From lyx-users  Fri Feb 06 17:20:38 2009
From: Richard Heck <rgheck () bobjweil ! com>
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:20:38 +0000
To: lyx-users
Subject: Re: Strategies for Writing Co-operation with Non-LyX Users?
Message-Id: <498C7166.5040806 () bobjweil ! com>
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=lyx-users&m=123394087526341

Steve Litt wrote:
> On Friday 06 February 2009 11:46:21 am Richard Heck wrote:
>   
>> David Mertens wrote:
>>     
>>>> It would be great if ... the .lxy document would be bundled with all
>>>> images in a .zip file.
>>>>         
>>> Great idea, but not trivial.  Has this been discussed on the lists
>>> before? If it has, I couldn't find it.
>>>       
>> A lot, but mostly on devel. There is, in fact, a script that lives (in
>> svn) at development/tools/lyxpak.py that will take a LyX file and create
>> a sort of "package" of everything it needs. So, in a way, we have this.
>> What's never been agreed is how to have more: how to have a "bundled" or
>> "embedded" LyX format that would be more like an OOo file, in that
>> everything that was needed would be rolled up in one big piece.
>>     
>
> Be careful what you wish for. Back in the 1990's I made all my tax worksheets 
> in MS Word, with embedded Excel spreadsheets for calculations and charts.
>
> Skip ahead a few years and somehow those embeds shifted so you couldn't see 
> some of the columns. No problem, I'll just doubleclick and view them in 
> Excel.
>
> Ooops!, they won't run as Excel any more. They became just as useless over a 
> few years as if they'd been left out in the rain to rust.
>
> One of the things I've always loved about LyX is it always uses linking, and 
> never embedding. Sure, embeddings easier to keep track of, but if it it 
> corrupts a little, it corrupts absolutely.
>
>   
Discussions have always been along the lines of making embedding an 
option, mostly to be used in collaborative environments. Certainly LyX 
itself won't make it necessary.

rh