Flexible text fields

Richard Kimberly Heck rikiheck at lyx.org
Mon Jun 29 09:27:54 UTC 2020


On 6/29/20 4:48 AM, Daniel wrote:
> On 27/6/20 17:34, Richard Kimberly Heck wrote:
>> On 6/26/20 3:20 PM, Daniel wrote:
>>> On 2020-06-26 17:49, Richard Kimberly Heck wrote:
>>>> On 6/26/20 3:35 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
>>>>> Am Freitag, den 26.06.2020, 09:25 +0200 schrieb Jürgen Spitzmüller:
>>>>>> Am Freitag, den 26.06.2020, 07:40 +0200 schrieb Daniel:
>>>>>>> The upcoming flexible text fields sound very interesting to me
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> (https://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/NewInLyX24#textfields). Is it possible
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> create an arbitrary custom text with it that can be re-used in
>>>>>>> sentences all over the document?
>>>>>> No.
>>>>> What you are referring to is a long-standing feature request (and I
>>>>> would love to use it myself). I am not sure it fits into the text
>>>>> field
>>>>> infrastructure (which is more like context-dependent information such
>>>>> as date, file name, author name etc.), but probably more into
>>>>> something
>>>>> you could call "text macros" in analogy to "math macros":
>>>>> https://www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/1704
>>>>
>>>> I dream about this one every once in a while but am not sure I am
>>>> up to
>>>> the challenge. I keep thinking there must be some way to adapt the
>>>> math
>>>> macro infrastructure to do it, though.
>>>>
>>>> Riki
>>>
>>> I guess a problem with the macro infrastructure is that it relies on
>>> defining a LaTeX command. But in contrast to LyX's math mode, its text
>>> mode does not understand LaTeX commands.
>>
>> Well, the point would be to change that, so you could have 'text insets'
>> that work like math insets. Then you could do the kind of thing you
>> mention, but also have more complex macros.
>>
>> Riki
>
> So, the idea is to define a command, e.g. \xyz, and then being able to
> insert it in text mode via a text inset. I still tend to think it
> would be nicer if one could skip the text inset part and just use some
> UI, like cross-references, to insert the text.

That is much less general. You don't have arguments, you can't control
formatting, etc.


> Being able to show a snippet of LyX text would also be nice in other
> context, e.g. for showing the content of an input child document
> (instead of generating a preview) or to show the text passage around
> some label when hovering over a cross-reference (instead of having to
> click "Go To Label").

These are all reasonable requests, but seem orthogonal to the original one.

Riki




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