beamer usability
Neal Becker
ndbecker2 at gmail.com
Fri Aug 18 14:59:20 UTC 2023
On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 10:13 AM Scott Kostyshak <skostysh at lyx.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 07:49:45AM -0400, Neal Becker wrote:
> > I've been using LyX for quite a while and beamer for even quite a while
> > longer, but my knowledge of LyX is fairly superficial.
> >
> > I frequently produce slides which incorporate a graph on the left with
> > bulleted text on the right. An example LaTeX code is below. I do need
> to
> > use ERT for the minipage. The reason for the minipage is to shrink the
> > text on the left. I cut/paste LaTeX here because pasting LyX doesn't
> seem
> > to include the ERT.
> >
> > Since this structure is a bit tedious to enter I usually prefer to
> > copy/paste the frame, changing the text and the figure but keeping the
> > structure.
> >
> > This copy/pasting is a bit more difficult than I would hope. Firstly, to
> > successfully copy/paste a beamer frame it is best to make sure there is a
> > frame separator. Position the cursor just at the end of this frame
> > separator before the frame you wish to copy, then select down to the end
> of
> > the frame.
> >
> > When pasting, it seems best to position cursor just after a frame
> > separator. If this is not done (frame separators not used) I frequently
> > wind up with a frame title outside of a frame, a situation that seems
> > difficult to recover from (although at least 1 time I did fix it by
> > positioning the cursor near the start of the frame title and selecting
> > "frame").
> >
> > Assuming I've placed the cursor at the end of the graphic of the frame
> I'd
> > like to copy, the procedure to get frame separator inserted seems
> tedious.
> > 1. Hit enter. Now I'm in "columns"
> > 2. Hit dedent. Now I'm still in "columns" but outside the frame
> > 3. Change to "standard" . For some reason, this moves cursor back inside
> > frame
> > 4. Hit dedent again. Now finally I can hit enter to produce the frame
> > separator.
> >
> > Is there an easier way?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Neal
>
> For your specific question, does this thread help you out?
>
> https://www.mail-archive.com/lyx-users@lists.lyx.org/msg104013.html
>
> Basically, if you figure out a command sequence that does what you want
> then you can bind it to a shortcut. I know this isn't out-of-the-box
> user-friendly, but perhaps it helps your use case.
>
> More generally, I've also found similar workflows to be unexpectedly
> complicated. I think that LyX's beamer workflow needs some improvements.
> Thankfully, LyX's beamer support was hugely improved several years ago.
> Before then, from what I understand it was a bunch of Beamer-specific hacks
> cobbled together; now it is just a well-defined special case of a document
> class. So I think the hard work is done, and all the required functionality
> is there, we just need to improve the interface/workflow.
>
> I have some ideas, based on sporadic discussions on the list. But I have
> no time to work on the code, and I do not want to start long conversations
> unless there is a volunteer willing to work on the code. Anyone who would
> be interested in working on the code, let me know and I will put the time
> into organizing my thoughts.
>
> In the meantime, I think it would be helpful to collect several use cases
> that are unexpected complicated, like the one that you bring up.
>
> Thanks. I've never learned about key bindings or command sequences, maybe
it's time to learn about that.
Since insert frame separator is no longer on the menu it seems my procedure
has become more complex.
I looked at the email thread. First thing suggest edit/start new parent
environment(frame). I don't see this in edit. I'm on
lyx-2.4.0beta3.
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