it!  I'll try it again.

2674

Living Room / Re: England Is Grinding To A Halt.

« Last post by superboyac on March 11, 2011, 01:12 PM »

40hz is right.  I once saw a graph that showed that ONLY AFTER legislation forced US manufacturers to produce more fuel efficient vehicles did the efficiency improve pretty quickly.  And then it just stagnated again.  Ever wondered why the efficiency of vehicles has not changed much for a looooooong time?  Because nobody NEEDS to do it yet.  Sure, we have the Prius, but it's mostly a gimmick.  They put that out there for the people who make an extra effort to save the environment.  When fuel runs out, we'll see more alternatives, or when legislation demands it again.

2675

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2007 / Re: My System - Index Card Centric

« Last post by superboyac on March 11, 2011, 12:10 PM »

Additionally:
The flaw I've seen with other software for managing to do lists and tasks and such, is that the developers are influenced by a very small minority of people who demand a lot of very particular features that are not needed by most people who need to organize their lists.  So the developers, in an effort to keep customers happy, keep catering to them.  but the effectiveness of the software is not improved.  This is a case where the developers need to be a little more like Steve Jobs, and NOT put in things that are going to ruin the elegance of the program.  I noticed this very recently when I realize that none of the task list software have even halfway-decent printing capabilities.  And I started wondering, "What kind of people spend so much time keeping a nice to do list, but never ever print it out?" and the kind of people are those who just like to play with software, be super critical, and ask for particular minor features...but in real life, they don't really act on these lists.  It's just like an excercise for them.  They feel good about putting together nice detailed lists, but it's not for much practical use.  I've seen too many programs that have very mature feature sets, and oddly, their printing abilities are almost alpha state.  That means nobody is demanding printing stuff, which means these people are probably not using it in a normal working environment.