Re: Amaya 10 -- snapsohot 4 -- bugs and proposals

to Fred

> Hi Vladislav,
>
> I would be interested to know more about the section you call "FUTURE" in
> your
> previous mail.
>
> > 1. CSS: enable counters, etc.
>
>        Can you give more explanations ?


By counters I meant:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/CR-CSS21-20070719/generate.html#counters
For me Amaya is not a WYSIWYG, it is more content editor. Counters are the
part of visual content. Of course other css
rules<http://www.w3.org/Amaya/User/CSSStatus.html>should be supported.

> 2. introduce modes -- set of additional rules. For example in "chemistry
> >   mode" to all <mi> with content element=H,He,Li,...,Mt class="chem" will
> be
> >   added, so with switched chem mode it will take seconds to type
> K[Fe(CN)6]2-
> >   (here C and N should be automatically splited). In LaTeX for the same
> >   purpose I use predefined command \chem. Another example "units mode":
> class
> >   "MathML-Unit <http://www.w3.org/TR/mathml-units/>" will be added. In
> both
> >   cases styles of identifier will be written in css.
>
>         For the moment the MathML panel is mainly based on content MathML 2
> elements.
> It needs to be reorganized and extended to other areas of mathematics and
> other
> scientific fields (physics, chemistry...). In the SVG panel, I add
> "components"
> (flasks, cube, etc) that are .svg files insertable in a document. I plan to
> do
> the same for MathML (using .mml files), so that it would be easier for
> developers to integrate new constructions. Also, the developers plan to
> improve
> the translation string=>MathML and particulary to allow insertion of LaTeX
> fragments. I personnaly think they should try to integrate one of the
> libraries
> that already exist to do this conversion (for instance
> http://dlmf.nist.gov/LaTeXML/,
> http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/itex2MML.html,
> http://gva.noekeon.org/blahtexml/...).
>

Personally I don't like an idea of convertion of LaTeX to MathML in Amaya.
Becouse, in my opinion people should create content with Amaya, rather then
translate it to standardized markup language. But I agree an oportunity
should exist, for example, support for trasformation of openmath and, in
general, easy drug and drop support for translating mathematics from
Microsoft Office and OpenOffice to Amaya.

P.S. SVG templates are really good idea! Bravo!
Also flasks are nice, but chemists won't use it. May be you should use wiki
experience:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Electronics/Programs#Programs_for_drawing_circuits
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Electrical_symbols_library.svg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SVG_chemistry

>From the chemists point of view, there is a need in templates: 1) lab. glass
and apparatus, 2) crystal and molecule structures, 3) orbitals, 4)
additional marks. It is not enoght for chemistry, but it is to many for
Amaya! Don't you think so? All templates should be additional stuff, that is
not acceseble direct from main menu, but from galleries. A nice gallery
example: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:C.Thure/Gallery/SVG

       Now, I how do you imagine the "modes" would work ? When will the
> "class"
> attribute be attached to an element ? Nothing about this is explained in
> "MathML-Unit".
>

hotkeys: ctrl+m+c for chemistry and ctrl+m+u for units. Since mode is
activated, Amaya automatically at least add specified class to mi elements
(comment: another way to make it is to use xsl -- you see, modes would be
easier). I prefer, that it would not be the main option of Amaya, but it
would be possible to define any special mode and save it as a behavior in
additional file. The best and most usefull modes would be described at Amaya
homepage and recommended to users.


> >   3. make advanced paste option for embedding svg, mathml etc. into the
> >   page with an opportunity to preedit pasted fragment in a separate
> window
> >   (first of all with a code clean up option).
>
>         Some people have been asking for a long time improvements in
> "internal"
> copy/paste (i.e. between two documents loaded in Amaya), especially with
> SVG
> contents. I think this problems/bugs should be fixed before adding new
> features.
> You seem to be talking about "external" copy/paste (i.e. between Amaya and
> other
> programs). I don't know if there is a standard way to do it, but I suppose
> this
> is realized by copying source code in the clipboard. Do you know how other
> sofware do it?


Yes, I do.
Imagine, one wants to add some chemical structure (very quickly and easily)
to Amaya. First of all, the only way is to paste it into the code. Secondly,
there are a few programs, that draw svg-chemistry. For example,
MarvinScetch, which also give one additional problems: coordinates are set
too precisely and there are a lot of additional attributes. BKChem is much
better. Any way, one have to clean up the code, which is time consuming, one
have no opportunity to use some advanced stuff like he has in IsisDraw,
ACDChem, ChemOffice (which are the standard editors in any laboratory).
There may be a solution: to use XUL in order to render
CML<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Markup_Language>.
CML is not good for reaction (mechanism) drawing, so one still needs, for
example BKChem and some possibility to edit svg in Amaya (add arrows). CML
is good because it is supported by almost all chemistry software. Also, it
may be transformed and styled dirrectly in Amaya, for example, one may
change bond length.
Bond length, thickness and other parameters should be predefined in
additional stylesheet, which refer to Journal or custom settings. Journal
settings may be introduced also to mathematics.

An other example, when one needs advanced copy paste is about data:uri
images <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data:_URI_scheme>. Personally, I do
like looking into code, even for copy/paste.

In summary, my wishlist:

   - better support for css, especially for counters
   - chemistry/physics etc. customizable modes in Amaya
   - SVG templates ordered by specific fields, which are
   always accessible from internet and may be loaded to Amaya
      - laboratory glass, apparatus and equipment
      - crystal and molecular structures
      - orbitals
      - additional marks and arrows
   - CML support with help of XUL
   - advanced copy/paste

I do not want to transform Amaya into a document (articles, monograph, book)
editor. I do want it to be customizable and also usable, as an editor.

-- 
M.Sc. Vladislav Ivanishtshev