Just swam my first ocean: There was a very bizarre suggested edit (to one of my answers as well) which added a nice, but completely spurious, graphic, and some weird stuff at the top. Anyone else seen anything similar in the "suggested edits"? Seemed like some sort of spam, but I never saw anything like this when I was a pro tem moderator.

@Caramdir Since no one has shot the idea down in flames, let's make a start and see how easy it is. I think we should start on meta, and if it gets to the point where it needs a more sophisticated environment we can shift to something suitable (github, launchpad, whatever). But starting on meta has several advantages at least in the early stages.

@MartinScharrer Apparently I can only "reply" to one message at a time. So this is not a reply but is intended to draw your attention to my reply to Caramdir.

@AndrewStacey That's a new one for me - I've not seen that

@JosephWright I should have left it for others to see. If I see it again, I will do so.

Hello?

@DaveJarvis: So, the test document works but yours doesn't. Is that right so far?

The test.latex works. The minimal LyX document does not.

@DaveJarvis By "minimal LyX document", do you mean the one with your preamble in? And when you say that the test.latex works, you mean _using LyX? (Just wanted to be absolutely sure I understand where we're starting from.)

@AndrewStacey: The minimal LyX document is shown here: i.imgur.com/7pcEt.png

@AndrewStacey: The test.latex works using the pdflatex command. LyX adds a bit of a layer on top of latex itself, making it unsuitable to use for a straight latex document.

@DaveJarvis: See wiki.lyx.org/FAQ/PDF

The first entry states "Insert->File->External Material and there the template pdfpages."

@DaveJarvis You need to test pdfpages from within LyX since you're using LyX for your document. Either that, or export (?) your LyX document to latex and test that with pdflatex.

@MartinScharrer: Yeah, I've tried that. Funny things happen...

@DaveJarvis, @AndrewStacey: using this technique it works for a minimal document for me

@Dave: Funny thing? Like clowns jumping over your screen? Could you be more specific?

@MartinScharrer: That tiny rectangle in the middle is the cover page. ;-)

@DaveJarvis @MartinScharrer: Okay, we'll take Martin's experience as evidence enough for the time being. Looking at the preamble, I don't think that anything outside a package could be causing trouble, but nonetheless the next test is to comment out everything except a \usepackage and try again.

@DaveJarvis (You'll probably need to put an \end{document} pretty early on as well)

@AndrewStacey: Okay. I have recreated the minimalist LyX file that does not work.

@DaveJarvis: And that is ... ?

@AndrewStacey: pastebin.com/bxWbbaii

@AndrewStacey, @MartinScharrer: I exported the minimal test.lyx to test.tex. I then ran pdflatex on test.tex and it produced test.pdf successfully!

@DaveJarvis: Yes, I was just going to say that that file worked fine for me. What happens if you export your original file to tex and run pdflatex on that?

@AndrewStacey: My computer is grinding to a halt at the moment. It's a 28MB document that is currently exporting to tex format.

@AndrewStacey: Doesn't look good, though. Lots of warnings of undefined references.

@DaveJarvis: Ignore them, that's normal.

@AndrewStacey: The final PDF has the same problem. The cover page is a small rectangle and a new problem: the table of contents is empty. All the references are not in the PDF.

@AndrewStacey: Re-running pdflatex a few times...

@AndrewStacey: I think I might just install the pdftk software and do a merge of the cover page with the content. This is proving way too painful.

@DaveJarvis: Okay, try this: \tikz[remember picture,overlay] \node at (current page.south west) {\includegraphics{cover}};

@AndrewStacey: Running pdflatex again resolved the references. The cover image, though, remains too tiny to read.

@AndrewStacey: Looks interesting. Might even work within LyX, which would be ideal.

@AndrewStacey: No luck. i.imgur.com/lXbXb.png

@AndrewStacey: Might work with the proper offset, though?

@DaveJarvis: Whoops! Try: \tikz[remember picture,overlay] \node[draw,above right] at (current page.south west) {\includegraphics[width=\paperwidth]{cover}}; (Sorry, didn't test it first time)

@DaveJarvis: Bother! Forget the "draw" option to the node; just use the "above right".

@AndrewStacey: texample.net/tikz/examples/transparent-png-overlay ?

@AndrewStacey: Runs in LyX without any issues, which is nice.

@DaveJarvis Yes, that's exactly it. I see that they put inner sep=0pt which I think a good idea.

@AndrewStacey: Almost works. The word "Indispensable" is clearly visible behind the image.

@DaveJarvis Are you sure it's not in front of the image? If the footers and headers are put on last, then they will go on top of the background image. One solution is to ensure that the cover page is using an "empty" style for headers and footers (exactly how depends on what you're using to put the headers and footers there in the first place).

@AndrewStacey: i.imgur.com/nGBZm.png

@AndrewStacey: Could be in front. :-)

@AndrewStacey: Added \thispagestyle{empty} ...

@DaveJarvis My experiment shows the page number on top.

@AndrewStacey: You are most gracious. The solution works.

@AndrewStacey, @MartinScharrer: Thank you both for your time and mad, heroic remote debugging skillz.

@DaveJarvis: Happy to help. I must confess to being a little curious as to why pdfpages wasn't working, but not curious enough to do any more testing! You should post that as an answer on your question as an alternative method (explain that Martin's solution wasn't working in LyX but we couldn't figure out why and link to the TeXample page as well)

Where is the TikZ answer with the overprint area over an image? Can't find it just now.

Found it: tex.stackexchange.com/q/9559/2975

@AndrewStacey: I added now to more suggestion to the TikZ thread on meta. I think we will have a nice collections soon.

I'm confused about this "approving edits" thing. I've just approved a few edits by lockstep on tag wikis. But lockstep has bucket loads of reputation more than me! So how come I'm needed to approve these edits?

@MartinScharrer Yes, I like that one.

@AndrewStacey: The idea about this edit approval theme is peer reviewing. You need at least two high rep users: one making the edit, the other approving it.

@MartinScharrer Ah, now I understand. That actually makes a lot of sense.

@WillRobertson: Are you by any chance the Will which posted this comment: texample.net/tikz/examples/d-flip-flops-and-shift-register/… ? I would have an update on it.

Huh. marginfix handles marginpars by making them float. This breaks KOMA's attempt to have the marginpars flushed toward the textblock. I guess this is a bug

Sorry, that should say it breaks \marginline which KOMA tries to flush towards the textblock.

I found a workaround though: \newcommand\mnote[1]{\marginpar{\ifthispageodd{\raggedright}{\raggedleft}\footn­otesize #1}}

However, if you put this in a oneside document like scrartcl this goes weird. But then I guess marginline works OK for oneside...

Huh. No. In fact, marginline wants to flush the text away from the textblock. That's odd.

@AndrewStacey tex.stackexchange.com/tools/… (click on rejected to see the edit you rejected)

I have a question that might be a tex question or might be a meta question. Which do you think? Here is the question: "How do you keep track of your code snippets?"

@Seamus I started putting them in a bzr repository. Or in a class file.

@Seamus It's not about the site, so its not a meta question.

@Caramdir yeah but the question about detexify got shoved to meta...

@Seamus I'd say the detexify question is off-topic in meta as well. Anyway, I think your question is acceptable on the main site. We already had several project organization questions

OH wow. Go and upvote something on stackoverflow now. It's awesome.

Freenode is also using a unicorn theme today. How's that connected to April 1st? :)

@Caramdir: Just did as you suggested on the TikZ question. Thanks.

@Seamus: I agree that the detexify question is off-topic for meta, rather I'd like to think that it was shoved in to a siding to give it the opportunity to develop in to something more acceptable to the main site.

The fact that a path to a node gets interrupted at the boundary is great for drawing knot diagrams! Here's my current code for the trefoil knot:

(need to use my brunnian style file for the node shapes).

Result:

The recent change to the daylight saving time really starts to annoys me. I'm out of sync with the SO time and my SVN timestamps. It even doesn't have any benefits!.