mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

["David E. Miller" <address@hidden>]

Bill:

Given your lists of "wants" below, since I am familiar with MathCAD I 
suggest the following:

* Maxima is arguably the best open-source CAS system I have used. The 
plugin works and
  the TeXmacs Maxima plugin output looks nice.

* Maxima has a units module that you can load and use. I have not tried 
it personally. I
   Use GNU Units instead for conversions and merely make sure that I 
use a consistent
   set of units to begin with instead of mixing them together in 
expressions. This avoids
   having to carry these unit abbreviations along with all the 
expressions involved. This
   is really and pain in the you-know-what.

* Maxima can do numerical work as well, but that is not its primary 
strength. You might
   try Octave instead. Python NumPy and SciPy modules work well also 
using the
   Python plugin for this purpose. Maxima may have all you need though.

* I recommend loading the Maxima draw module for your plotting. Maxima 
has some
   stock plotting functions, but in my opinion the draw module is 
superior to these.

Having said all this there are a couple of caveats here of which you 
should be aware:

- Maxima input is all text. There is no worksheet GUI environment like 
MathCAD uses.

- TeXmacs and the Maxima plugin does not replace a special purpose interface
  to Maxima for routine work were there might be a lot of trial and error
  involved. I think wxMaxima is best for work like this. You can use 
TeXmacs
  for this if you choose, and to the credit of the developers there is much
  that can be done, but TeXmacs is primarily for communicating results in
  most instances. You will have to try both according to your needs and
  see what works best for you.

- The TeXmacs existing Octave plugin has a bug it appears. I have a fix 
for this I
   found by trial and error that seems to fix the issue so far for me.

- Including images in TeXmacs requires some know-how that is not obvious 
from the
  interface. In the end TeXmacs likes PostScript, that is, Encapsulated 
PostScript image
  format. All other formats are converted using "helper" programs on 
the fly as
  image is inserted. So the best bet is to use a "terminal" ( I am 
using gnuplot lingo)
  like epscairo to save any plot image to EPS. I have a paper I have 
written about the
  issues of image insertion using TeXmacs that explains all this in 
detail. I will send it
  to you if you have the interest. Images having any "transparency" 
effects are
  a particular problem that needs to be addressed. These need to be 
"rasterized"
  EPS files before insertion. These rasterized images can be large.

- I recommend that you stick with GNU/Linux instead of Windows or OS X 
versions
  of TeXmacs or anything else for that matter. You will save yourself a 
barrel of
  headaches. There are so many useful tools available and everything works
  together it seems to me much better.

If you decide you want to use Maxima with TeXmacs, then I can help. I 
use it all
the time with TeXmacs and the Maxima plugin is top-notch in my opinion.
I have a paper I have written that provides users with the essential ins 
and outs of
using Maxima. It is an elaboration of a paper written by Robert Dodier
titled "Minimal Maxima." My version is called Minimal Maxima Revisited."
I will send this to you if you have the interest.

Best wishes,

David Miller

On 5/15/2013 12:37 PM, Bill Eaton wrote:
> Thanks to everyone for feedback.
>
> Honestly, I haven't done much with the Python plugin. But I could see how it
> could be REALLY useful for writing tutorials with the varsession package.
> The SymPy plugin seems to work mostly OK, but there are notable cases where
> I don't get nicely typeset formulas. I don't know enough about what TexMacs
> syntax should look like for formulas/equations.
>
> Presumably, there is something about the sympy.printing.latex() function
> that produces output that TexMacs doesn't like.
>
> The behavior I see is in Linux. I haven't gotten the plugin to work in
> Windows yet. I found the SymPy plugin from the SymPy source tree.
>
> Just now, I was perusing through the Python plugin and I see there is a
> function for spitting out PostScript code. Can that be used for inline
> figures/plots? If so, that would be extremely useful.
>
> My motivation for all of this is to find a good MathCAD replacement. I want
> to have:
>    * typeset formulas
>    * symbolic manipulation for when I need to derive equations
>    * numerical evaluation for when I need to make calculations
>    * awareness of units
>    * ability to do plots
>    * make a pretty document that can serve as a report.
>
> TexMacs is a good candidate for this, but it's been a struggle to figure out
> how to get what I want.
>
> --Bill
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 1:27 AM
> To: David E. Miller
> Cc: Bill Eaton; address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [TeXmacs] Sympy plugin
>
> On Wed, 15 May 2013, David E. Miller wrote:
> > I can't find a sympy plugin in either version in the distribution file
> tree as installed.
> It's a part of sympy.
>
> > Second, since this is a Python module, I would first try to use the
> > existing Python plugin and fire up a Python session in a TeXmacs doc and
> load your sympy module and see how the Python plugin handles the some stress
> tests you can try.
> This is by far not sufficient. sympy is a CAS, and the main reason to use it
> inside TeXmacs is to get nicely typeset formulas. The python plugin alone
> will not do this.
>
> What's needed is some hybrid of the current python plugin (distributed with
> TeXmacs) and the current sympy plugin (distributed with sympy).
>
> Andrey