lyx_mirror/RELEASE-NOTES

This file lists interface changes that might affect users in 2.1.0, some
known problems in LyX 2.1.0 and some things you have to take into account
when upgrading from earlier versions to a version of the 2.1.x series.


Interface changes
-----------------

- There have been changes to some often used menu items.

  The following menu items moved from View to Document:
    * View (Default format)
    * View (Other formats)
    * Update (Default format)
    * Update (Other formats)

  The following menu item moved from Document to View:
    * Outline -> Outline Pane

- Whenever the user closes a (tabbed) view on a document, either by
  clicking on the tab close button, or by using the File->Close menu,
  LyX now closes exclusively that specific view. If there are other
  views showing the same document, they are not closed. When the user
  closes the last view, LyX can be configured for either closing the
  document, or keeping it in memory as a hidden document (that can be
  shown again through the View->Hidden-> submenu).

  A new configurable preference option has been added, allowing for
  either (close_buffer_with_last_view).

- There have been some changes to the LyX command line. The following
  new options have been added:

  --export-to <format> <dest>    (-E <format> <dest>)

    Allows one to perform a batch export of the LyX file that is
    opened to the specified destination file <dest> and format
    <format>. For example, to create a PDF of a LyX document,
    you can run:
      lyx --export-to pdf /path/to/dest.pdf /path/to/source.lyx
    See the manual page for details.

    This functionality is also available via a new menu voice
    Export->Export As..., that pops up a dialog allowing one to
    choose the export format, as well as the destination pathname.
    Also, it is available via the mini-buffer (or the -x switch)
    through a proper new LFUN (see below).

- The Advanced Find and Replace feature now supports cancel of a
  long search operation by hitting the ESC key.

- The format pdf aka "PDF (ps2pdf)" was split in two formats: pdf aka
  "PDF (ps2pdf)" and pdf6 aka "PDF (graphics)". pdf6 is used for PDF
  files included as graphics. Custom external templates and converters
  might need to be adjusted. The format split was needed since otherwise
  an odt->pdf converter which is intended for included graphics only
  did interfere with document export via ps2pdf.

- The support for ArmTeX (a special typesetting engine for Armenian)
  was removed. Writing text in Armenian is now possible in a native
  way using XeTeX.


The following pref variables were added in 2.1:

- \\close_buffer_with_last_view [yes|no|ask]
  When the user closes the last view on a document, close the
  document as well ("yes"), or hide the document ("no"), or ask
  the user ("ask").

- \\completion_minlength
  Defines the minimal length of a word to be added to the list of
  words for text completion.

- \\default_length_unit
  Defines the default length unit: 2 for centimers, 6 for inches.

- \\default_otf_view_format
  Defines the default output format for documents with non-tex
  fonts (OpenType fonts).

- \\fullscreen_statusbar
  Controls whether the statusbar is shown in fullscreen mode.

- \\texinputs_prefix
  Defines the prefix for the TEXINPUTS environment variable. A
  single '.' in the paths will get replaced with the current
  document dir and also non-absolute paths will be prefixed with
  that dir.

  The default semantics of TEXINPUTS apply, such that, for example,
  if a path is terminated with a double slash, all subdirectories
  will also be searched by both the TeX engine and ancillary programs
  such as dvi previewers or dvips.

  (see also commit 1717ef20)

- \\use_qimage
  See Caveats section below.

- \\use_system_theme_icons
  If set to true, LyX tries to use the theme icons as defined by
  the OS.


The following pref variables were changed in 2.1:

- \\mac_like_word_movement -> \\mac_like_cursor_movement
  When this option is set, the cursor is now moved to the end of
  the current paragraph on paragraph-down. The pref variable was
  renamed to better reflect this new behaviour.


The following pref variables are obsoleted in 2.1:

- \\default_language and \\default_papersize
  To set the default language and paper size for new documents, use
  the "Save As Document Defaults" button in Document > Settings.


The following new LyX functions have been introduced:

- ipa-insert
  Inserts an IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) inset.

- ipamacro-insert <char>
  Inserts special IPA macros into the document. <char> can be
  one of 'tone-falling', 'tone-rising', 'tone-high-rising',
  'tone-low-rising', 'tone-high-rising-falling', 'deco bottomtiebar',
  'deco toptiebar'.

- spelling-continuously
  Toggles continuous spell-checking.

- vc-rename
- vc-copy
  Renames or copies a file under version control.

- buffer-forall <command>
  Applies <command> to all non-hidden buffers.

- environment-split
  Splits the current environment with a Separator.

- branch-master-activate <branch>
- branch-master-deactivate <branch>
  Activates or deactivates a branch in a master document from within
  a child (as opposed to the existing branch-[de]activate, which
  toggle the branch in the document itself).

- buffer-export-as <format> <filename>
  Equivalent to the new -export-to command-line switch (see above).

- clipboard-paste-simple
  Paste the clipboard contents as simple unformatted text.
  This is also available through a new menu voice within the
  [Edit]->[Paste Special...] sub-menu.

- view-close
  Close the current document view only, if there are no more views
  on the document, either close or hide it (see the new preference
  option \\close_buffer_with_last_view)


The following LyX functions have been changed:

- close-tab-group was renamed to tab-group-close.

- split-view was renamed to view-split.

- break-paragraph was renamed to paragraph-break.

- copy-label-as-reference was renamed to label-copy-as-reference.


The following LyX key bindings have been changed:

- The binding "C-w" was moved from "buffer-close" to "view-close"
  (only in cua.bind).

- sciword.bind was changed significantly (see #8364). The most important
  change is that "math-delim" commands now work under Windows.

The following LyX documents have been moved:

- all thesis template files have been moved to the examples folder


The following metadata files have been added to the tarball:

- Linux desktop file specification and scalable icon has been
  included in the tarball.

- AppData file (appdata.xml). It will not be installed by default and
  distribution maintainers need to handle this file themselves.


Changes with respect to external programs and libraries:
--------------------------------------------------------

- LyX now links against libmagic (http://www.darwinsys.com/file/) if it is
  available at compile time. This improves the file format detection of
  included graphics and other files. The old builtin format detection code
  is used if libmagic is not available.

- LyX no longer uses gettext for handling the translation files. This
  especially is an advantage on Windows, where translating strings is faster.

- LyX is not yet supposed to work with Qt5. It is advised to compile and 
  run LyX against Qt 4.8.x.


Known issues in version 2.1.0
-----------------------------

- LyX needs to be run under Python 2 and will not work properly on systems
  where Python 3 is the default binary. See bug #7030 to know how to fix
  this properly, since simple sheebang conversion in *.py files will not
  be enough.


Caveats when upgrading from earlier versions to 2.1.x
-------------------------------------------------------

- In order to improve reported scrolling slowness, we changed the way
  screen painting is done. This, however, can slow down the performance
  on remote X connections and we provide the \\use_qimage preference
  variable, which brings back the old way of painting (when set to false).