-Public release of LyX version 1.4.0
-===================================
-
-We are glad to announce the release of LyX 1.4.0.
-
-It is the culmination of 3 years of hard work, and we sincerely hope
-this you will enjoy the results. The changes are too numerous to
-summarize in a few words, jump directly to the end of this message if
-you want to know more.
-
-As usual with major releases, a lot of work that is not directly
-visible has taken place. The core of LyX has seen more cleanups and
-some of the new features are the direct results of this work.
-
-See the file RELEASE-NOTES for some known problems in that release.
-
-In case you are wondering what LyX is, here is what
-http://www.lyx.org/ has to say on the subject:
-
- LyX is a document processor that encourages an approach to writing
- based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. It
- is released under a Free Software / Open Source license.
-
- LyX is for people that write and want their writing to look great,
- right out of the box. No more endless tinkering with formatting
- details, 'finger painting' font attributes or futzing around with page
- boundaries. You just write. In the background, Prof. Knuth's legendary
- TeX typesetting engine makes you look good.
-
- On screen, LyX looks like any word processor; its printed output -- or
- richly cross-referenced PDF, just as readily produced -- looks like
- nothing else. Gone are the days of industrially bland .docs, all
- looking similarly not-quite-right, yet coming out unpredictably
- different on different printer drivers. Gone are the crashes 'eating'
- your dissertation the evening before going to press.
-
- LyX is stable and fully featured. It is a multi-platform, fully
- internationalized application running natively on Unix/Linux and the
- Macintosh and modern Windows platforms.
-
-You can download LyX 1.4.0 here (the .bz2 are compressed with bzip2,
-which yields smaller files):
-
- ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/stable/lyx-1.4.0.tar.gz
- ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/stable/lyx-1.4.0.tar.bz2
- ftp://ftp.devel.lyx.org/pub/lyx/lyx-1.4.0.tar.gz
- ftp://ftp.devel.lyx.org/pub/lyx/lyx-1.4.0.tar.bz2
-
-and it should propagate shortly to the following mirrors (which will also host
-the .bz2 versions):
-
- http://lyx.mirror.fr/stable/lyx-1.4.0.tar.gz
- ftp://ftp.sdsc.edu/pub/other/lyx/stable/lyx-1.4.0.tar.gz
- ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/lyx/stable/lyx-1.4.0.tar.gz
- ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/publishing/tex/lyx/stable/lyx-1.4.0.tar.gz
- ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/X11/LyX/stable/lyx-1.4.0.tar.gz
-
-Note that no patch is provided to upgrade from version 1.3.7.
-
-Prebuilt binaries (rpms for linux distributions, Mac OS X and Windows
-installers) should soon be available at
- ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/bin/1.4.0/
-
-
-If you find what you think is a bug in LyX 1.4.0, you may either
-e-mail the LyX developers' mailing list (lyx-devel @ lists.lyx.org), or open
-a bug report at http://bugzilla.lyx.org
-
-If you're having trouble using the new version of LyX, or have a question,
-first check out http://www.lyx.org/help/. If you can't find the answer there,
-e-mail the LyX users' list (lyx-users @ lists.lyx.org).
-
-Enjoy!
+Public release of LyX version 2.4.0 RC4
+=========================================
+
+We are proud to announce the first public release candidate of the new LyX 2.4
+series. This pre-release is meant for testing and should not be used for
+serious work. For curious users who would like to test in order to help catch
+bugs before the 2.4.0 release, please back up all of your documents and be
+prepared for the worst to happen. Most users (who desire a stable LyX version)
+should not use this pre-release.
+
+The 2.4 series has a rich set of new features compared to the current stable
+series. An overview of the new features can be found here:
+
+ https://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/NewInLyX24
+
+As this release ships with new features, we strongly recommend that packagers
+of LyX on various platforms and distributions read RELEASE-NOTES in order to
+get the new dependencies right.
+
+You can download LyX 2.4.0 RC4 from http://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/devel/ or
+from a mirror listed at https://www.lyx.org/Download#toc11.
+
+We appreciate your help in testing this pre-release!
+
+If a file from an earlier version of LyX is opened *and saved* with
+any version of 2.4.x, then the original file will automatically be
+backed up. The backup file will be found in the backup directory, if one
+is set under Tools> Preferences> Paths, or else in the same folder as
+the original file, if no backup directory is set. The filename of the
+backup file will be:
+ ORIGNAME-lyxformat-NUM.lyx~
+where NUM is the LyX format number of the original file. In the case of
+2.3.x file, this will be 544, but in the case of older files it will be
+different.
+
+The file RELEASE-NOTES also lists some known issues and problems compared
+to the current stable releases (LyX 2.3.x).
+
+As with any major release, this one comes with a lot of new features but
+also some bugs. If you think you have found a bug in LyX 2.4.0 RC4, either
+email the LyX developers' mailing list (lyx-devel at lists.lyx.org),
+or open a bug report at https://www.lyx.org/trac/wiki/BugTrackerHome.
+Please specify if the behavior you are reporting is different from behavior
+in a previous LyX version.
+
+If you have trouble using LyX or have a question, consult the
+documentation that comes with LyX (under Help) and the LyX wiki, which you
+will find at https://wiki.lyx.org/. You can also send email to the LyX users'
+list (lyx-users at lists.lyx.org).
The LyX team.
-
-
-
-What's new in version 1.4.0?
-----------------------------
-
-** Improved user interface
-
-LyX 1.4 has a re-designed layout for the menus, designed to decrease
-clutter and maximise productivity. Several menu items (in the Edit
-menu) are now context-sensitive, so they only appear when needed. For
-the die-hard old LyX users, the older layout (referred to as the
-classic UI) is still available, for now.
-
-It's now possible to define multiple toolbars as seen in other
-editors. By default, the new LyX release has two toolbars displayed,
-the standard one (similar to the static toolbar in LyX 1.3), plus the
-extra toolbar. In addition, there are two pre-defined toolbars
-available: one for tables, and one for math.
-
-Another new feature worth mentioning is popup toolbars: you can set a
-toolbar such that it only appears when editing math, or when editing a
-table.
-
-** Change tracking
-
-This new feature, similar to that found in Microsoft Word and others,
-makes collaboration on a document a cinch. It provides a way to track
-changes made to a document, and later approve, reject, or modify such
-changes.
-
-** Much better conversion from .tex to .lyx
-
-The ancient and unloved Perl script, reLyX has finally bitten the dust
-and been replaced by the brand new and shiny tex2lyx. tex2lyx's LaTeX
-parser follows most of the rules of the real TeX and so is already
-much more powerful than reLyX ever was.
-
-** Character styles
-
-For a system that purports to make it easy to write documents full of
-logical (as opposed to visual markup), LyX has always had one glaring
-omission: no character styles. LyX 1.4 goes some way towards
-addressing this defect, although there's no dialog to define your own
-styles.
-
-
-** Branches
-
-The teacher who's setting an exam obviously doesn't want her pupils
-seeing the answers, yet having questions and answers in the same
-document will make the life of the markers of that exam much easier.
-
-That's just one example of someone who would benefit from LyX's new
-"branches" feature. In fact, anyone who writes documents which have
-more than one target audience will find this feature useful.
-
-** Minipages evolve to Boxes
-
-In 1.3, LyX only had native support for plain minipages. Now you can
-use a wide range of box types and decorations directly from the LyX
-GUI
-
-** Notes
-
-LyX now has three different Notes for you to add to your document from
-the Insert>Note menu:
-
-- the "LyX Note" is not exported to LaTeX, as now. The "Comment" is
-- exported to LaTeX as a comment environment and is not processed
- further.
-- The Greyed Out note is visible in your PostScript or PDF output as,
- well, greyed-out text.
-
-** Better language and numbering on screen
-
-Two features help to make the screen rendering closer to the printed output:
-
-- the labels attached to layouts like Chapter are now translated in
- the language of the document, which may be different from the
- language of the menus;
-- sectioning headers and theorems are now numbered according to the
- document class specifications.
-
-** Word count
-
-Yes, it's finally there! Tools>Count Words will give you a word
-count of the document or of the current selection.
-
-** Error Lists
-
-Nasty "error boxes" were eliminated in favor of a dialog with a list
-of errors popping up at compilation time.
-
-** Improved bibliography support
-
-- LyX's support for natbib has been enhanced. Now, also the mysterious
- "before citation" field is supported;
-- We have added support for jurabib, an amazing package to produce
- flexible citations that are especially well suited for the humanities
- and law fields;
-- Support for sectioned bibliographies (bibtopic) has been added;
-- the way bibtex is called is now customizable (as is the way the
- index processor is invoked).
-
-** Improved microtypography support
-
-LyX aims to produce superior typography. With 1.4, it supports:
-
-- more blank characters (e.g. a "thin space", which should stand here
- between "e." and "g.");
-- inner and outer quotation marks without the hassle of toggling the
- style in the documents dialog. Just use the Alt key.
-- the handling of figure and table alignment inside floats has been
- improved. You can now use the paragraph dialog without getting too
- much space between figure/table and caption.
-
-** Small bits
-
-- Figure and table floats can be rotated sideways
-
-- The external xfig inset has been improved especially with regard to
- pdf generation
-
-- The graphics inset dialog has now an "edit" button that allows to
- edit the included figure
-
-- For index generation, xindy can be used instead of makeindex, which
- has poor support for other than English index sorting.
-
-** Bug fixes
-
-Lots of long-lasting bugs have been fixed, as documented in LyX
-bugzilla. Probably some new ones have been introduced instead ;-)
-
-
+https://www.lyx.org