Beamer in Lyx 2.1.0

[Murat Yildizoglu]

Hi to all,

I have already signaled, some time ago I think, that this behaviour is
somewhat cumbersome, and that the students (doctoral and post-doctoral
students) to whom I was teaching LyX as a general front end to
everything (R, PDF, etc.) were somewhat baffled by the operations
necessary to create a simple frame. Since I was already adapted to the
process (and automated many steps using Keyboard maestro macro player
:-) ), I was a bit surprised by their strong reaction. So, I think that
we should take into account these reactions.

If we can get back the switch to Standard function of the double
returns, that would be an amelioration I think.

We had in the recent past some abusive criticisms in the list, but that
should not make us immediately adopt a defensive discourse when a new
criticism appears, especially if it is constructive and detailed as here.

Best regards,

Murat

> Julio Rojas <mailto:***@gmail.com>
> 8 mai 2014 04:54
> Dear JÃŒrgen, there is no need for irony on your comments. Everybody is
> doing an honest effort to work with the "new" Beamer environment.
>
> You have quoted the behavior of other environments as the reference
> for the "Frame" environment. If I am in a, for example, "Problem"
> environment and I want to get out of it into the standard environment,
> all I have to do is issue a couple of returns. This behavior is
> nowhere to be found in the "Frame" environment, as I can issue as many
> returns as I wish and the UI will accept them. This is, at least IMHO,
> a first in Lyx.
>
> As for the behavior after getting out of the frame title, what Neal
> was explaining is related to the previous paragraph. After issuing
> return outside of the frame title, another return should get you to
> the standard environment. Then issuing a tab would indent this
> standard environment into the "Frame" environment and you can keep
> working. This is the behavior I was expecting from my experience with
> Lyx and all sorts of environments. In this moment, you can issue as
> many returns as you wish and Lyx would keep adding empty white lines
> of a "Frame" environment. This behavior is not only annoying and
> useless, to say the least, but also is nowhere to be found in other
> environments.
>
> I hope that you understand our concerns.
>
> Regards.
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Julio Rojas
> ***@gmail.com <mailto:***@gmail.com>
>
>
>
> JÃŒrgen SpitzmÃŒller <mailto:***@lyx.org>
> 7 mai 2014 17:46
>
> Which brings up another question. Alt-A return? How could I have
> discovered this?
>
>
> Reading the beamer manual perhaps? Also, the shortcut is displayed in
> the respective menu (Edit). And it is also documented generally in the
> LyX manuals.
>
> JÃŒrgen
> Neal Becker <mailto:***@gmail.com>
> 7 mai 2014 17:41
> Which brings up another question. Alt-A return? How could I have
> discovered this? If I look at Help/Shortcuts, I don't see it (or am I
> blind?)
>
> I wish lyx had a way to discover things like emacs does.
>
>
>
> Neal Becker <mailto:***@gmail.com>
> 7 mai 2014 17:38
> After arrow right, return.
> I can type some text. Looks nice. Oh, it's not nested in the frame.
> Hit tab.
>
> Now you have Frame inside Frame.
>
>
>
> JÃŒrgen SpitzmÃŒller <mailto:***@lyx.org>
> 7 mai 2014 17:31
> 2014-05-07 17:14 GMT+02:00 Neal Becker:
>
> OK, I'm confused here. Let's consider workflow to make a bullet
> chart.
>
>
> I was talking about the Standard paragraph, not Itemize.
>
> Insert sep. Hit return.
> Select Frame
> Fill in Title
> oops - return in title does nothing, navigate past title (right
> arrow), hit
> return
>
>
> Easier:
>
> Alt-A Return
> Fill in title
> Arrow right
> Return
>
> Now I'm in Frame. Certainly not what I want - I don't even know
> what this frame
> in a frame would do.
>
>
> I do not understand what you mean by "Frame in a frame". You are still
> in the same frame. Would you also say "Quotation in a quotation" if
> the style still is called "quotation" after hitting return? Or
> "Itemize in an itemize"? Or "Theorem in a Theorem"? Or, for that
> matter, "Standard in Standard"?
>
> Switch to itemize
> Use mouse to hit -> icon to nest itemize within frame.
>
>
> Yes. The same as you need to do when using itemize in an Example box,
> or Quotation, or Theorem, or ...
>
> JÃŒrgen

--
Université de Bordeaux <http://www.u-bordeaux.fr> CNRS
<http://www.cnrs.fr/aquitaine-limousin>

Prof. Murat Yildizoglu <mailto:***@u-bordeaux4.fr>

GREThA (UMR CNRS 5113)
UNIVERSITE DE BORDEAUX
GREThA (UMR CNRS 5113)
MURAT YILDIZOGLU
16 AVENUE LEON DUGUIT
CS 50057
33608 PESSAC CEDEX
FRANCE

Bureau : E-331

yildizoglu.info <http://yildizoglu.info>

[Jürgen Spitzmüller]

2014-05-08 12:37 GMT+02:00 Murat Yildizoglu:

> We had in the recent past some abusive criticisms in the list, but that
> should not make us immediately adopt a defensive discourse when a new
> criticism appears, especially if it is constructive and detailed as here.
>

Let me stress, in case it has been conceived differently, that I am
extremely grateful for any feedback on the new UI, and I am aware that it
needs to be improved. Let me just rephrase that we cannot go back to the
2.0 UI (for the technical reasons I have explained in previous posts) and
that this UI was not changed for the sake of changing the UI, but since
this was simply unavoidable.

All feedback is received and noted.

JÃŒrgen

[Pavel Sanda]

Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
> All feedback is received and noted.

I tried to fight new beamer ui yesterday and I noticed these points:

- suggested trick to create new frame alt+p+(shift)+return is not really helpfull
is most cases. Typical situation - I want to create new frame after finishing
the current one - intuitively I go to the separator, but you can't use the shortcut there.
(I understand reason why and how to ge over it but I write from normal user perspective)

I want to create new frame at the beining of another. So you enter new line in front of the current
frame env. , change environment to frame and - surprise the new one 'destroys' the previous
one since they join into single one. You first need to insert separator. Ugh.

- I learned my way through proper nesting content inside frame, but the whole concept
is totally imperceptible for newcomer.
'Read manual' mantra for creating single succesfull frame seems to much, sorry for saying that.

To be more constructive:
- function for creating completely new frame no matter on the current environment I'm in would help
- it would be nice if contained nested paragraph by default, the problem is that DEPM will kill it immediately.
or find a way how to tell user this ha to be done.

Pavel

[Pavel Sanda]

Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
> Let me just rephrase that we cannot go back to the
> 2.0 UI (for the technical reasons I have explained in previous posts) and

Another wild idea: what about adding new frame environment containing the previous separator by default (kind of 2.0 behaviour if user still want to go that way)?

Pavel

[Julio Rojas]

>
> Another wild idea: what about adding new frame environment containing the
> previous separator by default (kind of 2.0 behaviour if user still want to
> go that way)?


Maybe for beginners it wouldn't be a bad idea. Alt-P Shift-Return is faster
for experienced users, though.

-------------------------------------------------
Julio Rojas
***@gmail.com


On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 2:34 PM, Pavel Sanda <***@lyx.org> wrote:

> JÃŒrgen SpitzmÃŒller wrote:
> > Let me just rephrase that we cannot go back to the
> > 2.0 UI (for the technical reasons I have explained in previous posts) and
>
> Another wild idea: what about adding new frame environment containing the
> previous separator by default (kind of 2.0 behaviour if user still want to
> go that way)?
>
> Pavel
>

[Pavel Sanda]

Julio Rojas wrote:
> Maybe for beginners it wouldn't be a bad idea. Alt-P Shift-Return is faster
> for experienced users, though.

No, this was not intended for beginners. The need of individual separator makes the document
more fragile and more cumbersome in 90% of cases.

Fragile because it's easy to forget. Cumbersome because you need to insert new
environment on places where information about new frame was enough. Changing
some document into beamer used to be breeze for me - if you want it fast just go
through document and turn sections into frames, delete some pargraphs and you are
done. Now you have to insert mostly superficial separator and care about
nesting. Doable but steals time.

Pavel

[Richard Heck]

On 05/08/2014 02:51 PM, Pavel Sanda wrote:
> Julio Rojas wrote:
>> Maybe for beginners it wouldn't be a bad idea. Alt-P Shift-Return is faster
>> for experienced users, though.
> No, this was not intended for beginners. The need of individual separator makes the document
> more fragile and more cumbersome in 90% of cases.
>
> Fragile because it's easy to forget. Cumbersome because you need to insert new
> environment on places where information about new frame was enough. Changing
> some document into beamer used to be breeze for me - if you want it fast just go
> through document and turn sections into frames, delete some pargraphs and you are
> done. Now you have to insert mostly superficial separator and care about
> nesting. Doable but steals time.

No offense to anyone, but if I were Jurgen, I'd be thinking: These are
all great
suggestions, but how long was this in master? How long did people have to
test it after alpha1?

That said, it would be great if those of us who use Beamer extensively could
come up with some concrete ideas about how the UI should work. Jurgen did
the hard work. This should just be tweaking, though perhaps the absolutely
best version involves something like a new layout tag. If so, then that
is also
doable.

Richard

[Julio Rojas]

I feel your pain Richard, I really do. Unfortunately, I am in a phase of my
academic life in which everything is on the "production" branch, so testing
of Lyx RC's for my documents was a big no-no. Couldn't risk loosing time.
So, sad as it seems, I only noticed these changes after Ubuntu asked me if
I would like to update Lyx to 2.1. :(

BTW, now I understand what Jurgen meant by "no need" to indent the
paragraph after a frame title for the text to remain within the "Frame". I
thought that by saying it was a "Frame" environment, the text would not
behave as a standard indented standard environment. My mistake.
Nevertheless, indentation gives a clear idea that this text belongs to this
"Frame". Anyways, as I continuously use "Theorems" (and derivatives), I
usually found myself indenting these environments into a "Frame", so
indenting standard text is kind of a natural extension for me.

Thanks for the hard work dudes. I will go back to my never-ending stream of
Beamer slides... ;)

-------------------------------------------------
Julio Rojas
***@gmail.com


On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Richard Heck <***@lyx.org> wrote:

> On 05/08/2014 02:51 PM, Pavel Sanda wrote:
>
>> Julio Rojas wrote:
>>
>>> Maybe for beginners it wouldn't be a bad idea. Alt-P Shift-Return is
>>> faster
>>> for experienced users, though.
>>>
>> No, this was not intended for beginners. The need of individual separator
>> makes the document
>> more fragile and more cumbersome in 90% of cases.
>>
>> Fragile because it's easy to forget. Cumbersome because you need to
>> insert new
>> environment on places where information about new frame was enough.
>> Changing
>> some document into beamer used to be breeze for me - if you want it fast
>> just go
>> through document and turn sections into frames, delete some pargraphs and
>> you are
>> done. Now you have to insert mostly superficial separator and care about
>> nesting. Doable but steals time.
>>
>
> No offense to anyone, but if I were Jurgen, I'd be thinking: These are all
> great
> suggestions, but how long was this in master? How long did people have to
> test it after alpha1?
>
> That said, it would be great if those of us who use Beamer extensively
> could
> come up with some concrete ideas about how the UI should work. Jurgen did
> the hard work. This should just be tweaking, though perhaps the absolutely
> best version involves something like a new layout tag. If so, then that is
> also
> doable.
>
> Richard
>
>

[Liviu Andronic]

On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 9:46 PM, Julio Rojas <***@gmail.com> wrote:
> I feel your pain Richard, I really do. Unfortunately, I am in a phase of my
> academic life in which everything is on the "production" branch, so testing
> of Lyx RC's for my documents was a big no-no. Couldn't risk loosing time.
> So, sad as it seems, I only noticed these changes after Ubuntu asked me if I
> would like to update Lyx to 2.1. :(
>
You can still downgrade. (BUT do this only if you haven't already
saved your .lyx files with 2.1.) Go to
https://launchpad.net/~lyx-devel/+archive/release/+packages?field.name_filter=&field.status_filter=superseded&field.series_filter=
, select 'Superseeded packages', then manually download the 2.0.7
packages, and install them using 'gdebi'. Consider uninstalling 2.1.0
first.

Liviu


> BTW, now I understand what Jurgen meant by "no need" to indent the paragraph
> after a frame title for the text to remain within the "Frame". I thought
> that by saying it was a "Frame" environment, the text would not behave as a
> standard indented standard environment. My mistake. Nevertheless,
> indentation gives a clear idea that this text belongs to this "Frame".
> Anyways, as I continuously use "Theorems" (and derivatives), I usually found
> myself indenting these environments into a "Frame", so indenting standard
> text is kind of a natural extension for me.
>
> Thanks for the hard work dudes. I will go back to my never-ending stream of
> Beamer slides... ;)
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Julio Rojas
> ***@gmail.com
>
>
> On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Richard Heck <***@lyx.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 05/08/2014 02:51 PM, Pavel Sanda wrote:
>>>
>>> Julio Rojas wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Maybe for beginners it wouldn't be a bad idea. Alt-P Shift-Return is
>>>> faster
>>>> for experienced users, though.
>>>
>>> No, this was not intended for beginners. The need of individual separator
>>> makes the document
>>> more fragile and more cumbersome in 90% of cases.
>>>
>>> Fragile because it's easy to forget. Cumbersome because you need to
>>> insert new
>>> environment on places where information about new frame was enough.
>>> Changing
>>> some document into beamer used to be breeze for me - if you want it fast
>>> just go
>>> through document and turn sections into frames, delete some pargraphs and
>>> you are
>>> done. Now you have to insert mostly superficial separator and care about
>>> nesting. Doable but steals time.
>>
>>
>> No offense to anyone, but if I were Jurgen, I'd be thinking: These are all
>> great
>> suggestions, but how long was this in master? How long did people have to
>> test it after alpha1?
>>
>> That said, it would be great if those of us who use Beamer extensively
>> could
>> come up with some concrete ideas about how the UI should work. Jurgen did
>> the hard work. This should just be tweaking, though perhaps the absolutely
>> best version involves something like a new layout tag. If so, then that is
>> also
>> doable.
>>
>> Richard
>>
>



--
Do you know how to read?
http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm
http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader
Do you know how to write?
http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail

[Julio Rojas]

Nah, Liviu, thanks for the suggestion but downgrading is never a good
solution. I have been working this whole week with Beamer on 2.1 and let's
say that the new UI is the least of my concerns. ;)

-------------------------------------------------
Julio Rojas
***@gmail.com


On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 9:52 PM, Liviu Andronic <***@gmail.com>wrote:

> On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 9:46 PM, Julio Rojas <***@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I feel your pain Richard, I really do. Unfortunately, I am in a phase of
> my
> > academic life in which everything is on the "production" branch, so
> testing
> > of Lyx RC's for my documents was a big no-no. Couldn't risk loosing time.
> > So, sad as it seems, I only noticed these changes after Ubuntu asked me
> if I
> > would like to update Lyx to 2.1. :(
> >
> You can still downgrade. (BUT do this only if you haven't already
> saved your .lyx files with 2.1.) Go to
>
> https://launchpad.net/~lyx-devel/+archive/release/+packages?field.name_filter=&field.status_filter=superseded&field.series_filter=
> , select 'Superseeded packages', then manually download the 2.0.7
> packages, and install them using 'gdebi'. Consider uninstalling 2.1.0
> first.
>
> Liviu
>
>
> > BTW, now I understand what Jurgen meant by "no need" to indent the
> paragraph
> > after a frame title for the text to remain within the "Frame". I thought
> > that by saying it was a "Frame" environment, the text would not behave
> as a
> > standard indented standard environment. My mistake. Nevertheless,
> > indentation gives a clear idea that this text belongs to this "Frame".
> > Anyways, as I continuously use "Theorems" (and derivatives), I usually
> found
> > myself indenting these environments into a "Frame", so indenting standard
> > text is kind of a natural extension for me.
> >
> > Thanks for the hard work dudes. I will go back to my never-ending stream
> of
> > Beamer slides... ;)
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------
> > Julio Rojas
> > ***@gmail.com
> >
> >
> > On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Richard Heck <***@lyx.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 05/08/2014 02:51 PM, Pavel Sanda wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Julio Rojas wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Maybe for beginners it wouldn't be a bad idea. Alt-P Shift-Return is
> >>>> faster
> >>>> for experienced users, though.
> >>>
> >>> No, this was not intended for beginners. The need of individual
> separator
> >>> makes the document
> >>> more fragile and more cumbersome in 90% of cases.
> >>>
> >>> Fragile because it's easy to forget. Cumbersome because you need to
> >>> insert new
> >>> environment on places where information about new frame was enough.
> >>> Changing
> >>> some document into beamer used to be breeze for me - if you want it
> fast
> >>> just go
> >>> through document and turn sections into frames, delete some pargraphs
> and
> >>> you are
> >>> done. Now you have to insert mostly superficial separator and care
> about
> >>> nesting. Doable but steals time.
> >>
> >>
> >> No offense to anyone, but if I were Jurgen, I'd be thinking: These are
> all
> >> great
> >> suggestions, but how long was this in master? How long did people have
> to
> >> test it after alpha1?
> >>
> >> That said, it would be great if those of us who use Beamer extensively
> >> could
> >> come up with some concrete ideas about how the UI should work. Jurgen
> did
> >> the hard work. This should just be tweaking, though perhaps the
> absolutely
> >> best version involves something like a new layout tag. If so, then that
> is
> >> also
> >> doable.
> >>
> >> Richard
> >>
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Do you know how to read?
> http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm
> http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader
> Do you know how to write?
> http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail
>

[Enrico Forestieri]

On Thu, May 08, 2014 at 03:13:53PM -0400, Richard Heck wrote:
>
> That said, it would be great if those of us who use Beamer extensively could
> come up with some concrete ideas about how the UI should work. Jurgen did
> the hard work. This should just be tweaking, though perhaps the absolutely
> best version involves something like a new layout tag. If so, then
> that is also
> doable.

I am not a beamer user, but I think that what scares others is the fact
that they were used to a certain workflow. Maybe restoring that workflow
would help. For example, what about a new "Container" property for a
layout? A layout with that property would behave much like "Standard",
in the sense that every new layout gets automatically nested and the
only way to escape is breaking the environment by Alt+P+Return.
This last shortcut should also be made "easier" by changing it
to Shift+Return, IMHO.

--
Enrico

[Jürgen Spitzmüller]

2014-05-08 21:53 GMT+02:00 Enrico Forestieri <***@lyx.org>:

> I am not a beamer user, but I think that what scares others is the fact
> that they were used to a certain workflow. Maybe restoring that workflow
> would help. For example, what about a new "Container" property for a
> layout? A layout with that property would behave much like "Standard",
> in the sense that every new layout gets automatically nested and the
> only way to escape is breaking the environment by Alt+P+Return.
> This last shortcut should also be made "easier" by changing it
> to Shift+Return, IMHO.
>

Yes, something like this is also what I have in mind (this was a plan right
from the beginning, but it was just too much work for one person before
2.1). This is not only useful for Frames, but also for many other
environments (think of the "letter" environments in the letter class).

But this is 2.2 stuff. It needs some thinking and lots of testing. Any help
in terms of patches is much appreciated.

JÃŒrgen


>
> --
> Enrico
>