gui editor latex under gnome

[Phil Meyer]

Adel ESSAFI wrote:
> Hi list
> I need a GUI editor for latex. Particulary i want to ask if there is a 
> feature that permits an instant visualization of the result as in 
> latex editor (http://www.latexeditor.org/)
> Thanks for help
> Adel
>
Lyx is ok for what it does, but it uses a custom set of macros that are 
not LaTeX.  The resulting document may not be converted to pure LaTeX.  
A large existing LaTeX project cannot be easily imported into Lyx.

What Lyx does, it teach people to compose vs color documents, but the 
result is not really LaTeX and cannot be given to a publisher as LaTeX.

Open Office has a plug in for generating LaTeX.  The result is overly 
complex by the nature of translation, but uses standard LaTeX macros.

For those of us who cut our teeth on UNIX, the idea of processing LaTeX 
is natural:

$ vi file.tex
$ pdflatex file.tex
$ evince file.pdf
$ !v
$ !p
$ !e

...

It should be noted that writing with a text editor is liberating!  Quit 
trying to paint your documents as you write them.  Get the document out 
of your head as quickly and as efficiently as possible, and THEN goof 
with formatting.

That is the beauty of LaTeX in the first place.  You can create 
beautiful documents from very ugly text.

Many attempts have been made to encourage people to write, vs producing 
documents.  One of the best so far, is:

http://mightyauthors.com

Where children of all ages are encouraged to get published.  Slam in 
some text and or pictures, and get a beautiful book.  It teaches them to 
focus on the writing itself, and not worry about what it looks like, 
because it looks great every time in spite of what you do.

It is obvious that a bias exists here, but in 50+ years of notepads, 
napkins, journals, and then word processing, it was not until trying to 
write, vs produce, that three books popped out of my head!

Good Luck!