mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Mark Arrasmith <address@hidden>]

On Wednesday 09 November 2005 09:13 am, Henri Lesourd wrote:
> >It would be most awesome if TeXmacs had the ability to work with a
> >drawing pad or touch-screen and stylus so that one could do math "by
> >hand" more like you do with a pencil and paper, rather than via a
> >keyboard.

Yes it is not a new idea ...

On Sunday 23 October 2005 02:25 am, address@hidden wrote:
> My name is Timothy Paik. I'm an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley
> working in a group under Professor Richard Fateman. We have been trying to
> create an easy way for people to input math through speech and handwriting.
> We have a program called MathSpeakAndWrite implemented in C#, and are
> attempting to write a plugin that will run this program and convert the
> output into a format that TeXmacs will understand.
>
> We have three questions: First, is there anyone who already has written a
> plugin like this for TeXmacs? Second, is there anyone who might be
> interested in such a program if it were to work well? Finally, (and this is
> a long shot), our initial attempt to copy the help file to write a program
> (like minimal), ended up with only one of the two windows necessary for the
> program showing up (alas, the less important one)...is that something
> someone happens to know a lot about?


Also there is some GPL software that I've played with in the past ...
     The Freehand Formula Entry System ( http://www.cs.queensu.ca/drl/ffes/ )

I personally use on older tablet pc ( a VIA Epia M with a fujitsu 
touchscreen ) that is running Fedora Core 4 and the latest TeXmacs.  I use 
two handwriting apps right now.  Xstroke ( http://www.xstroke.org/ ) and a 
version of Keymacs that I ported from the Agenda linux based handheld.

Anyways,  TeXmacs DOES NOT need to support and freehand entry system.  
Applications like Xstroke and Keymacs should.  TeXmacs already takes as input 
LaTeX or basically any string of characters that it recognizes can be used to 
create the input.

For Example ...
Xstroke already has modes ( letter, number, and puncuation ).  You could just 
add a Math mode which would then use some mathematics engine like FFES or the 
one that Timothy Paik mentions.  Where you would write on the screen the full 
formula until you entered a return stroke to pass the entire image to the 
engine.  Which would then pass the interpreted string of characters to 
TeXmacs.  Similarly Keymacs, which can use multiple engines,  could use a 
math engine as well.

Lastly, Keymacs is written in FLTK which compiles on Windows and Linux so I 
believe an engine written for it could be used on both Windows and Linux.

- mark arrasmith