X-Git-Url: https://git.lyx.org/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=ANNOUNCE;h=1402d8cb3eb7ae75b9ae36f0ac5135b284083148;hb=d3960356066ff6189408bdea93fdc9abdcb7a1cf;hp=fb7fc89f0f32c0a4e10314a14bed3221b8e34329;hpb=cf8b0b747b77ff7f9669ca9e0d41443d33613fb2;p=lyx.git diff --git a/ANNOUNCE b/ANNOUNCE index fb7fc89f0f..1402d8cb3e 100644 --- a/ANNOUNCE +++ b/ANNOUNCE @@ -1,171 +1,244 @@ -Public release of LyX version 1.3.0 +Public release of LyX version 1.5.0 (beta 3) =================================== -We are glad to announce the release of LyX 1.3.0. +We are glad to announce the release of LyX 1.5.0 (beta 3). -As with the previous major version 1.2.0, many things make this new -release an exciting one. One of the major projects that has been going -on behind the scenes is the so-called GUI-independence project. We are -glad to announce that version 1.3.0 shows the first results of this. -LyX now comes in two flavours: Qt-LyX and xforms-LyX! +Compared with the previous beta release we have fixed several bugs +and added some improvements, namely a new inset to support code listings. + +We have enabled the converter file cache by default. + +Internally we have renamed files to follow a consistent name pattern, +this will allow an easier navigation of the source code thus simplifying +bug fixing. + +Compared with the latest stable release, this is the culmination of +one year of hard work, and we sincerely hope you will enjoy the +results. The changes are too numerous to summarize in a few words, +with initial unicode support being the flagship among the new +features, see the end of this announcement for details. + +As usual with a major release, 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. + +The file RELEASE-NOTES lists some known issues with this release +compared to the latest stable release (LyX 1.4.4). An updated list of +issues might later be found at http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/ReleaseNotes -Although this is the most visible change in version 1.3, this should not -hide the fact that the `under the hood' changes to the code have again -been very important. A detailed list can be found below. In case you are wondering what LyX is, here is what http://www.lyx.org/ has to say on the subject: - LyX is an advanced open source document processor that encourages an - approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their - appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of - visual layout to the software. + 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 runs on many Unix platforms (including MacOS X), OS/2, and under - Windows/Cygwin. Note that all these ports use the same xforms interface - and therefore need an X server. + 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. -You can download LyX 1.3.0 here : + 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. - ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/stable/lyx-1.3.0.tar.gz - ftp://ftp.devel.lyx.org/pub/lyx/lyx-1.3.0.tar.gz + 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. -and it should shortly propagate to the following mirrors : +You can download LyX 1.5.0beta3 here (the .bz2 are compressed with +bzip2, which yields smaller files): - ftp://ftp.sdsc.edu/pub/other/lyx/stable/lyx-1.3.0.tar.gz - ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/lyx/stable/lyx-1.3.0.tar.gz - ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/publishing/tex/lyx/stable/lyx-1.3.0.tar.gz - ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/X11/LyX/stable/lyx-1.3.0.tar.gz - ftp://ftp.icm.edu.pl/vol/rzm0/lyx/stable/lyx-1.3.0.tar.gz + ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/devel/lyx-1.5.0beta3.tar.gz + ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/devel/lyx-1.5.0beta3.tar.bz2 +Note that due to the amount of changes no patch is provided to upgrade +from version 1.4.4. -Prebuild binaries (mainly rpms for linux distributions) should soon be -available at - ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/bin/1.3.0 - -If you find what you think is a bug in LyX 1.3.0, you may either -e-mail the LyX user's mailing list (lyx-users@lists.lyx.org), or open +Prebuilt binaries (rpms for linux distributions, Mac OS X and Windows +installers) should soon be available at + ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/devel/ + + +If you find what you think is a bug in LyX 1.5.0beta3, 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/, and e-mail the LyX user's list if you -can't find an answer there. +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! The LyX team. -New features -============ - -** Qt frontend - -This is of course the most visible new feature. This frontend supports -either Qt 2.x or 3.x and is mostly feature complete. Note that some -of the dialogs are slightly different in design, but are generally -functionally equivalent. - -Note that if Qt is using Xft2/fontconfig, you may need to install the -latex-ttf-fonts package on ftp://ftp.lyx.org/ to get maths symbols -displayed properly. - -** Xforms frontend - -The advent of the Qt frontend does not mean that the historical xforms -frontend is dead. Actually, it is still the one which is the best -implemented, because we have had more time to polish it. In this release, -most of the dialogs have been redesigned to be tighter. - -Note also that the xforms library has been very recently updated to -version 1.0. This version has been released under the LGPL (Lesser -General Public License), and the availability of the source means that -many bugs that have been plaguing LyX have been fixed in xforms. You -are advised to upgrade to xforms 1.0 to enjoy all these new fixes. -In fact, LyX 1.3.0 no longer supports versions of xforms older than 0.89.5. - -In most cases the dialogs have been designed to make it impossible to input -invalid parameters. The exception to this rule is the input of length data. -Power LaTeX users can still input obtuse "glue lengths", but the widgets are -highlighted in red if this input is invalid or incomplete. This visual -feedback makes it easy to see why LyX won't allow you to Apply your changes. - -** Gnome frontend - -Unfortunately, the development of the Gnome frontend has mostly -stopped recently and we have therefore chosen to disable it. We -strongly invite anyone willing to revive this port to volunteer on the -developer's list. - -** Instant preview - -preview-latex is an emacs package for LaTeX that allows "instant previews" -of LaTeX code, so you can immediately see the visual rendering of the -LaTeX in the document. Its project home page can be found at -http://sourceforge.net/projects/preview-latex. With the help of David -Kastrup, the author, LyX 1.3.0 can harness this functionality to -allow instant previews in the LyX window of math equations and -figures. This feature can be immensely useful, ensuring that the -rendering of your equation will look right in the final output. The -preview is only displayed (if enabled) when you're not editing the -actual equation, so it's unobtrusive too. - -** Math editor - -There have been a few visible and some not-so-visible changes. On the -visible side we have better visual feedback regarding the structure of -a formula, showing the nesting by small purple decorations in the -formula itself and revealing the names of the nesting levels in the -minibuffer. There is now native support for symbols from the wasy -package containing e.g. the zodiac symbols. New also is the internal -structure of font changes which are now proper "insets", just like -anything else from a square root to an array. This not only simplifies -the code greatly but also allows the same editing tricks as for the -"regular" math. However, it was not possible to tweak the visible -behaviour to mimic 1.2 in all cases, so this might take some time to -get accustomed to. On the pro side, the new structure allowed -support for LaTeX's \mbox and \fbox to be implemented and general -"switching back to text mode within math", so a lot of "evil red text" -trickery is not needed anymore. The most visible changes are the following: - -- Pressing { and } will insert LaTeX's \{ and \} which show up as { } - in the printout. To get LaTeX's {} nesting, you need to type \{. - -- Fonts changes now really nest. Repeated application of a font change - will result in nested font changes! To remove a font change without - removing the "contents", it is now possible to "pull the argument" - like in other insets, i.e. put the cursor in the first position of - the inset and press 'backspace'. - -** Reading old files - -LyX now has a new script lyx2lyx which enables the reading of any file -produced by LyX versions as old as 0.12. Work is in progress on files -created with LyX 0.10 (LyX 1.4 time-line) and still older files are -in the forge. Basically if lyx wrote it LyX will read it. :-) - -There is also a strong demand to be able to read files produced by -_newer_ versions of LyX. While lyx2lyx has the infrastructure in place -to do such things, the filters to `downgrade' LyX files (from 1.3.0 to -1.2.x, for example) have not yet been written. - -** Miscellaneous changes - -- LyX now automatically uses TeX fonts for screen rendering of math - equations if they are available (it is not necessary anymore to - configure your font server). - -- The Insert>Short Title allows the addition of an optional text - for section headings and captions that is designed to be used in - tables of contents. - -- The Insert>Float>Floatflt Figure menu item restores the ability - to wrap text around an image which was present in 1.1.6 and - removed in 1.2.0 - -- If you configure with --with-pspell (which uses the PSpell library for - spellchecking), you will be able to automatically spell-check - multi-language documents, assuming you have the right dictionaries - installed. +What's new in version 1.5.0 (beta 3)? +---------------------------- + +* Unicode + +LyX 1.5's big goal was to use unicode internally and so resolve a slew +of existing problems with special characters and non-alphabetic +languages. LyX 1.5 is able to output unicode (in addition to +encodings current available), so that you can use LaTeX's new utf8 +encoding or such brand new typesetting systems as XeTeX. +Since the change to unicode touched much of the code base and some +areas still need a cleanup it is very likely that some bugs related to +the unicode transition still exist. Please have a look at the Known +bugs in LyX 1.5 page if you encounter a bug that seems to be related +to unicode. If it's not there, then please report it to the lyx-devel +mailing list. + +* Integrated CJK support + +The very first result of the Unicode transition is that we have finally +merged in the externally maintained CJK-LyX branch. +The languages Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are now supported in +the user interface. +Note that from now on, former encoding settings for these languages +done via ERT or the document preamble will lead to LaTeX-errors! + +* Multiple views of the same buffer + +LyX can now display multiple views of the same buffer. I.e., you can +now open a single document in multiple windows and work on different +parts of it synchronously. + +* Outliner and embedded TOC + +LyX has another long-awaited feature: a basic outliner mode, in which +you can move chapters and sections around in the Table of Contents +dialog. (The outliner has been backported and was released with LyX +1.4.4.) The TOC dialog is now a dock widget, embedded in the main window. + +* Session management + +LyX is now able to remember window size and position and it will +reopen the documents you worked on last time around. If you've +selected the feature in the Preferences dialog, it'll even move the +cursor to the place you were working on last! Furthermore, toolbars +can (finally!) be switched on/off in View->Toolbars and moved about in +the LyX window. The session management will remember their state. + +* Source code Viewer + +As a kind of "anti-preview-latex", a dialog was implemented that lets +you view the source code of a given paragraph/selection or the whole +document. + +* New Font Selection Interface + +LyX's font selection abilities have been one of its weakest and most +outdated components. A completely new interface was implemented that +provides access to the power of LaTeX's font selection scheme. + +* Tabular extensions + +LyX's table support is certainly less powerful than that of +LaTeX. support for the booktabs package was implemented, which +provides beautiful and elegant tabulars. + + +* Nomenclatures + +Native LyX support for the nomencl package was implemented. With this, +you can treat your document with all sorts of nomenclatures, +glossaries and fancy notations. + +* Tabbed Widget + +LyX now uses tabbed widgets to display multiple documents. + +* Enhanced Math Toolbars + +The math toolbar was enhanced significantly. Drop down menus were +added, that allowed to integrate all of the math panel' content to the +math toolbars. +Since this input method is much easier than the clumsy panel, the math +panel itself has been removed and superseded by the toolbars. + +* Frontend News + +LyX 1.5 will use the Qt4 toolkit. This is especially good news for +Windows users, since there's an official, GPL version of Qt4. They no +longer have to rely on an unofficial port of the Unix Qt3 library to +Windows. The good old XForms frontend went the way of the dodo. It +was both hated and loved, and certainly shaped the unique look of LyX +in the past. It was finally killed off, however, by the switch to +unicode. The Qt3 frontend was removed. The work on the GTK frontend +has been transferred to a branch because its development has +essentially stalled. + +* Change tracking enhancements + +Major parts of the change tracking code were rewritten addressing +several problems that existed in the existing implementation. + +* Converter file cache + +A cache for converted files, such as included figures, was +implemented. This can speed up LyX's performance considerably when +displaying documents with many included figures that need conversion +to a format that can be rendered on screen. The converter file cache +is enabled by default. + +The default maximum age of a cached file is 6 months. You can change +that with the line + + \converter_cache_maxage xxx + +where xxx is the maximum age in seconds, in your preferences file. + +* Unified Windows installer + +The two windows installers are being merged and bug reports regarding +both installers are welcome. + +* Program listings + +The traditional way to insert program listings in LyX involves the use +of the LyX-Code style. This option works quite well for short snippets but +does not support in-line code segments or the inclusion of external files. + +Using the listings latex package as the backend a new inset was added that +supports all these three ways of listing computer programs. + +* Minor user interface improvements + +Apart from the described major changes, several minor improvements of +the user interface have been made, such as: + + - Syntax highlighting for the user preamble and the LaTeX log file + - Better parsing of BibTeX databases (in the citation dialog) + - Support optional argument for environments + +* Enhanced clipboard/selection handling + +Clipboard has been tuned to work better with other applications. Parallel +to clipboard usages, the *nix way of using middle-button to paste +selected text is enhanced, and is also available under windows (but +within lyx only). Selection of lyx text is now persistent in that +you can paste the selected text using middle button multiple times, +even after the selection has been cleared. + + +* Under the hood + +As usual, one big task has been the ongoing code cleanup of the LyX +core. Performing this cleanup makes the code more understandable and +easier to maintain. It also leads inevitably to a more robust +application. Nonetheless, it's an unfortunate fact of life that ugly +code is sometimes faster than pretty code. We're well aware that LyX +1.4 is slower than LyX 1.3. One important goal of this 1.5 development +series has been to bring this speed back. +** Bug fixes +Lots of long-lasting bugs have been fixed, as documented in LyX +bugzilla. Probably some new ones have been introduced instead ;-)