Enable editing in preview pane for "LyX" format?

[Thibaut Cuvelier]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2021 at 16:14, Scott Kostyshak <skostysh at lyx.org> wrote:

> We have the option to show the LyX format in the preview window. We also
> have the functionality to reload a LyX document (e.g., if it is changed
> externally). Would it be reasonable to allow editing of the LyX format
> in the preview window?
>
> It seems feasible to implement, but I think the main question is whether
> it would actually be useful and I'm not sure.
>

If you start going in that direction, why wouldn't you allow editing the
generated LaTeX code (or HTML, or DocBook, or whatever is supported in the
preview window) to have an impact on the LyX document? That would seem to
be a reasonable expectation from users. However, from an implementation
perspective, that would be much harder... Moreover, I don't really see the
added value. It's not like Microsoft Word & co, where the GUI doesn't give
a full and easy access to the possibilities of the file format.

In terms of reloading, I think it would be better to have the possibility
to reload layouts when they are changed, but the benefit would mostly be
for developers (and some power users).

However, as you mention it, I would find a related feature much more
interesting to implement, as it would help people collaborating on the same
document (with tools like Dropbox) --- or you happen to forget you already
have opened the same document on your computer within another instance of
LyX (that happens quite often to me): when reloading a LyX document, if the
current version has changes, propose to merge both documents, so that you
have the new changes from the reloaded document and the ones you made
before saving. Git already implements the same scenario: you pull a remote
commit while you have a local change committed separately, you must merge
both (or create a branch).
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