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List:       lyx-users
Subject:    Re: LyX for bill drafting
From:       Dan Fitch <dgfitch () gmail ! com>
Date:       2009-04-13 20:25:17
Message-ID: f8a037c40904131325o43caf5can2a33f0c3514efb32 () mail ! gmail ! com
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Thanks to the list denizens for being incredibly helpful on this
thread, already, within the space of a single day. You folks rock, and
you obviously have a fierce love of your project!

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 2:35 PM, Charles de Miramon
<cmiramon@kde-france.org> wrote:
> Richard Heck wrote:
>
>> Dan Fitch wrote:
>>> 2. Is there a facility for arbitrary section numbering that integrates
>>> with LyX? I have seen ERT solutions that allow forcing a numbering
>>> change; is there any way to do that through the LyX UI as of v1.6?
>>>
>>>
>> No, but it might be possible to do this via modules. I'm not sure.
>>
>
> The tough part would be the (4) (4c) (4e) (4m) (5)
>
> How does it work in your actual software ? Is there any logic in the letters
> ?
>
> Cheers,
> Charles

It is "ad hoc" so they can always insert sections between two existing
sections; for example, if there is already a 1 and a 2, they can't
renumber those very easily, on account of existing law which may refer
to them. So they make a "1m" to go between. That's only one level of
the structured document; additionally, the cross references can go
across documents. It gets ugly, and it's a very large corpus of text.

As some folks on the lists are pointing out, this kind of arbitrary
section numbering and referencing is a bad idea for many reasons, not
least of which the fact that it clearly causes a huge mess. Of course,
labyrinthine systems have built up over the years to try validate the
user input. They are unmaintainable.

I am basically glorified tech support for this legacy system, so I
can't say "DO IT THIS WAY!" We are hoping to push the users in a saner
direction someday soon, and that may include something like:

- Extending LyX so that the cross reference window has a second tab
with a document structure tree, and if they pick an element from that,
it checks to see if there is a label there; creating it if not

- Reducing their reliance on "implicit" references, where they can say
"See chapter 4, section 5.14 (b)" and have that "automatically" turned
into a cross reference by The Labyrinth

- Convincing them that their current method of referencing is a bit crazy


All this cross reference stuff is one thing; the way bills get amended
is worse, derived directly from how they used to amend things with
typewriters, scissors, and tape by saying "Change line 4 on page 3 to
read XYZ".

It seems initially like LyX is a pretty good fit for this problem area
-- I am curious if anyone else is using it, possibly along with some
of the legal LaTeX/TeX packages like jurabib or lextex.

Thanks again for all your input!

Dan
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