Re: Synergies in the Development of Mathematical Editors

From: Kenny Tilton <kennytilton@optonline.net> · Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:33:59 -0400

Christine Müller wrote:
> Dear Developers and Users of Mathematical Editors,
> 
> At the Doctoral Programm of the CICM Conference in Birmingham last week,
> one of the senior researchers challenged the developers of mathematical
> editors to sit together, compare their implementations, and find
> synergies.
> 
> That day, some of us sat together and thought that this might be a good
> point and should not only involve the developers but also users that
> might be able to point to valuable requirements and, in particular, take
> over the testing ;-)
> 
> As a first step we set up a mailing list, which I would like to
> announce: project-math-editors@lists.jacobs-university.de
> You can subscribe here:
> http://lists.jacobs-university.de/mailman/listinfo/project-math-editors 
> 
> This mailing list can be used to understand the state of the art, in
> particular, of semantic mathematical editors (supporting OpenMath or
> Content MathML). It addresses developers to identify basic requirements,
> current features and major challenges during the implementation of their
> editors. Possible topics are the extensibility of editors and finding
> synergies. Moreover, users are encourage to post their requirements and
> request for support. The list can also be used for announcements, e..g.
> of latest releases, integration of editors in other systems, or
> interesting events (conferences, workshops, doctoral seminars).
> 
> Moreover, Christoph Lange offered to set up a space in the MathWeb Wiki.
> http://www.mathweb.org/wiki (announcement will follow).
> We will provide a template that can be used to describe current
> implementation. But of course, this will only be a first draft and will
> hopefully evolve as we start discussing.
> 
> As a potential user of semantic math editors, I am very interested in
> the discussion and comparison. I want to encourage all developers and
> fellow users to jump in and contribute. Potentially this might lead to
> some interesting findings, synergies, or even a neat survey on the
> state-of-the-art and future challenges!
> 
> Best regards,
> Christine Müller
> 

If you are purely interested in the human interface aspects of editing 
mathematics, the editor inside my pre-alpha not-even-beta" release this 
might give folks some ideas:

    http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/

I hate typing and my target audience is young teens who already hate 
math so I worked hard at making the editing natural and easy. For 
example, the keystroke sequence:

     1 / 4 x 2 -- 1 / 9 y 4

...produces one-fourth x-squared minus one-ninth y to the fourth

hit: / / 1 / 2 x - 1 / 3 y 2

... and you just put tha difference of squares over one of its factors.

The idea is to make common things easy but at the same time see to it 
that unusual things never require more than an extra keystroke.

I am on this list because I have considered implementing a MathML 
backend, but right now it is just a desktop app with its own internal 
representation of the math.

Should I carve out the editor and translate to Javascript?

cheers, kenneth

     http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/