LyX portable

I would be extremly grateful if someone could make such a portable package (with MiKteX as package manager?) I've been checking out LaTeX resp. LyX for just a couple of days now (the mentioned older package), and I am very impressed...

The old (LyX provided) 1.* installers required manually installing a variety of dependencies including imagemagick/graphicmagick, python, ghostscript and some LaTeX distro (An old/broken version of LyX Portable is here). Version 2.0 simplifies this, as they bundle the required parts of imagemagick, python and ghostscript. An external LaTeX distro is the only dependency. 2.0 is much better than 1.*, so I'm only focusing on 2.0.

If needed, we can hack out the ghostscript, and use the PortableApps version, but I'd rather not deal with that overhead - let's just use the bundled ghostscript. We could also use Portable Python, but again, I think that's more effort than it's worth - plus we'll have to deal with making sure to have the right version of Python. Blender bundles python, so I say we let LyX do the same.

As far as the LaTeX distro, I think we can use MiKTeX Portable. In fact, LyX uses MiKTeX by default on windows (see this page). I've started by unpacking it into X:/PortableApps/CommonFiles/MiKTeX. (Perhaps someone would also like to make a PortableApps installer for this?) Currently, their main executable 'miktex-portable.cmd' runs 'miktex\bin\miktex-taskbar-icon.exe'. I wonder if we'll need to run that before running LyX, and then close it when LyX closes. Also, it seems that MiKTeX does not come with all of the LaTeX packages that LyX needs, so the first launch can take a while to download all of them.

On initial install, LyX doesn't put much in the registry (HKCU\Software\LyX20 or HKLM\Software\LyX20 - LyX would probably work without either, but I haven't tested that) with a significant exception: There are a ton of entries for the Metafile to EPS Converter installed with LyX. Apparently, it creates a windows printer through which you can pipe WMF and EMF files to get EPS images. We might be able to just ignore those entries - You wouldn't be able to install a "printer" in an internet cafe anyway. We'll need to make sure that LyX image handling doesn't break without that.

It seems LyX stores some preferences in HKCU\Software\LyX\LyX2.0. It also has a preferences folder in C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\LyX or C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\LyX (depending on which version of windows). Also, the Launcher needs to modify X:\PortableApps\LyXPortable\App\LyX\Resources\lyxrc.dist to replace the drive letter on the line:

\path_prefix "$LyXDir\bin;$LyXDir\python;$LyXDir\imagemagick;$LyXDir\ghostscript;X:\PortableApps\CommonFiles\MiKTeX\miktex\bin"

(Aside: This is probably where you'd make changes so that LyX uses a PortableApps version of GhostScript, Python, or ImageMagick).

I've started putting together the LyX Launcher, but I thought I'd post my research, to see if anyone's willing to collaborate on this.

See Also:
https://portableapps.com/node/9772
https://portableapps.com/node/9880
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.editors.lyx.general/69685
http://www.latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=9412

Once complete, this page needs to be updated with instructions on how to use the Portable Apps version of LyX. We'll also need a nice install splash that uses the LyX logo - I wonder if there are image templates somewhere for that?

Hi,

I've recently published Portable Lyx 2.0 on http://portable-lyx.impossible-exil.info. You may want to give it a try.

Best regards,

BrokenClock

Please have this, to round out the suite.

Cheers

If some one could offer a fully functioning Portable Bundle of LyX it would be amazing.

Namely both the editor and the MiKTeX packages.