lyx_mirror/src/mathed/BUGS

Items marked with

  //   - are probably fixed, the reporter is asked to verify this
         and report success or failure

  ??   - are not reproducable, the reporter is asked to verify this
         and report success or failure

  ::   - are questions or comments to the reporter, containing question
         on how to reproduce the bug exactly or things like that

  !!   - mark "not a bug, a feature" replies, usually with a request for
         further discussion

	pp   - partially fixed

Unmarked items are known unfixed but probably unverified bugs.

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General hints for bug reports:

  - keep the items small

  - do not provide excessive information on how to reproduce the bug
    if this is obvious

  - if a bug is partly fixed, report it as "fixed" and a new bug item
    that contains the unfixed part only

  - check this list regularly, comment on the marked items.

  - plain ASCII text please, not much more than 70 chars per column

Dekel:

- InsetFormula::validate is broken


Eran Tromer:


- When selecting, maybe give a visual indication of the "original"
  anchor, when it differs from the "actual" one.

Rainer Dorsch:

- I know the latex code of a lot of math symbols displayed by lyx,
  but not all of them. Thus I have to use the math panel for only a single
  symbol in a formula. I think it would be very useful, if the latex code
  of the symbol would be displayed as a hint, if the mouse positioned over
  it.


Marcus (Suran@gmx.net)

- In math-mode I can switch back to text-mode in a formula but then I am
  not able to type Umlauts.

- If the math-panel has the focus I can type text but not switch into
  math-mode or use some of the other keyboard-shortcuts.


From: Álvaro Tejero Cantero <alvaro@antalia.com>

- I suggest creating a different "kewybinding namespace" for the formulas,
 since you could put to good use all those keybindings from the menu (M-?,
 C-?) thath currently do their job PLUS getting you out of the formula.
 Seriously, it'd be great to have more keys free, so M-d t would be time
 derivative and M-d ? derivative with respect to the variable ?. And so on.

- I'm no experienced C++ programmer, but if you consider it appropriate, I
 could write a scritp in python for this one (I'm also very optimistic). Tell
 me what you think:

   Flattening macros. Sometimes it's annoying the fact that once you have
 written a macro, you can't touch at it's "constant parts". I call flattening
 to the process of substituting all macros with LaTeX code.

   Task: designing a macro substitution system that reads from a file
 (possibly the same file as the document's) the macros and parses the document
 doing the appropriate replacements

  This is very useful, because sometimes you have a big expression in a macro
 and you want to change an index only. What do you do then?. You retype
 everything (perhaps several times in the document) or you create extremely
 generic and parametrizable macros that aren't very fast to fill in the
 majority of cases.


- cut&paste inside math-mode doesn't work the X fashion (middle button doesn't
 paste anything).

- I remember having heard that a search-replace function was planned, so I
 won't repeat that. Only that the flattening option would be then easier to
 implement on top of that.

- Some math symbols aren't very well supported (to my knowledge). I'm
  thinking of [] options.

Jules Bean:

a) If something's easy & quick in LaTeX then it should be easy & quick in
LyX (unless it really isn't very common).  b) Actions which are used
frequently should be a single key-press, even if that's not very easy to
remember. You learn it.  c) Actions which are used rarely should be
mnemonic -- easy to remember -- even if they are multiple keypresses.
Things you do rarely you care less about the time it takes to perform.

As an aside, you may think that I'm whining over nothing. However, when
you enter math mode as often as I do (often more than once a sentence) it
gets very annoying, especially as compared to simply typing '$' in plain
emacs. Also, you may say 'why don't you just change your bindings file?'. I
will ;) but I wanted to start some discussion on this since it can benefit
everyone!

More serious, though, than the number of characters which need to be typed
is the confusing nature of the command. 'M-c m', typed once, puts you into
math-mode. However, typing 'M-c m' again doesn't put you out of math-mode
--- it puts you into math-text mode. Then hitting it again puts you back
into normal math-mode.  IMO, 'modal' keys should either be idempotent (so
hitting it the second time does nothing) or self-inverting. In fact, the
inverse to 'M-c m' is either 'ESC' or simply a space typed at the end of
the block --- which is confusing, since they're not of the same 'shape' as
the command that got you in there.

Now, I'm not saying that 'space' shouldn't be allowed as a short-cut to get
you out of math-mode; it's a most useful and natural one, I like it a lot.
However, on balance I think M-c m should also have that effect.

3) Math-mode inconsistencies

Sometimes 'the same action' has the same keystroke both within and
without math-mode. This is very sensible. However, it is very annoying when
they don't behave the way you're expecting them to.

For example, 'M-c e' puts you into 'emphasise' mode.  Ignoring the fact
that in text mode this is italics, and in math-mode it stands for the
calligraphic character set, I think of these as the same action, so I like
the fact that they have the same keys. However, in math-mode, 'M-c e' is
idempotent, (and you need 'M-c space' to get back into normal) whereas in
text-mode 'M-c e' is self-inverse. These are the two possibilities I listed
as acceptable before, but consistency would be nice ;-) IMO, self-inverse
would be best for both.

5) Proposal : a 'ligatures' or 'autocorrect' system

One of the very minor, but useful, features of TeX is the way it lets you
type the nearest approximation to what you want using a 'typewriter
keyboard', and substitutes the typographically neat equivalent. In
particular, 'fancy' quotes (") and en and em dashes (---). I propose that
this UI element could be taken up a level into LyX, with a system that does
the following (for example):

-> becomes \rightarrow
<- becomes \leftarrow
=> becomes \Rightarrow (etc..)
==> becomes \Longrightarrow (etc..)

This may only be appropriate in math mode, of course.  This family bug me
in particular because they take ages to type using a \-escape. Undoubtedly
sharp minds will think of others, and also we need some way of actually
typing those sequences as literals when we want them.

6) Scope macros:

The current macro system is clever, but could be neater. One improvement
I'd like is to let LyX know about TeX's scoping rules...


Yves Bastide:

- use AMS's \text instead of \mbox.  It supports accented characters,
  among others...  (selected via validate()?)


Angus:

- make math lables editable