[Axiom-developer] RE: Axiom UI

[Page, Bill]

On Thursday, July 07, 2005 3:59 AM Marc Battyani wrote:

> I've looked at the Axiom UI SOC project and I thought there may be
> some possibility to use cl-typesetting/cl-pdf as a typesetting engine
> for the layout of the mathematical expressions.

Thanks for you email. Yes, we have already briefly discussed cl-typesetting
as an option for the new Axiom user interface.

The major part of the proposal by Kai Kaminski which was selected for
the SOC funding concerns a web browser based interface. See:

http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/mathaction/AxiomUI

However, that does not preclude the possibility of using tools like
cl-tempsetting, especially in the context of high quality printable
output such as PDF, as an alternative to more traditional routes like
LaTeX.

> cl-typesetting already has math capabilities and can output to a pdf
> file but it is also possible to write to a screen or any graphical
> device. It is already platform independant and of TeX like quality.

Can you point us to any example programs that run on both linux
and windows? What flavor of lisp provides the greatest portability?

> I can even help on that if needed and add stuff such as finding which
> element got a mouse click (for editing purposes) for instance.

I would like to hear more about how you see this working. In particular,
what would be the format of the expressions which could be edited in
this manner? How closely could then correspond to the mathematical
content (as opposed to the presentation) of the output of the computer
algebra system?

> In addition to this intereactive mode, a cl-typesetting/cl-pdf backend
> could be useful too.

I agree.

> For an example of math layout, look at page 3 of :
> http://fractalconcept.com/fcweb/download/ex.pdf
>
> The lisp to generate this formula is:
> (display-formula ()
>        (with-style (:font (pdf:get-font "CMEX10" nil) :font-size 30)
>          (with-offset (23) "H"))
>        "E"(math-super-and-sub-script () ("n+1") ("k,m"))"="
>        (fraction ()
>    ("x"(with-superscript () "2")"+x-1")
>    ("F(x)+b-3"))
>        "-e"(with-superscript () "-x"(with-superscript () "2")))

Have you considered what might be required to convert from, say
LaTeX equations syntax to this sort of lisp? Or from a (much) simpler
s-expression format such as might be output by a computer algebra
system like Axiom?

Thanks for your interest. I think we need to be aware of these sort
of advances and also to proceed on more than one front -- if resource
would permit it. Unfortunately resources are in ratjer sort supply...
:) But if you have an interest in Axiom and want to proceed with some
kind of demonstration or whatever, I am sure you will have the ears
and eyes of other axiom developers.

Regards,
Bill Page.