Problems with defining a converter using the converters interface

[nirmalg@…]

1. If I hit "New" to define a new converter, then the selection jumps to the

last converter defined instead of showing me maybe something like "Empty ->
Empty". And for the current selection, the converter that has already been
defined shows up in the "Converter" box and has the command to be executed. This
is pretty confusing...

(1. in more detail: after I hit "New", the selection jumps to the last converter
defined and if you look at the "Converter" command-box on the right, then you
see the converter that's been defined for this last selection.. For example, if
you look at

www.personal.psu.edu/nug107/converter2.jpg

the screenshot shows what I see after I hit "New" .. the selection jumps to the
last converter already defined which is "EPS -> PDF" and the stuff in the red
ellipse (or sorta ellipse) is what I'm referring to as the "Converter
command-box".. so in essence, I don't see anything "New" happening here .. if I
at least got an empty Converter command-box, then it would seem like a "New"
converter could be defined ... so this prompts me to hit "New" once more. And
what I get now is:

www.personal.psu.edu/nug107/converter3.jpg

where the Converter command-box is empty but the selection stays on "EPS -> PDF"
as shown in the red ellipse... I'll call the red ellipse part the
"selection-box".. )

2. So, the command box becomes empty but the selection still stays on the last

converter defined. So I enter a new converter by selecting the input type and
output type (in this case, I was defining a converter from dvi to pdf using
dvipdf (it's dvipdf and not dvipdfm on my Mandrake system for some reason), hit
Apply, Save and then reconfigure and restart LyX. Now, I don't see the View->
pdftex option (which was there before) anymore which uses ps2pdf to convert to
pdf but the new converter "PDF (dvipdfm)" has appeared.

This is what the new entry in my preferences file looks like:

\converter "dvi" "pdf3" "dvipdf $$i" ""

More interestingly, the "DVI->PDF (dvipdfm)" converter just defined does not
work from within LyX and now, neither do View->DVI and View->Postscript .. get
errors such as "Error while executing dvips -t letter filename" (for the
Postscript) and no error for the DVI but it doesn't open up my dvi viewer. So
something's seriously going wrong in the converters interface... I tried
deleting the above entry from my preferences file but that does not restore
things to their previous working state before I defined the converter.

SUGGESTION for 1.: When I try to define a new converter and hit "New", the
Converter command-box should be empty and the selection-box should show
something other than the last defined converter .. maybe "Empty->Empty" or
"New->New" or something, but not an already existing converter.

[levon]

I'm fairly sure that it used to create an "Empty" convertor, and allow you to
edit it. Perhaps somebody's been playing hockey with the code, or it just
stopped working.

[levon]

* #1489 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *

[nirmalg@…]

Another problem that was confirmed by Christian R.:

If you do Edit->Preferences->Converters and then "New", "New" (i.e. twice) and
finally press "Save", .lyx/preferences gets these extra lines:

\converter "latex" "dvi" "" ""
\converter "eps" "pdf" "" ""

I have also encountered exactly the same problem...

Thanks.

[nirmalg@…]

Figure referred to in the text of the bug report -- converter2.jpg

[nirmalg@…]

Figure referred to in the text of the bug report - converter3.jpg

[bugzilla.lyx@…]

Additional observation: whatever converter line in Edit > Preferences >
Converters is highlighted gets erased before the jump to the bottom of the list
after clicking on the New button.

For example, if "LaTeX -> DVI" is highlighted in the Converters box, clicking on
New causes the highlight to jump to the bottom of the list (as noted above). If
you select "LaTeX -> DVI" again, you'll see that the "Converter" and "Extra
Flags" fields have been erased. That's why clicking on New twice causes the last
converter to become erased (since you're already at the bottom of the list).

Moreover (following the above example), this corresponds to a new entry in the
preferences file (as noted in comment #3):

\converter "latex" "dvi" "" ""

If you erase this line, then the LaTeX -> DVI option is restored back to normal.
I guess LyX falls back on default values.

As noted in #1514, this problem still exists in 1.3.6cvs (as at 28 Oct 2004).

[Juergen Spitzmueller]

* #1514 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *

[Juergen Spitzmueller]

follow these steps to define a new converter in 1.3.6:

1. Select "from" and "to" formats in the comboxes
2. Press "New". The New converter will be added to the browser, but neither

the commands not the flags will be applied

3. Now add commands and flags and press "Modify". This will also save those.

I know this is highly bizarre. A slightly more intuitive ui for 1.4 is on the
way.

[Juergen Spitzmueller]

Subject: lyx-devel src/frontends/qt2/: ChangeLog QPrefsD ...

CVSROOT: /usr/local/lyx/cvsroot
Module name: lyx-devel
Repository: lyx-devel/src/frontends/qt2/ui/
Changes by: spitz@… 04/11/08 09:33:54

Modified files:

lyx-devel/src/frontends/qt2/: ChangeLog QPrefsDialog.C

QPrefsDialog.h

lyx-devel/src/frontends/qt2/ui/: QPrefConvertersModule.ui

Log message:

fix crash when adding new format (#1692), improve qt converters ui (#1488)

Bugs:
#1692
#1488

Patches:
​http://www.lyx.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/lyx-devel/src/frontends/qt2/ChangeLog?r1=1.720&r2=1.721
​http://www.lyx.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/lyx-devel/src/frontends/qt2/QPrefsDialog.C?r1=1.41&r2=1.42
​http://www.lyx.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/lyx-devel/src/frontends/qt2/QPrefsDialog.h?r1=1.20&r2=1.21
​http://www.lyx.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/lyx-devel/src/frontends/qt2/ui/QPrefConvertersModule.ui?r1=1.7&r2=1.8

Complete Diff:
/usr/bin/cvs -f diff -kk -u -r 1.720 -r 1.721 src/frontends/qt2/ChangeLog
/usr/bin/cvs -f diff -kk -u -r 1.41 -r 1.42 src/frontends/qt2/QPrefsDialog.C
/usr/bin/cvs -f diff -kk -u -r 1.20 -r 1.21 src/frontends/qt2/QPrefsDialog.h
/usr/bin/cvs -f diff -kk -u -r 1.7 -r 1.8 src/frontends/qt2/ui/QPrefConvertersModule.ui

[Juergen Spitzmueller]

Fixed in 1.4cvs

[Uwe Stöhr]

Will this be fixed for LyX 1.3 too?

[Juergen Spitzmueller]

Don't think so.

[lasgouttes]

Close bugs, since 1.4.0 is released at long last