mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Giovanni Piredda <address@hidden>]

On 18.11.20 21:17, TeXmacs wrote:
> Hi Giovanni,
>
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2020 at 09:09:02PM +0100, Giovanni Piredda wrote:
> > Let us assume we are in math mode, and that I want to write v = 5 m
> > s⁻¹, with m and s in upright shape; there should be a space between
> > m and s⁻¹ (they are multiplied together)
> There were a few issues with the Computer Modern Roman font.
> The right solution is to set 'math-font-shape' to 'right'.
> I fixed the CMR issues and created the 'upright' macro to do
> exactly what you want (revision 13165).
>
> That said, for high school physics and chemistry teachers,
> it would probably be nice to implement special macros for
> physical quantities and formulas of chemical compounds.
> I am not yet decided about the right way to do this.
>
> For physical quantities, one may not wish to type
> all the multiplications.  So 1kgm/s^2 or even 1kgm/s2
> should be transformed into 1*kg*m/s^2.
>
> Similarly, in chemistry, one might wish to type 'H2O' or 'CH3O-'.
>
> You may try to design a Scheme macro to perform such rewritings ;^)
>
> Best wishes, --Joris


I feel having a macro for physical quantities is interesting for 
physicists too. One issue for me is how wide of a spacing to put between 
units. siunitx,written by J. Wright for LaTeX, puts a thin space (\,) 
and lets users choose a different formatting 
(https://mirror.easyname.at/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/siunitx/siunitx.pdf, 
pages 37 and 38). The "SI concise summary" 
(https://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si-brochure/SI-Brochure-9-concise-EN.pdf, 
last page) says "a space" or "a half-high centred dot".

For the input to the Scheme macros (physical quantities and chemical 
formulae), I have in mind now that something clear to read may be better 
than something quick to type.

Maybe discussing both of these topics are more interesting in 
texmacs-dev than here

G.