!Important Changes in LyX 2.4.0


!!Interface changes

* It is now possible to cancel background export processes. A menu entry
  to do so will appear on the Document menu when such a process is underway.
  The LFUN for this is export-cancel. One can also click on the 'spinner'
  to cancel export.

* The items on the Edit menu have been reordered, and many of the shortcuts
  have been changed so that they are more intuitive in the case of often
  used items. We understand that this may frustrate some users and apologize,
  while noting that menu shortcuts can always be customized by copying the
  stdmenus.inc file to the user directory and editing it.


!!Documents compilation process and images conversion

* LyX now uses utf8 encoding per default for all languages. This does not affect
  existing documents. Note that LyX also does not touch personal defaults and templates.
  That is to say, if you still see traditional encoding preset for new documents,
  you can change that by selecting "Unicode (utf8) [default]" and hitting "Save
  as Documents Defaults" afterwards. Your personal templates need to be changed manually
  if desired.

* LyX defaults to the "HE8" LaTeX font encoding with Hebrew if the
  "Culmus" LaTeX fonts are installed. 

!!!The following pref variables were added in 2.4:



!!!The following pref variables were changed in 2.4:



!!!The following pref variables are obsoleted in 2.4:

* \font_encoding
  The font encoding is now automatically set depending on the document
  fonts and languages.

* \use_qimage
  This is no longer necessary due to the rewrite of the painter.

* \use_pixmap_cacheqimage
  There is no evidence that this painting mode was useful anymore.

* \date_insert_format
  The function date-insert has been removed and superseded by info-insert date.
  The latter does not need a pref value anymore.


!!!The following new LyX functions have been introduced in 2.4:

* paragraph-select is a new convenience function to select the paragraph
  surrounding the actual cursor position.

* buffer-write-as-template is a new convenience function to ease saving a document
  in the (personal) templates folder.

* export-cancel: Used to cancel background export processes.

* tabular-style-insert: Insert a table in a specified style.


!!!The following LyX functions have been changed in 2.4:

* set-graphics-group was renamed to graphics-set-group.

* info-insert buffer vcs-*: renamed to info-insert vcs *

* file-insert: optional second parameter "ignorelang" to make the insertion
  ignore the inserted file's main language (and rather adapt it to the insertion
  context's language).


!!!The following LyX functions have been removed in 2.4:

* date-insert: obsoleted by info-insert date.



!!!The following LyX documents have been moved in 2.4:

* As a result of a major restructuring of the templates and example
  directories, almost all examples and templates files have been renamed and
  moved to subfolders that reflect the layout category.
  The files now have much more decriptive (and longer) names, and they use
  URL encoding for specific special characters such as '(', ')' and '&'.
  Notably also the file that opens for new users has been renamed (from
  splash.lyx to Welcome.lyx).


!!!The following new folders have been added to the LyX directory

* The examples and templates directories have been completely re-organized.
  They are now much more structured (by means of layout categories) and thus
  consist of many new subfolders. 



!!!The following preferences files have been removed from the tarball in 2.4:



!!!The following metadata files have been added to the tarball in 2.4:



!!Changes with respect to external programs and libraries in 2.4:

* The Qt5 libraries are now used by default. In order to link against
  Qt4 the configure option --disable-qt5 has to be used.



!!Known issues in version 2.4.0

* See http://www.lyx.org/trac/wiki/BugTrackerHome


!!Caveats when upgrading from earlier versions to 2.4.x

* Autotools monolithic build option for building LyX binaries was removed,
  for compilation speedup use parallel building on multiple cores instead.

!! If upgrading from a LyX version before 2.3.0

* Please additionally see the release notes from the versions in-between:
  https://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/ReleaseNotes

* Several ttf fonts (esint10.ttf, stmary10.ttf, wasy10.ttf) were changed
  to reflect the fact that newer Qt libraries do not support displaying certain
  codepoints anymore (bug #8493, #10161). 
  Distribution packagers need to repack those font files in case they are
  delivering the fonts as a separated package dependent from core LyX.