The "AltInstaller" binaries include an alternative Windows Installer written and maintained by Uwe Stöhr (uwestoehrweb.de). We provide these installers additionally to the official ones for convenience. The installer homepage is http://wiki.lyx.org/Windows/LyXWinInstaller. * * PURPOSE OF THE ALTERNATIVE INSTALLERS ***************************************** LyXWinInstaller shouldn't be in competition to the official installer. It is intended to fully configure MiKTeX and the other third-party programs needed by LyX and to build in some useful features that might not go into the official installer. LyXWinInstaller offers you: * Update installer to update existing LyX installations * Automatic installation of missing LaTeX-packages when you have an open internet connection. All packages needed by LyX are automatically downloaded when LyX is started/configured the first time. If you later use LaTeX-packages in your documents that aren't already installed they will automatically be installed when you view/export your LyX-file. * Imagemagick, the program used by LyX for all sorts of images, and Ghostscript which is needed to handle PDF and Postscript are bundled together with the installer. This assures that you are using the latest stable version especially of ImageMagick which is released very often (and often with bugs). * The installer automatically downloads and installs Aspell dictionaries for English, for the language set in your Windows, and for LyX's menu language that you have chosen in the installer. You are prompted to install more dictionaries if you like. (4 different internet locations are used to assure that the dictionaries are at any time available.) * The installer asks you to update MiKTeX also if you just have it installed together with LyX. This assures that you have the latest version and can benefit from the latest LaTeX-package updates and bug fixes. The reason that updating MiKTeX should also be done for new installations is that the MiKTeX-bundle, that is included in the installer, is only provided one time per one or two months while bug fixes/updates of LaTeX-packages are normally released every week. * When the vector-graphic editing program Inkscape is installed on your system, the installer configures LyX so that Inkscape will be used to handle SVG-images you included to your LyX-documents. * The installer also installs the LaTeX-class files that comes with LyX to MiKTeX. This are the classes "broadway", "hollywood", and "revtex" and the style files "lyxskak" and "lyxchess". When LyX is uninstalled these files will also be uninstalled. * The installer doesn't rename the lyx.exe. LyX's Start menu entry starts LyX via the LyXLauncher.exe that starts lyx.exe but hides LyX's console window. To start LyX with seeing the console window, start the lyx.exe directly. * The uninstaller allows you to uninstall MiKTeX and Aspell together with LyX. * * VARIANTS ************* The Alternative Windows Installer comes in 3 variants: 1. The complete installer 2. The small installer 3. The update installer The complete LyXWinInstaller installs LyX and needed programs, and a complete LaTeX environment on Windows 2000/XP/XPx64/Vista. The installer variant "small" has the same functionality as the "complete" version but doesn't include the LaTeX-distribution MiKTeX. It checks your system for an installed version of MiKTeX (www.miktex.org), TeXLive (http://www.tug.org/texlive), or ProTeXt (http://www.tug.org/protext). The installer variant "update" is designed to update existing an LyX installation. It therefore only actualized some registry entries and updates the file that were modified since the last LyX release. Custom user settings and third party programs like ImageMagick are not touched. * * LICENSE *********** The scripts of the LyXWinInstaller are released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. A package with the sourcecode can be found in the section "LyxWinInstallerSource" of http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5117 The license files of all used programs can be found in the subdirectory "bin" of LyX's installation folder. * * PREREQUISITES ***************** OS: Windows 2000/XP/XPx64/Vista. Win95, Win98, and WinME are NOT supported from either version. To use the installer you need administrator privileges. An open internet connection is recommended as several LaTeX-packages and spellchecker dictionaries can than be downloaded and installed automatically. It is not essential but would be an advantage if you have the PDF-viewer "Adobe Reader" installed before running the installer. * * INSTALLATION ***************** 1. Complete Installer ====================== The variant "complete" of the LyXWinInstaller analyses your system and installs, if needed, a fully functional version of: - MiKTeX, a LaTeX-distribution - Aspell, a spellchecker - Ghostscript, an interpreter for Postscript and PDF - ImageMagick, an image converter - (optional) GSview, a viewer for Postscript and PDF-documents - (optional) JabRef, an editor for BibTeX database files ImageMagick and Ghostscript won't appear in the list of the installed programs in Window's system control because they are installed in a special version to use them with LyX. But if you decide to install another version of the programs you can do this without problems and without uninstalling LyX. If you want to install GSview manually later you can do this without a new installation of Ghostscript. 2. Small Installer ===================== The variant "small" of the LyXWinInstaller analyses your system and installs, if needed, a fully functional version of: - Aspell, a spellchecker - Ghostscript, an interpreter for Postscript and PDF - ImageMagick, an image converter - (optional) GSview, a viewer for Postscript and PDF-documents ImageMagick and Ghostscript won't appear in the list of the installed programs in Window's system control because they are installed in a special version to use them with LyX. But if you decide to install another version of the programs you can do this without problems and without uninstalling LyX. If you want to install GSview manually later you can do this without a new installation of Ghostscript. The installer provides an option to to choose a LaTeX-distribution from a network drive or a live-CD/DVD and an option to not use LyX with LaTeX. However, the live-variant of TeX-Live don't work together with LyX due to incompatible Ghostscript and dv2dt/dt2dv versions. TeX-Live will only work together with LyX when it is installed without Ghostscript. 3. Update Installer ===================== You must have the last LyX-version installed, otherwise the update installer quits with a warning about the wrong LyX version. * * After the Installation ************************** To view/edit external files like images LyX uses the default program set in the registry for a file extension. This installer checks for many programs so that you only need to type the name of their executables in LyX's preferences to change this. For example the default viewer for PNG-images on Windows is "Paint". To change it to Gimp, set "gimp-2.2" as viewer/editor for the PNG file format in LyX's preferences. * * THE UNINSTALLER ********************** LyXWinInstall's uninstaller uninstalls LyX. Aspell, Ghostscript, GSview, ImageMagick, JabRef, and MiKTeX are only uninstalled when they were installed together with LyX. You can uninstall Aspell, GSview, JabRef, and MiKTeX also separately via Window's software menu in the system control. * * KNOWN PROBLEMS ******************* You can't install LyX to a folder that has accents or umlauts in its name. If you use LyX with a computer user account that has accents or umlauts in its name, change LyX's paths in the menu Edit -> Preferences so that they don't contain accents and restart LyX. * * INTERNATIONALIZATION ************************* The installer language string files can be found in the subfolder "lyx_languages" of the sourcecode package: https://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5117 If you want to help the project you can translate them or create a new language string file based on the file "english.nsh". Please send the modified files as patch to http://developer.berlios.de/patch/?group_id=5117 or to uwestoehrweb.de.