[LON-CAPA-users] Authoring tip

[Lars Jensen]

This is a tip for those of you interested in publishing lon-capa
resources containing complicated math (latex) expressions, tables, and 
other expressions that are tedious to code in xml or xhtml: Use LyX!

Lyx is a GUI front end for latex, which allows you to enter all regular
text, technical expressions, tables, images, etc through a 
point-and-click interface. After writing the document in lyx you can 
export the document to latex, sandwich it between two m-tags, and the 
document can be published unmodified in lon-capa (except for stripping 
a few header lines). If you have images you may also need to add a few
img tags. (lyx also has a whole array of other export options, including
xhtml!)

Above is a fast way of producing .html resources and .problems. (In the
latter case, response tags must also be inserted in appropriate places.)
I have used this method for some time, and it has worked great for me.

Lyx is available from www.lyx.org, and ports exists for multiple
platforms. 

The install on Win32 is a hard, so I recommend running it
on linux (like on your lon-capa server). You just need to download 
the rpm and dependency rpm's, and install as usual.

Lars.

--
Lars Jensen, TMCC/Vista B200, 7000 Dandini Blvd, Reno NV 89512-3999. 
Internet: <jensen@physics.unr.edu>, http://www.scsr.nevada.edu/~jensen
Tel: 775.673.7113  FAX: 775.674.7592