Lyx: Customized bullets lists and the Simpsons!

Without further adieu! Working example output:

https://pj.freefaculty.org/scraps/simpsons/simpsons-2.pdf

Lyx file:

https://pj.freefaculty.org/scraps/simpsons/simpsons-2.lyx

Even if you don't want the Simpsons as your bullets in lists, you
might still look this over because it shows how you can put in ANY
valid LaTeX symbol a the bullet for a particular item or for an entire
list. And each list in a presentation can have different bullet
symbols.

I did not find any easy LyX documentation on this. If there is some,
and you wrote it, I'm sorry to overlook you. .

1. Easy, direct way, no LyX module or new package required:

In case you did not know this yet, in LyX, after you create a list
item, and the bullet symbol is showing, you can enter ERT mode and
just put the name of a symbol in brackets, like [\Bart]. That replaces
the default bullet with your symbol. Also things like [$\gamma$] work
if you don't have the Simpson's characters. You can intersperse those
customized bullet symbols with regular bullets. If you go shopping in
the MASSIVE LaTeX symbol collection (see slide 1 in the pdf), you will
probably see symbols you would love in your lists.

2. Use enumitem, gain ability to change bullet for entire list easily:
ERT [label=\Bart]

If you turn on the LyX module to Customize Itemized Lists (enumitem),
then you gain some new powers, such as the ability to declare a label
in the first item of any list and that is used automatically for all
remaining list items.

I could use your help.

Here are problems I did not solve. They are listed in the pdf, but in
case you miss them

1. I can't find a way to re-size the metafont symbols, some (Marge)
are way too big

2. The bullets are aligned with the bottom of the text line, but it
would be more usual to have them aligned with the center of the
multi-line item. Ideas?

3. In Lyx-2.0.3, at least in this example file, as soon as I turn on
the module to Customize lists, then all default bullet symbols are
lost. If I don't specify a label for each list, I get no bullets.
That is a new feature/bug for me, I've not seen it before.

If anybody has ideas about these things, let me know. I may post that
example into the LyX Wiki, if I can reach the conclusion about whether
1 and 2 can be "solved" and if 3 is a problem unique to this document
(probably because I've damaged some default setting somewhere).

About pauljohn

Paul E. Johnson is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas. He is an avid Linux User, an adequate system administrator and C programmer, and humility is one of his greatest strengths.
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