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TeXmacs and the Art of Mathematical Writing
- kleiba 6y agoNot to be confused with writing (La)TeX in Emacs, which is also fun.
- clircle 6y agoI'm learning for the first time that TeXmacs can interface with R for reproducible research and computational notebook type writing. I might give this a shot! I like writing Rmarkdown, but I sure hate writing prose in fixed width fonts, and I miss a lot of WYSIWYG features when I'm in Rstudio/Emacs.
- dash2 6y agoThe latest Rstudio has visual mode, which lets you write prose in a normal font and code in fixed-width. It's an early iteration, but fairly usable.
- GiovanniP 6y agoI have tried it now on Xubuntu 20.10 and there is a bug. I have asked here if anyone knows how to fix it: http://forum.texmacs.cn/t/does-the-r-plugin-work/434 http://forum.texmacs.cn/t/does-the-r-plugin-work/434
- GiovanniP 6y agoPlease see http://forum.texmacs.cn/t/does-the-r-plugin-work/434/2 http://forum.texmacs.cn/t/does-the-r-plugin-work/434/2 (you maybe have figured it out on your own). I tried the solution with R_LIBS_USER=~/.local/lib/R, and despite still an error being present it is possible to enter commands and see the output. Plots are displayed in own windows, but it may be that with simple programming they may be embedded in the document too. Edit: in the same thread one can read how to embed plots generated with R in the TeXmacs document. So my impression is that there is sufficient functionality for working.
- mgubi 6y agoTeXmacs has interfaces for many systems (https://twitter.com/gnu_texmacs/status/1382216780702175232 https://twitter.com/gnu_texmacs/status/1382216780702175232) including R. Seems that currently R does not run, however I think a medium R user can understand and fix the problem. The interface code for R is written in R.
- BlueTemplar 6y agoEven Julia, nice ! https://discourse.julialang.org/t/texmacs-plugin-for-julia/59164 https://discourse.julialang.org/t/texmacs-plugin-for-julia/5...
- mgubi 6y agoJulia is a lot of fun. http://forum.texmacs.cn/t/julia-programming-language/115/27 http://forum.texmacs.cn/t/julia-programming-language/115/27
- joeman1000 6y agoPlease give org-mode and org-babel a try also. There is much more utility with org and a much larger user-base. Org is more of a standard than TeXmacs, which I haven’t heard of until today. You can do all of what TeXmacs is doing without using their interface, which looks difficult to modify.
- mgubi 6y agoTeXmacs is as extensible as Emacs, being based on the same principles: having a full-fledged scheme interpreter to modify the behaviour of the UI and to programmatically edit the documents. You can even have Emacs-like keybindings :). What Emacs lacks and TeXmacs has is a sophisticate typesetting engine (i.e. something like TeX) to render complex documents. What Emacs has and TeXmacs lacks is a large user base and dedicated people which develop extensions, but it has a small number of core developers which maintain and use it everyday. It has ~20 years of development history.
- b215826 6y agoThe main issue I have with TeXmacs (and similar software like LyX) is that it's hard to collaborate with others who don't use it. TeXmacs and LyX both support exporting to LaTeX, but YMMV with the readability of the LaTeX source produced, which makes it near impossible to share it with your coauthors. Also, it's hard to use them to typeset articles for journals that often require the authors use a specific style file. None of this is criticism of TeXmacs per se, and I have nothing but respect for the developers, but I believe these are the main reasons why TeXmacs isn't popular among people who write math.
- noobermin 6y agoI generally use TeXmacs for notes and derivations for myself. For journal articles that obviously will be collaborations I use just plain latex of course. I think the most I did was in grad school is that I wrote my candidacy report in TeXmacs, but that was obviously just something I wrote myself and it didn't require a specific style. I think a happy medium would be if you could export snippets of latex from a larger texmacs doc but I haven't actually tried it.
- mgubi 6y agoI generally use TeXmacs for notes, derivations, lectures, articles, all, of course. Most of my papers in the last 7 years, around 15 and all my lectures in the same period, circa 2 courses a year. More in detail, all these papers are been written completely in TeXmacs and then converted to LaTeX to be put in arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.09637 https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.09637 https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.01513 https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.01513 https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.00872 https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.00872 https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.14264 https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.14264 https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.06881 https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.06881 https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.04830 https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.04830 https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.11187 https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.11187 https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.04422 https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.04422 https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.12014 https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.12014 https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.10814 https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.10814 https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.03118 https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.03118 https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.03195 https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.03195 https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.07373 https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.07373 https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.07886 https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.07886 https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.03877 https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.03877 https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.00157 https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.00157 Similarly all the lecture notes in this page: https://www.iam.uni-bonn.de/abteilung-gubinelli/teaching https://www.iam.uni-bonn.de/abteilung-gubinelli/teaching I think most of the discussion in this thread does not report any real current experience using it.
- noobermin 6y agoTeXmacs is awesome, I used it in grad school to take notes during QFT lectures and I could follow along because the shortcuts are just so intuitive if you already know latex: for example in math mode, ^ enters superscript, _ enters subscript, you can access greek letters by tab completion from the roman alphabet characters like \alpha is a+tab, \delta is d+tab, \Delta is D+tab (capital D tab). It's awesome, although a little buggy in the less used bits like the graphics maker. Still, it has a load of potential, it just needs a little more love (developers and money I suppose). EDIT: little tidbit, much like the online org-mode manual, judging by the typeface and the color of the hyperlinks, I bet this article itself was written in texmacs and exported to html.
- omaranto 6y ago> EDIT: little tidbit, much like the online org-mode manual, judging by the typeface and the color of the hyperlinks, I bet this article itself was written in texmacs and exported to html. Even more than the typeface and the hyperlink color, I found this to be a give away :P "Figure 1. This article has been written in TeXmacs. The image shows the article being drafted and the management of the figures within the program."
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- Myrmornis 6y ago[Plug] If you're an emacs user, here's a project which renders all math in LaTeX documents to SVG preview images automatically as you type: https://github.com/dandavison/xenops https://github.com/dandavison/xenops I've used it a lot and I believe the experience is better than preview-latex in auctex (that's the only thing from auctex that it replaces). The main drawback at the moment is that you can't use the full range of math delimiters, but it does support the standard/recommended AMSMath ones.
- cbmuser 6y agoHow is that different from the preview mode of AucTeX?
- diarrhea 6y agoI just ignore the entire TeX-Editor landscape and use VSCode with LaTeX Workshop. The latter falls apart for what I use it for often (*.cls files etc.), but VSCode is simply so much more powerful than any niche, language-specific editor can ever hope to be. LaTeX-specific support like tab completion mentioned in this thread ("hit a+tab for alpha") also doesn't work in my use cases. I use `glossaries-extra` for everything it's suitable for, so all symbols are glossary macros and not literal letters (`\alpha`...). It makes the source beautifully readable and is more in LaTeX's spirit: what you mean is what you get (`\section` vs. `\large\bfseries\sffamily`...). So instead of `\alpha` it might say `\sym{absorbtion_coefficient}`. If you ignore the necessary `\sym` macro bit, equations in source code will read like you'd say them out loud. There's no ambiguity left, what the author meant is right there, no guessing needed. Want to change the symbol? There's only one place you'll have to change it at. Often, you cannot change e.g. `\alpha` globally (sed and friends) because such a popular symbol is probably used in multiple contexts. Generate a nomenclature? It's one command once everything is set up, no manual `nomencl` (which is an awful, hacky, old thing) sorcery anymore. You can even print a list of all the pages a symbol, acronym, ... has been used. And that's just `glossaries-extra`. There's `unicode-math`/`fontspec`, `tcolorbox`, `polyglossia`, `csquotes` (latex editors might helpfully auto-complete quotes (``''), but that is entirely misguided in the first place; use `csquotes`), `cleveref`, `biblatex`, `floatrow`, `caption`, ... modern LaTeX is pretty wonderful and has a lot to offer, but I found LaTeX-specific editors lag behind and their LaTeX-specific support is not useful in a lot of those cases. Plus, LaTeX Workshop is very good in its own right.
- GiovanniP 6y ago> I just ignore the entire TeX-Editor landscape TeXmacs is not a TeX-editor, it is an independent program. The word "TeX" is in the name because one of the ambitions of the program is to inherit the typographic excellence of TeX (see the "parent article"). On this topic, the author of TeXmacs claims he has surpassed it.
- taeric 6y agoIt is rather amusing how this product is neither TeX, nor emacs. Pretty sure the vast majority of folks assume it is related to at least one, if not both.
- ykonstant 6y agoBoth texmacs and lyx are excellent products, especially in the seamless integration of images and diagrams. More traditionally, Vim and Emacs can be used with snippets and vimtex/auctex quite efficiently, both for interactive note-taking and to prepare large documents. Gilles Castel has an excellent guide on the Vim side [0], and I cannot help mentioning my system [1] which I think produces pretty clear latex code. [0] https://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-1/ https://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-1/ [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/jtjol5/cinnamon_latex_workflow_in_vim/ https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/jtjol5/cinnamon_l...
- mgubi 6y agoI found both links you suggest very interesting and impressive. But again part of my objection is that I do not want my screen divided in two, there is no need in 2020 to stick to this old tradition. I like more to be able to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILiL4m61BLw&t=4020s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILiL4m61BLw&t=4020s I've used Emacs+AucTeX for long time and I agree with you that it is an excellent toolset. It is simply that with certain tools you will never ever even think to do something because it is just these 5 sec (too much) away. Like using colors in a table, or making algebraic manipulations directly on the documents on complex formulas. The tools we use shape what we do, subtly. If it takes you more than 5 min to make a drawing, maybe you take the decision not to do one. If takes more thant 30 sec to make a table, then same: maybe you get along without. In any case the burden of the technology will impose on you to get out of your writing focus to care about technical matters (open another applications, look into stackexchange...). I wrote that blog article to make a point for all those users who care about the quality of the interaction with the writing tool. I understand very well other tools allow more flexibility in some respects or wider compatibility, but in my personal experience none of the above mentioned tools can replace TeXmacs for creative technical writing or even for fast note taking. If you compare TeXmacs and LyX then you miss the point of my blog article. I've tried to carefully explain the particular nature of TeXmacs including some careful UI design choices which allows the UI to be out of your way and out of your screen. Ideally, there should be no button on the screen (look at Emacs, no toolbar), the free space on the screen has to be allocated for the document, with the right information popping up when needed. Moreover I do not want to see an approximation of the final result, that is not good enough (and we are in 2020) It is not a problem with LyX itself: if you stick to 100% compatibility with LaTeX then there is no much more you can do.
- forgotpwd16 6y agoIt should be noted that TeXmacs isn't just for authoring documents in the traditional sense. It also allows running shell-like programming sessions, for example a computer algebra system, right inside the document itself. The idea is similar to Mathematica and Jupyter but rather using cells for specific purpose (text, code, ...), in TeXmacs everything is part of the same document.
- uvtc 6y agoPandoc lets you write in Markdown but also include mathematics in LaTeX. For me this is a nice combination.