3 ms·

This is a really wonderful idea. I love the thought that math support could become as ubiquitous as support for unicode strings. (You could search the web for m

• Avshalom 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14687936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14687936 There's actually some work on that.
  • devereaux 9y ago
    Though I agree with the top comment that the line cited is hardly legible: W_δ₁ρ₁σ₂^3β = U_δ₁ρ₁^3β+1/8π^2 ∫_α₁^α₂dα'₂ [(U_δ₁ρ₁^2β-α'₂U_ρ₁σ₂^1β)/U_ρ₁σ₂^0β] Now imagine that same example with the few combining characters I proposed: W_δ₁ρ₁σ₂^3β becomes W (ctrl--) δ₁ρ₁σ₂ (ctrl-5) 3β and it would render much more nicely.
    • kiriakasis 9y ago
      I think you also need parenthesis, in mathematica they are inplicititally inserted in the notebook W (ctrl--) δ₁ρ₁σ₂ (ctrl-5) 3β {W (ctrl--) δ₁}ρ₁σ₂ (ctrl-5) 3β {W (ctrl--) δ₁ρ₁}σ₂ (ctrl-5) 3β {W (ctrl--) δ₁ρ₁σ₂} (ctrl-5) 3β I believe that such a standard would be extremely non-extensible.
    • WorldMaker 9y ago
      The applications that support this Unicode Math today (Microsoft's Office) provide a lot of typing shortcuts including converting LaTeX \tags into their equivalents. I think the balance in the "plain text" over-verbose rendering of the Unicode Math was to make sure it copy/pastes adequately and flaws in that a bit easier to spot in "plain text" form outside of document math zones and math-supporting OpenType fonts, than some of the combining character options might yield.