The "AltInstaller" binaries include an alternative Windows Installer written and
maintained by Uwe Stöhr (uwestoehr<at>web.de). We provide these installers
additionally to the official ones for convenience.
The installer homepage is http://wiki.lyx.org/Windows/LyXWinInstaller.

*
* PURPOSE OF THE ALTERNATIVE INSTALLERS
*****************************************

LyXWinInstaller shouldn't be in competition to the official installer. It is
intended to fully configure MiKTeX and the other third-party programs needed by
LyX and to build in some useful features that might not go into the official
installer. LyXWinInstaller offers you:

* Update installer to update existing LyX installations
* Automatic installation of missing LaTeX-packages when you have an open
internet connection. All packages needed by LyX are automatically
downloaded when LyX is started/configured the first time. If you later
use LaTeX-packages in your documents that aren't already installed
they will automatically be installed when you view/export your
LyX-file.
* Imagemagick, the program used by LyX for all sorts of images, and
Ghostscript which is needed to handle PDF and Postscript are bundled
together with the installer. This assures that you are using the
latest stable version especially of ImageMagick which is released very
often (and often with bugs).
* The installer automatically downloads and installs Aspell dictionaries
for English, for the language set in your Windows, and for LyX's menu
language that you have chosen in the installer. You are prompted to
install more dictionaries if you like.
(4 different internet locations are used to assure that the dictionaries
are at any time available.)
* The installer asks you to update MiKTeX also if you just have it
installed together with LyX. This assures that you have the latest
version and can benefit from the latest LaTeX-package updates and
bug fixes. The reason that updating MiKTeX should also be done for new
installations is that the MiKTeX-bundle, that is included in
the installer, is only provided one time per one or two months while
bug fixes/updates of LaTeX-packages are normally released every week.
* When the vector-graphic editing program Inkscape is installed on your
system, the installer configures LyX so that Inkscape will be used to
handle SVG-images you included to your LyX-documents.
* The installer also installs the LaTeX-class files that comes with LyX to
MiKTeX.
This are the classes "broadway", "hollywood", and "revtex" and the style
files "lyxskak" and "lyxchess". When LyX is uninstalled these files will
also be uninstalled.
* The installer doesn't rename the lyx.exe. LyX's Start menu entry starts
LyX via the LyXLauncher.exe that starts lyx.exe but hides LyX's console
window. To start LyX with seeing the console window, start the lyx.exe
directly.
* The uninstaller allows you to uninstall MiKTeX and Aspell together
with LyX.

*
* VARIANTS
*************

The Alternative Windows Installer comes in 3 variants:

1. The complete installer
2. The small installer
3. The update installer

The complete LyXWinInstaller installs LyX and needed programs, and a complete LaTeX
environment on Windows 2000/XP/XPx64/Vista.

The installer variant "small" has the same functionality as the "complete" version
but doesn't include the LaTeX-distribution MiKTeX. It checks your system for an
installed version of MiKTeX (www.miktex.org), TeXLive (http://www.tug.org/texlive),
or ProTeXt (http://www.tug.org/protext).

The installer variant "update" is designed to update existing an LyX installation.
It therefore only actualized some registry entries and updates the file that were
modified since the last LyX release.
Custom user settings and third party programs like ImageMagick are not touched.

*
* LICENSE
***********

The scripts of the LyXWinInstaller are released under the GNU General Public
License (GPL) version 2. A package with the sourcecode can be found
in the section "LyxWinInstallerSource" of
http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5117

The license files of all used programs can be found in the subdirectory "bin"
of LyX's installation folder.

*
* PREREQUISITES
*****************

OS: Windows 2000/XP/XPx64/Vista.
Win95, Win98, and WinME are NOT supported from either version.

To use the installer you need administrator privileges.

An open internet connection is recommended as several LaTeX-packages and
spellchecker dictionaries can than be downloaded and installed automatically.

It is not essential but would be an advantage if you have the PDF-viewer
"Adobe Reader" installed before running the installer.

*
* INSTALLATION
*****************

1. Complete Installer
======================

The variant "complete" of the LyXWinInstaller analyses your system and installs,
if needed, a fully functional version of:

- MiKTeX, a LaTeX-distribution
- Aspell, a spellchecker
- Ghostscript, an interpreter for Postscript and PDF
- ImageMagick, an image converter
- (optional) GSview, a viewer for Postscript and PDF-documents
- (optional) JabRef, an editor for BibTeX database files

ImageMagick and Ghostscript won't appear in the list of the installed programs
in Window's system control because they are installed in a special version to
use them with LyX. But if you decide to install another version of the programs
you can do this without problems and without uninstalling LyX.
If you want to install GSview manually later you can do this without a new
installation of Ghostscript.

2. Small Installer
=====================

The variant "small" of the LyXWinInstaller analyses your system and installs,
if needed, a fully functional version of:

- Aspell, a spellchecker
- Ghostscript, an interpreter for Postscript and PDF
- ImageMagick, an image converter
- (optional) GSview, a viewer for Postscript and PDF-documents

The installer provides an option to to choose a LaTeX-distribution from a network
drive or a live-CD/DVD and an option to not use LyX with LaTeX.
However, the live-variant of TeX-Live don't work together with LyX due to incompatible
Ghostscript and dv2dt/dt2dv versions.
TeX-Live will only work together with LyX when it is installed without Ghostscript.

3. Update Installer
=====================

You must have the last LyX-version installed, otherwise the update installer
quits with a warning about the wrong LyX version.

*
* After the Installation
**************************

To view/edit external files like images LyX uses the default program set in the registry
for a file extension. This installer checks for many programs so that you only need to type
the name of their executables in LyX's preferences to change this.
For example the default viewer for PNG-images on Windows is "Paint". To change it to Gimp,
set "gimp-2.2" as viewer/editor for the PNG file format in LyX's preferences.

*
* THE UNINSTALLER
**********************

LyXWinInstall's uninstaller uninstalls LyX. Aspell, Ghostscript, GSview, ImageMagick, JabRef,
and MiKTeX are only uninstalled when they were installed together with LyX. You can uninstall
Aspell, GSview, JabRef, and MiKTeX also separately via Window's software menu in the system
control.

*
* KNOWN PROBLEMS
*******************

You can't install LyX to a folder that has accents or umlauts in its name.

If you use LyX with a computer user account that has accents or umlauts in its name,
change LyX's paths in the menu Edit -> Preferences so that they don't contain accents
and restart LyX.

*
* INTERNATIONALIZATION
*************************

The installer language string files can be found in the subfolder
"lyx_languages" of the sourcecode package:
https://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5117

If you want to help the project you can translate them or create a new language
string file based on the file "english.nsh".
Please send the modified files as patch to
http://developer.berlios.de/patch/?group_id=5117
or to uwestoehr<at>web.de.