lyx_mirror/development/lyx3/LyX3-Tasks

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This is a tasklist/todo list for the 0.13.x development series. We
should perhaps name these seies LyX3 as a common name. As I see it
there are three major tasks to be done:

	o Buffer structure rewrite
		So that it will be easier to expand for
		new and unknow future features.
		The main problems with the current structure is that
		is intended to be viewed by only one window at the
		time. It also uses characters as the smallest unit, it
		would probably be better to use something a bit
		bigger.
		The LyXText class does not necessarily need to change
		a lot, it could be per-view. However all the special
		code in it needs to be (re)moved. Also a lot of the 
		functionality needs to be relocated.
	o GUI independence.
		Should be a compile time switch what gui (toolkit)
		you wish to use. We are going to support Xforms first,
		and I am sure that GTK and Qt will follow soon. I also
		plan to do support for Fl (even a text only toolkit
		should be possible. ncurses perhaps. Even the
		lyxserver could be a special case of this: a view with
		no view being able to coexist with other views or alone)
		We will do this by providing an interface all the
		toolkits will need to follow. Functions that the LyX
		core will expect to be there. 

When these three is finished, we will probably declare a code freeze
and try to release a new version. Hopefully other features has also
been added, and none removed.


====================

In addition to these there are a lot of small tasks that should be
performed, that has no direct bearing on features, but are more geared
towards code quality:

	o always try to use POSIX commands.
	o switch to use POSIX signals
	o make as much as possible of the code reentreanant(?)
		should make it easier to move to threads later. Albeit
	        this is not a huge goal we have some parts of the code
	        that would benefit from threads. (forking is not that
	        nice...) 
	o signal slot mechanism
	        We are going to use the signal/slot implementation
	        found in libsigc++. This will hopefully give us better
	        interface, leaner code, typesafe "callbacks". I have
		been using signal/slots for other projects and it works
		like a charm.
	o other code rewrites to make multiple buffers/windows
	  possible, without too much hassle.
		- get rid of most of the global variables. In
	          perticular current_view is a problem.
		- non shared variables in shared structures 
	o make source documentation better. Remember that the better
	  we document LyX internals the easier is it for new
	  developers to begin working on LyX.


Some other things related to structure and services in the code:
	o class FileInfo does way too much, move the unneeded parts to
	  a super class or friends.
	o a process manager class to handle execution of external
	  commands.
		- ensure that not too many commands are executed at
		  the same time.
		- ensure that non-compatible commands are running at
		  the same time. 
		- to setup file descriptors where communicating with
		  the processes can take place.
	o pass an inforeceiver around in the object structure.
	  (this instead of passing minibuffers, and lyxerrors.)

================

Also a lot of new features are thought of, only some of these are likely
to make it into 0.14:

	o rewrite of table code. Should probably be written as some
	  kind of an inset. At least get the code out of the kernel.
		- colortbl  -multirow
		- hhline    -multicolumn
		- dcolumn
	o index support (and multiple indeces support)
		- multind ?
	o tocs for each section
		- minitoc
	o multiple table of contentes
		- multitoc
	o trivlist?
	o better version control (both document and file wise)
		- version.sty
		- cvs
		- sccs 
	o character styles (similar to emph and noun)
		Will make a lot of small things conceptual instead of
		specific. Will be alot easier to change the
		presentation of a filename f.ex. This is actually very
		important, because this is where the user can't be
		conceptual in the current version.
	o macro support. Similar to the math-macro support, but
	  usable in regular text too.
	o support for abbrevations (static macros)
	o add a incremental search function.
	o change the "Find and Replace" to Query Replace.
	o better/more search functions:
		- replace & find next
		- replace & find previous
		We should perhaps try to make the interface a bit
		emacs like, that should at least give us the 
		features we want.
	o improved template support.
	o collapse "New" and "New from Template" into one item.
	o make lyx recognize some file types (i.e. gzipped) and do
	  the right thing when encountering them.
	o We should look at all the LyX specific paragraph styles and
	  check carefully that we really need them. We should also try
	  to collapse some of them into singel items (i.e. chapter and
	  chapter*)
	o the "LyX-Code" environment should be removed. Add a verbatim
	  environment instead.
	o tabbing support
		 This would be a special inset that is line based (no
	  breaking of lines), where tabstops can be set and used.

	o picture support
		 A special insets with some basic drawing
		 capabilities. 

	o better graphics support
		 I have begun doing something about this. There are
	  several things here that need to be dont. We have alreay
	  decided to use graphicx.sty instead of graphics.sty. This
	  makes several things easier. There is also some work in
	  progress to separate the inset and the creation of the Xpm
	  (Ximages) completely. I imagin this as the InsetGraphics
	  asking a GraphicsCache for a graphics with certain
	  parameters set and get a handle to the finished
	  transformation of the graphics. Hopefully this should make
	  it quite easy for LyX to support several/many graphics
	  formats, both on screen and on hard copy. 

	o rotating and scaling of text
	o PSTricks (we should be able to support some of this package)
	o better reference support
		- varioref
	o better citation support
		Especially the support for some of the main
		bibtex supplied styles are needed. (harvard natbib...)
		A complete support for natbib should perhaps be enough.
	o improved spellchecker
		- an ispell class should be made, this should
		  take care of communicating with the ispell
		  process.
	o online configuration
		So that users should not need to edit lyxrc
		manualy. This has now been "half" done; it is now
	        possible to save the current configuration with the
	        lyx command "preferences-save". We need to add code so
	        that the preferences can be set from inside LyX too.
	o better fontsupport
		T1-lib font renderer.
	o better latex code quality
		This means reading LaTeX books to get an better idea
		on how things are done in the latex world. 
	o perhaps find better names for the paragraph styles
	  "paragraph" and "subparagraph"
	o support for filecontents
		This can make a latex document selfcontained, all the
		needed graphics can be in the document.
	o support for optional args to latex commands
		- For sectioning commands I have an idea on how we can
		  do this: have a popup on RMB to set properties.
	o pdf support
		pdftex
	o hyperlink support
		- url.sty (or better packages)
		- hyperref.sty
	o references to external documents
		- xr.sty
	o better babel support
		- make it possible to tune the language strings
		- the possibility for several languages in the same
		  document. 
	o title page support
	o draft copy
		- draftcopy.sty
	o better float support (allow user to make its own floats)
	o support newtheorem (allow user to make its own thorem like envirs)
	o a bit more wysiwyg where it is appropiate.
		- show bullets the way they will be on paper
		- show a few more characters as they will be on paper
		  (--, ---)
	o online generation of new paragraph styles (or editing or old
	  ones)
	o support for inlined sectioning commands (i.e. \paragraph{} )
	o we should parse the command line ourselves.
	o remove support for XResources, with multiple toolkits it
	  will be impossible to manage. And they are not very needed
	  either.
	o the possebility to collapse parts of the document.
	  (i.e. collapse the contents of a section. Would make moving
	   parts of the document around very easy)
	o better LyXServer support
		- perhaps use UNIX sockets instead of pipes
		- make a decent protocol with return codes.
		- make it indepentent of the GUI
		- prob: concurrency (locks)
	o other packages to support:
		- listings.sty
		- keyval (we should not use it directly, but know how
			to parse options for it.)
		- here.sty
		- ulem.sty
		- indentfirst.sty
		- lscape.sty

I am sure others has a list as long as mine...


======================

We should also do some work to enhance the support we already have for
some packages, I think these are the packages supported by 0.12:
	- longtable	- color (papercolor boxes?)
	- setspace (should support setting spacing on individual paragraphs)
	- psnffs packages
	- geometry	- makeidx
	- verbatim	- algorithm
	- inputenc	- fancyhdr (we only have _very_ basic support)
	- fontenc	- a4
	- graphics	- a4wide

(I am sure I have forgot some, please fill me in.)


======================

If you have other wishes for features, or comments, please let us know.

	Lgb

Interesting links:

http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/11/30/943979651.html
http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/12/09/944757708.html