We used LyX using DocBook on a large paper as a test for using it with Juggler docs. This is a list of issues that we found that need to be resolved before we can use it on a larger scale.

• Major functional issues
  • Weak DocBook bibliography support
  • LyX 1.2 or newer is needed for better DocBook support and for image loading support. DocBook support in version 1.3 has not been tested.
  • DocBook cannot be imported into LyX, but a converter exists (DB2LyX)
  • Inserting raw DocBook code is cumbersome but necessary depending on LyX' support for various DocBook constructs (bibliographies, for example)
  • LyX 1.1.x only allows PostScript images to be used. This presents a problem for generating HTML unless JPEG/GIF versions of the (E)PS images exist
• Minor functional issues
  • GUI refresh (XForms bug apparently)
    • This one is mostly because XForms sucks. LyX 1.3 and newer have support Qt.
  • JADE vs OpenJADE--there seem to be differences in style sheets that cause output to vary from installation to installation
  • Footnotes do not always behave well
  • Other XForms-related problems
• Learning issues
  • How to select different stylesheets
  • How to create custom stylesheets
• In a perfect world we would like...
  • ... to store documents in "native" DocBook (SGML/XML) format
  • ... to use custom (or at least nice, professional) style sheets for HTML, LaTeX, and plain text. (Good PDF and PostScript can be generated from LaTeX.)

-- PatrickHartling - 13 Oct 2004