On this page... (hide)

  1. 1. Introduction
  2. 2. List Netiquette
  3. 3. Mailing Lists
    1. 3.1 lyx-users@lists.lyx.org (Users' list)
    2. 3.2 lyx-announce (Announcement list)
    3. 3.3 lyx-devel (Developers' list)
    4. 3.4 lyx-docs (Documentation Team list)
    5. 3.5 lyx-cvs (Commit log list)
  4. 4. How the mailing lists work
    1. 4.1 Digests
    2. 4.2 Subscribing with different addresses
    3. 4.3 I'm still confused
    4. 4.4 I can't unsubscribe
  5. 5. Web interfaces / Forums

1.  Introduction

This page describes how to use the different LyX email lists and access their online archives. For those who prefer using a newsreader, the GMANE mail/news gateway hosts bi-directional NNTP versions of the LyX mailing lists in the gmane.editors.lyx hierarchy. For those who prefer a web interface like a forum, GMANE offers that too.

2.  List Netiquette

If you are posting your mails to lists, please don't break the usual list netiquette. The most common mistakes are as follows:

  • Top posting (instead, please place your reply after the text to which you are replying).
  • Hijacking threads (do not use 'Reply' in case you are composing a completely new mail unrelated to the message you used for 'Reply').
  • Quoting irrelevant parts of the previous mail in your reply.
  • Forgetting to add LyX version and OS platform (Linux/Windows/Mac) in case of reporting some problem you have.

If you don't understand the points above or do not understand the purpose of these rules please read this page.

3.  Mailing Lists

3.1  lyx-users@lists.lyx.org (Users' list)

This medium-volume list is for questions on how to get LyX working and how to use LyX.

To ask a question about LyX, simply email it to the list members at lyx-users@lists.lyx.org. You do not need to be a subscriber to send a question to the list, but if you would like to subscribe, see the instructions below.

Before asking your question, be sure to search the mailing list archives to see if your question has been answered before (this is probably the fastest way to get an answer). The list is archived at mail-archive.com, GMANE, MARC, and an old archive.

For other mailing list functions, send an empty mail message to:

Besides the English lyx-users@lists.lyx.org list, there are non-English users' lists listed below. Subscribing to these lists is done the same way as for the English list, just replace in the above listed mail addresses users by the language code like fr.

lyx-fr (French)

lyx-fr@lists.lyx.org

lyx-jp (Japanese)

lyx-jp@lists.lyx.org

3.2  lyx-announce (Announcement list)

This list is intended for announcements concerning LyX, in particular new stable versions. You should not send mail to this list. (Very low volume.)

Send an empty mail message to:

Here is the announcement list archive.

3.3  lyx-devel (Developers' list)

This list is intended for the discussion of subjects relevant to the implementation, planning, hacking and improvement of LyX. This means that bug reports should be sent here, but please check the LyX bug tracker at www.lyx.org/trac to see if the bug has already been reported. Also, if you are a LyX user and have enjoyed using LyX for some purpose, it would be nice of you to email the developers to let us know. (High volume - tens of messages per day)

To contribute to the mailing list, mail to lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org.

For other mailing list functions, send an empty message to:

The list is archived at mail-archive.com, GMANE, and MARC. Be warned, that GMANE ignore a lot of lyx-devel traffic (due to filtering all threads starting with Re: subject, which is quite usual reaction to some commits.)

3.4  lyx-docs (Documentation Team list)

This list is specifically for discussing documentation and translations, including fixes to docs, new documentation, or translations. (Low volume)

To contribute to the mailing list, mail to lyx-docs@lists.lyx.org .

For other mailing list functions, send an empty message to:

The list is archived at mail-archive.com, GMANE, and MARC.

3.5  lyx-cvs (Commit log list)

This list is automatically mailed whenever someone checks something into the repository. It's probably more information than most people want to know. (Often high volume.)

Send an empty mail message to:

Last posts can be found at GMANE.

4.  How the mailing lists work

All of the LyX mailing lists use the same software. The most common thing you'll do is mail the list, which sends mail to everyone on the mailing list. But to subscribe, unsubscribe, or do other interesting things, you'll interact with the daemon (program) that runs the mailing list. You do this by writing email messages to various addresses, all of which end with @lists.lyx.org. The exact email address you write to tells the daemon what you want to do. The daemon will ignore anything you put in the subject or body of the message; in fact, the message can be completely empty.

One particularly useful command will send you a help message. The help message will tell you how to do more complicated things, like getting an index (table of contents) of messages, retrieving one or more old messages, or contacting the (human) owner of the mailing list because the program doesn't seem to be working. (Please do not contact the mailing list owner with questions about LyX. For that, just write to the mailing list.)

4.1  Digests

If you feel like you're getting messages too often, you might prefer to receive digests instead. A digest is sent out with about 30 messages in it, as well as an index of the messages grouped by subject. This will take up the same amount of memory in your mailbox, of course, but will arrive with much lower frequency. You can't post directly to digest lists, and they aren't archived.

Developers' list digest

Send an empty mail message to:

Users' list digest

Send an empty mail message to:

4.2  Subscribing with different addresses

By default, when you subscribe, the daemon will send your mail to the address that you sent your subscription message from. However, the mailing list daemon may sometimes think that your address isn't exactly what you think it is. You may avoid this confusion by telling the daemon your address explicitly. Do this by adding your address to the @lists.lyx.org address you're mailing to, replacing the '@' with '='. For example, if you want to receive mail from the users' list at bar@blah.com, then subscribe by mailing an empty message to 

     lyx-users-subscribe-bar=blah.com@lists.lyx.org

Or unsubscribe that address by mailing to 

     lyx-users-unsubscribe-bar=blah.com@lists.lyx.org

Make sure that mail to the address you put in your (un)subscription request will actually get to you. The mailing list daemon will mail that address for a confirmation.

4.3  I'm still confused

If you send mail to the "help" address for a given list, you'll get a help message in return. But if (un)subscribing, or something else, is just not working, you can mail the human owner of the list. For example, the human owner of the users' list is at at lyx-users-owner@lists.lyx.org.

4.4  I can't unsubscribe

In every message you get from the LyX mailing lists, there will be a line in the message header that looks like this: 

     List-Unsubscribe: 
     <mailto:lyx-devel-unsubscribe-bar=blah.com@lists.lyx.org>

This will remind you how to unsubscribe, so that you don't have to mail the mailing list asking how to do so.

5.  Web interfaces / Forums

If you prefer a forum-like web based interface you can access the lists via GMANE, e.g.

There is also an interface at nabble.com,

In addition to the official mailing lists, there are LyX related web forums at different places: