LyX Wanted Features list

This is a tasklist/todo list for the post 1.2 versions. Note that the list is badly incomplete, this is just a few of the things the LyX team are considering. The LyX bug tracker also has some feature requests and bugs. There's lots to do :)

Items will be removed from this file when they are finished.

There are four major tasks to be done:

• Buffer structure rewrite

  So that it will be easier to expand for new and unknown 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.

• Enhance the LyX file format.

  Make it reflect the buffer structure a bit better, get rid of unneeded blank lines and spaces. This can possibly be done as part of a move to an XML-like file format.

  Enable embedding of all the various parts in the LyX file format, specifically make it so that the LyX file can include all images bibtex entries, included documents and any definition needed to use this file on any other computer. This will not include the LaTeX parts proper, as this are expected to be standardized.

• Scripting language.

  Support a scripting language to control various parts of LyX, this requires deciding on an official scripting language. The idea is for non-core parts of LyX to be moved to the scripting language and thus simplifying extension and customization.

  Things to place in scripts:

  • Export functions - DocBook, LaTeX, Lout
  • Word operations - capitalize word

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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:

• always try to use POSIX commands.
• switch to use POSIX signals
• make as much as possible of the code re-entrant

  should make it easier to move to threads later.

• other code rewrites to make multiple buffers/windows possible, without too much hassle.
  • get rid of most of the global variables.
  • non shared variables in shared structures (i.e. the cursor in the text class)

    In particular there is one global variable that we really need to get rid of: current_view

• make source documentation better.

  Remember that the better we document LyX internals the easier is it for new developers to begin working on LyX. Also by using standard features of the C++ STL, the code will be a lot clearer, we will not need that much comments.

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Some other things related to structure and services in the code:

• class FileInfo does way too much, move the unneeded parts to a super class or friends.
• 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 not running at the same time.
  • to setup file descriptors where communicating with the processes can take place.
• pass an inforeceiver around in the object structure. (this instead of passing minibuffers, and lyxerrors.)

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

• enhance the insettabular support
  • colortbl
  • multirow
  • hhline
  • multicolumn
  • dcolumn
• index support (and multiple indices support)
  • multind ?
• better table of contents support
  • tocs for each section
    • minitoc
  • multiple tables of content
    • multitoc
• trivlist?
• better version control (both document and file wise)
  • version.sty
  • cvs
  • prcs
  • sccs
• 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 cannot be conceptual in the current version.

• macro support. Similar to the math-macro support, but usable in regular text too.
• support for abbrevations (static macros)
• add a incremental search function.
• change the "Find and Replace" to Query Replace.
• 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.

• improved template support.
• collapse "New" and "New from Template" into one item.
• make lyx recognize some file types (i.e. gzipped) and do the right thing when encountering them.
• 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 single items (i.e. chapter and chapter*)
• the "LyX-Code" environment should be removed. Add a verbatim environment instead.
• tabbing support
• picture support
• better graphics support
• rotating and scaling of text
• PSTricks (we should be able to support some of this package)
• better reference support
  • varioref
• 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.

• better fontsupport

  T1-lib font renderer.

• better latex code quality

  This means reading LaTeX books to get an better idea on how things are done in the latex world.

• perhaps find better names for the paragraph styles "paragraph" and "subparagraph"
• support for filecontents

  This can make a latex document selfcontained, all the needed graphics can be in the document.

• 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.
• hyperlink support
  • url.sty (or better packages)
  • hyperref.sty
• references to external documents
  • xr.sty
• better babel support
  • make it possible to tune the language strings
• title page support
• draft copy
  • draftcopy.sty
• better caption support: caption2.sty
• support newtheorem (allow user to make its own thorem like envirs)
• a bit more wysiwyg where it is appropriate.
  • show bullets the way they will be on paper
  • show a few more characters as they will be on paper (--, ---)
• online generation of new paragraph styles (or editing or old ones)
• support for inlined sectioning commands (i.e. \paragraph{} )
• we should parse the command line ourselves.
• remove support for XResources, with multiple toolkits it will be impossible to manage. And they are not very needed either.
• the possibility to collapse parts of the document. (i.e. collapse the contents of a section. Would make moving parts of the document around very easy)
• better LyXServer support
  • perhaps use UNIX sockets instead of pipes
  • make a decent protocol with return codes.
  • make it properly independent of the GUI
  • prob: concurrency (locks)
• other packages to support:
  • keyval (we should not use it directly, but know how to parse options for it.)
  • ulem.sty
  • indentfirst.sty
  • lscape.sty
  • footmisc.sty

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

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We should also do some work to enhance the support we already have for some packages, I think these are the packages supported by 1.1.x:

• longtable
• color (papercolor boxes?)
• psnffs packages
• geometry
• makeidx
• verbatim
• algorithm
• inputenc
• fancyhdr (we only have _very_ basic support)
• fontenc
• a4
• graphics (InsetGraphics switches to graphicx)
• a4wide

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

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Wild thoughts:

• Use plugins for insets.
• Use plugins for export formats, including latex.

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Things that we are not going to do after all!

• Switch to LaTeX as fileformat

  After (surprisingly little) discussion it was decided to postpone this. Perhaps forever.

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

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Page last updated on 2005-09-19 (year-month-day).