Weird compile result -- bug?

[Jürgen Spitzmüller]

Am Samstag, dem 16.10.2021 um 11:28 -0400 schrieb Paul A. Rubin:
> On Ubuntu and Mint with TeXLive, biblatex comes in one of the TeXLive
> packages (texlive-latex-recommended?) but biber requires installation
> of a separate package ("biber") that does not contain TeXLive in its
> name. So I suspect it is not uncommon to install biblatex (via
> TeXLive) and not have biber. Since biblatex still works, they may be
> fine ... until someone sends them a LyX file that selects biber. LyX
> changes that to "default" and the adventure begins.

This is a very bad package choice. IMHO biblatex package should require
biber. Biblatex only works to a very limited degree with bibtex8, many
styles and advanced features require biber.

You should file a bug report against them.

> Actually, though, the bigger concern for me is that (before I
> installed biber and reconfigured) arbitrary edits to the preamble in
> such a file changed the biblatex load command that LyX put in the
> .tex
> file. Switching the processor from biber to default (or bibtex) when
> LyX cannot find biber seems reasonable to me, but doing it somewhat
> randomly is a bit too idiosyncratic for me. As I originally wrote,
> just
> adding a space at the end of the preamble was enough to change LyX's
> behavior on my system.

As I tried to explain this is not due to preamble edits per se, but due
to doing any change in document preferences. As biber is not available,
it cannot be (re-)selected in settings. All we could do about that is
issue a warning.

Jürgen

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