How to avoid RCS and use git always?

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 12:15:17PM +0100, Matěj Cepl wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am trying to persuade my wife to start using VCS for her
> documents, and avoid pressing her to use command line for it. I
> thought that just by running git init in the directory her
> documents are stored, LyX would understand that I want to use git
> exclusively, but it still suggests RCS. I have to git add and git
> commit the document to make LyX understand my preferences.
> 
> Is there somewhere some option which would switch off RCS for her
> forever?
> 
> Best,
> 
> Matěj

Hi Matěj,

From what I understand, the reason that things are the way they are in
LyX is that git was added "recently". I'm not sure about adding an
option/preference. In general, we are hesitant to add preferences like
this, and I believe you're the first one to ask for it.

One possibility that *might* satisfy you would be to default to Git if
RCS is not detected on the system. For example, on Linux if the command
"ci" is not available and the command "git" is available, LyX could just
assume Git is intended and can do the setup. However, I'm not sure what
I think of that and I'm not sure what other LyX developers think of
that.

Although I'm also a gitophile, in my opinion the biggest downside to
choosing Git by default and to LyX doing "git init" is that Git can
create lots of files (in its internal .git directory). I do not know if
users would expect this and especially since using Dropbox is so common,
users might be surprised and confused (by Dropbox syncing) from the
creation of so many files.

Best,
Scott
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