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New in LyX 2.0

About the new features in LyX 2.0.

What is new in LyX 2.0?

The LyX Team

August 2010

§ Advanced Search Facility

Tommaso Cucinotta has contributed a very much desired feature: Searching with format consideration. With this tool, you can insert everything in the search bar that can be inserted into the LyX window: formatted characters, math, insets, etc. You can also replace existing text with formatted text, including searching for mathematics and replacing with mathematics. Finally, you can also search for paragraph styles.
Look here for more information including some screen casts.

§ Spell-checking on the fly

• Abdelrazak Younes implemented a long-requested feature: in-line spell checking. While implementing this, Abdel also redesigned large parts of the existing spell checking code and user interface, addressing many long-standing problems.
  The feature's implementation was sponsored by a group of LyX users. Of course, it can be toggled on and off in the preferences.
  

§ Compare Documents

• Vincent van Ravensteijn implemented a document comparison feature. Go into Tools->Compare...
  

... provide the two documents that you want to compare, and LyX now creates a new document that highlights the changes!

§ XHTML Output

Richard Heck has given LyX the ability to output XHTML without relying upon any external converter, such as tex4ht or eLyXer. At present, the implementation is not completely finished and should be regarded as experimental. Some more complex constructs (glossaries and external material, for example) do not work at all, and some of the more complicated math stuff doesn't quite work. But most LyX documents (such as the User Guide) can be output very nicely.

The generated HTML and CSS can be controlled through layout files and, in many cases, the CSS is automatically generated by LyX, to match the appearance on the screen.

Math can be output in four different forms.

• MathML, which looks great in browsers that support it, but isn't universally supported.
• HTML, which is universally supported, but works well only for quite simple formulas.
• Images, which are very precise, since they are generated by LaTeX, but can be fiddly, don't scale well, and can't be cut and pasted, etc.
• LaTeX, for use with such things as jsMath.

LyX falls back automatically from e.g. MathML to an image, if it can't manage to produce the MathML.

More information is available in the Additional Features manual.

§ Multilingual Thesaurus

• LyX's thesaurus was very limited and restricted to English only, since no other dictionaries existed for the library we used (Aiksaurus). Now Jürgen Spitzmüller has introduced support for the MyThes thesaurus library, which has been included into LyX itself. Since MyThes is what OpenOffice uses, LyX can now deal with OpenOffice thesauri, which exist in many languages.
  

§ Multiple Indices

• Jürgen Spitzmüller has introduced support for multiple indices.
  You can define (an unlimited list of) additional indices (e.g., an "Index of Names") in the Document Settings dialog.
  This feature uses Markus Kohm's splitindex package, which is included in the major LaTeX distributions.
  

§ XeTeX backend

• Jürgen Spitzmüller implemented basic support for the XeTeX typesetting system. XeTeX is an alternative processor to LaTeX that aims at supporting a broad range of scripts (via direct Unicode support) and fonts. For instance, with XeTeX you directly use one of your system fonts – specific LaTeX font handling is not needed anymore.

§ Better output customization

The way documents are output can now be controlled better:

• You can set a "default output format" (preset is "PDF (pdflatex)") that is put first both in the menu and the toolbar. This can be specified both on a global level (in Preferences) and on a per-document-level (in Document→Settings).
• You can directly view/update a master document from within its childs via menu and toolbar.
  
• You can customize bibliography and index processors (BibTeX, MakeIndex, etc.) per document.
• You can customize the font encoding per document.

§ Produce output with only selected subdocuments included

The LaTeX command \includeonly, which allows you to exclude child documents from the output, is one of the few preamble commands that cannot be used verbatim in LyX's preamble, due to LyX's specific file name handling.
To overcome this limitation, Jürgen Spitzmüller implemented native \includeonly support. You can select a subset of child documents which will be included in the final output, while the others are omitted. If you wish, LyX even assures that the page numbers and the references to non-included children are maintained.

§ Outliner enhancements

• Vincent van Ravesteijn added context menus for the outliner. Some new features are: inserting references from labels, manipulating sections, accepting/rejecting changes, editing settings of insets, and many more.
• The outliner now also has a filter bar for better navigation in large outliner lists.

§ New supported LaTeX commands

• Uwe Stöhr implemented support for the LaTeX-commands \phantom, \hphantom, and \vphantom via the phantom inset. This inset is used to insert space with exactly the dimension of the inset's content. The content can be formatted and can consist of text and/or formulas.
  
• Pavel Sanda added support for ulem package. This way new character styles became possible - .strikeout \sout (now bound to C+S+O), double underline \uuline and wavy underline \uwave. Also handling of the underlined text has been moved to ulem, so that underlined text can be broken across the lines.
  
• Pavel Sanda added support for initials using the LaTeX-package lettrine. The support is done via the custom character style Initial which appears in the Edit menu when you select the Initials module in the document preferences.
  
• For LaTeX experts: It is now possible to create a \makebox using the box dialog; implemented by Uwe Stöhr.
• Richard Heck implemented support for named references (LaTeX command \nameref) via the reference dialog. A named reference gives you the name of the referenced text part instead of its number.
• Georg Baum added support for the math font style "formal script" (LaTeX command \mathscr).
  

§ Languages, scripts and encodings

• Support for Swiss German has been added by Jürgen Spitzmüller. This is not yet supported natively by LaTeX (i.e., no babel support, no specific hyphenation patterns), but at least spell checking and thesaurus use the variant-specific dictionaries now.
• Support for the applemac (Macintosh Roman) encoding has been added.
• Support for the language Turkmen was implemented by Uwe Stöhr.

§ Branches enhancements

• The branches feature has been polished by Pavel Sanda and Jürgen Spitzmüller:
  • you can now specify that (selected) active branch names are appended to the output file name; so if you have a file myfile with a branch comments, you can tell LyX to export the file as myfile-comments.pdf if that branch is active.
  • branches can be activated and deactivated easily via context menu
  • new branches can be directly inserted via the menu
  • branches can be renamed and merged
  • the document dialog now also lists undefined branches used in the document. Those can be added to the list of defined branches with one click.
  • when pasting from another LyX document, LyX now checks if the pasted content contains unknown branches. Those will be added to the list of defined branches after user confirmation.

§ Table features

The table handling was improved by Vincent van Ravesteijn, Uwe Stöhr, Edwin Leuven and Abdelrazak Younes:

• The table dialog has been polished.
• The vertical position of tables can now be specified.
• The horizontal alignment of longtables can now be specified.
• It is now possible to define multi-row table cells.
• Easy alignment of columns on decimal point:
  

§ Size features

Uwe Stöhr implemented some new size features.

• It is now possible to specify the paragraph indentation in the document dialog.
• LyX supports now also the following paper sizes: A0, A1, A2, A6, B0, B1, B2, B6, the ISO C-series and the JIS B-series
• Relative lengths like "10 textheight%" can now be used for
  • the paragraph skip separation in the document dialog
  • the horizontal space dialog
  • the vertical space dialog
• As result of the joint effort with Jürgen Spitzmüller it is now possible to use lengths with a specified range in the horizontal space dialog. Such a length is specified by inserting for example "5col%+1mm-2mm" in the text field of the dialog. For the vertical space dialog this feature was already available.

§ Progress view and debugging pane

Peter Kümmel and Pavel Sanda added new debugging pane, which can be used to inspect various stages of latex compilation, debugging messages, output of external programs like subversion etc.

§ Color handling

Uwe Stöhr added the feature to specify color-dependent color settings. In the menu Document → Settings → Colors you can now set

• a page background color for the whole document
• a text color for the whole document
• the background color of shaded boxes
• the text color inside greyed-out notes

Jean-Marc Lasgouttes changed LyX's default color handling. LyX is now using by default the base colors of your operating system or window manager so that LyX will now look like any other installed program on your system. However, this for example results on a white background on nearly all platforms. If you don't like that you can return to LyX's own color scheme by unchecking the option Use system colors in the menu Tools → Preferences → Look & Feel → Colors.

§ Instant preview inset

Vincent van Ravesteijn introduced long time requested feature - inset preview inset, i.e. the possibility to have online preview for snippets of any LyX code, which is supported by the LaTeX package preview.sty.

§ Forward search for DVI/PDF files

LyX already supports inverse search - i.e. searching from the particular location of the generated .DVI/.PDF file to the correct row inside LyX document. Pavel Sanda added support for forward search - i.e. direct jump from particular row in your LyX document to the .DVI/.PDF document. Adding LaTeX macros to enable both forward and reverse search is now easily reachable inside user interface. Read the Additional Features manual for details.

§ Optional and Required Arguments

LyX has long supported optional arguments to commands and environments, though the Insert>Short Title menu entry. Thus, LyX can generate LaTeX like:

and one can have as many optional arguments as one likes. As of LyX 2.0, LyX also supports required arguments, so that LyX can generated LaTeX like: \begin{block}{Title of Block} This is the contents of the block. \end{block} Required arguments are entered using Insert>Short Title, as well.

It is possible to mix optional and required arguments, too, though the optional arguments must precede the required ones. (Think here in terms of how \newcommand and \newenvironment allow for optional arguments.)

§ Miscellaneous

• Thanks to Georg Baum the names of math environments like "Claim" are now automatically translated in the output.
• Thanks to Vincent van Ravesteijn scrolling below the document end is now possible.
• The (longest) label width in the nomenclature list can now be customized thanks to the joint effort of Uwe Stöhr and Jürgen Spitzmüller.
• Martin Vermeer added support for auto-correction in math (docs hints).
• Jürgen Spitzmüller implemented UI localization for numbers (decimal sign).
• Uwe Stöhr added the feature to insert matrices with decoration/borders via the matrix dialog.
• Uwe Stöhr added the document settings option to suppress that the current date is automatically added when no date was specified for the document.
• Thanks to Jürgen Spitzmüller, the Preferences dialog lets you select the viewer and editor of a given Format from a list of predefined formats instead of just proposing one possibility. A similar selection possibility was also added for the bibliography and index processors.
• The LaTeX Log dialog now also displays the BibTeX and MakeIndex logs (implemented by Jürgen Spitzmüller).
• LyX is not dead any more while typesetting a huge document (implemented by Peter Kümmel).
• LyX now supports the hunspell and the enchant spell checking libraries.
• The language can now be switched more easily (via menu or context menu) in multilingual documents.
• The cross-reference dialog has a search and grouping facility (implemented by Jürgen Spitzmüller).
• The spell checker dialog provides the possibility to switch the language while checking (implemented by Jürgen Spitzmüller).
• Notes and comments can be excluded from spell checking (implemented by Jürgen Spitzmüller).
• It is now possible to use literate programming tools (Noweb and Sweave) out of the box with any document class. To this end, one has to select the Noweb or literate modules.
• Thanks to Richard Heck LyX is no longer unusable if its configuration might be interrupted.
• Double clicking in the empty area of the tab bar now creates a new buffer (implemented by Edwin Leuven)

§ Under the hood

• Jean-Marc Lasgouttes reworked the insets architecture.
• John McCabe-Dansted contributed the system for automatic discovering of crashes.

§ Backported

Many new features have been backported to 1.6.x stable branch during 2.0.0 cycle, you can find the list here.

Categories

• Development
• LyX_2_0