4 ms·

How does it compare to LyX?

• amichail 5y ago
  Unlike LyX, TeXmacs is truly WYSIWYG and does not use TeX/LaTeX.
  • e3bc54b2 5y ago
    Which is its greatest strength and greatest weakness :)
    • GiovanniP 5y ago
      There is always the possibility to switch to source; there is a menu item in the editor (Document->Source->Edit source tree), and when examining source the editor becomes a structure editor (this enforces syntax as far as I understand).
    • mgubi 5y ago
      Well, is more an opportunity to move forward. You just have to consider LaTeX as another output format, not really for human consumption, similar to PDF and HTML. Something you do not want to edit by hand. Many people are anyway moving in this direction using Markdown+pandoc and similar solutions. TeXmacs is another possibility in this direction which allows you to concentrate on the contents, including structure, and not on the programming of the content.
      • pjmlp 5y ago
        About a decade ago I was already doing technical documentation like that by using DITA and Oxygen XML Author (there are other alternatives). However most of these Word like tools tend to be commercial (the best ones), so they are hardly seen in FOSS contexts.
• asdf_snar 5y ago
  Years ago I looked into both LyX and TeXmacs. I could already quickly write math in LaTeX but I wanted to work out calculations on a single screen without the code/renderer split screen setup (having the math directly visible is a game-changer for doing long calculations, by the way). TeXmacs won hands down for me. I had no problem learning the intuitive shortcuts (e.g. any letter - TAB for its Greek counterpart). If you know the LaTeX counterpart you can almost always type that in. The converter to LaTeX source is quite good. I love that the "nesting hierarchy" in a math expression is visible. For instance, "(x^2 + 4)" has four distinct components: the parentheses "(...)", the term "x^2" (two components, "x" and "2"), and the term "4". If you place your cursor before or after the parentheses and use SHIFT+RARROW or SHIFT+LARROW (respectively), you highlight the parentheses; if you do the same before or after the x^2 term, you highlight x^2. I find a lot of math editors (e.g., Word 2016) get this wrong because they will just highlight the parentheses or the exponent. Smart highlighting is super useful for fast manipulation of equations. Oh, and also -- if you are within a set of parentheses, you can keep hitting TAB to cycle through (), [], {}, ... . Not to mention, TeXmacs handles all the \left and \right parentheses sizing for you (the parentheses in the above example would expand if, for instance, you made 4 a fraction like 4/3 -- a quick Meta-f away)
  • throw0101a 5y ago
    > but I wanted to work out calculations on a single screen without the code/renderer split screen setup (having the math directly visible is a game-changer for doing long calculations, by the way). If anyone wants to play with this there are 'online editors' so you don't even have to download/install software nowadays: * https://latex.codecogs.com/eqneditor/editor.php https://latex.codecogs.com/eqneditor/editor.php This one renders on-screen, as well as allowing downloads as GIF/PNG/PDF/SVG to perhaps embed in other document systems. (Plenty of others as well.)
    • GiovanniP 5y ago
      https://www.mathcha.io/editor https://www.mathcha.io/editor is closer to the idea of TeXmacs (editing the typeset document, not the source)