Weird compile result -- bug?

[Paul A. Rubin]

On 10/16/21 11:41 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
> 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
>
>
I understand what you are saying, and I do think that LyX should warn 
the user any time it overrides a document setting made by the user. 
Going back to the original symptom (document setting says "biber", biber 
is not installed, bibliography does not appear in document), the only 
fix I can think of would be for LyX to scan each document when loading 
the document, checking that any software or class/style selections are 
known to exist on the system. Presumably LyX would then warn the user 
that the document calls for biber but biber is not installed.

This might be too infrequent a problem to warrant that level of 
attention, though, so I'm fine if the decision is to leave things be.

Paul

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