lyx_mirror/development/lyx3/LyX3-Tasks

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-*- text -*-
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 I am sure mathed improvements. (Alejandro's department)
- better macro support
- better amsmath support
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