4 ms·

How to easily type scientific notes with TeXmacs [video]

63 points by amichail 4y ago

saboot 4y ago
For scientific notes I'm really liking Jupyter notebooks using the MyST save option. All the pluses of Jupyter as a simple text markdown format, I can commit, diff, easily switch to another editor if I like
- nerdponx 4y ago
  It's a real shame that the "R Markdown" format never caught on, basically just Markdown with fenced code blocks that also act as runnable cells. I think RStudio really dropped the ball on marketing it outside of the R community, starting with its name (implying that it only works for R) and tying the reference implementation to R (the Knitr package). I haven't looked at MyST before, but it looks very much inspired by R Markdown (and of course without so much as a nod thereto anywhere on its website). I also wonder if it is a distinct Markdown dialect from CommonMark, or if it is a superset of CommonMark? It would be pretty cool to use MyST inside my code editor (Vim? Emacs? VS Code?) to run code blocks, essentially what R Markdown is/was. Or does that already exist? I would love to start using that instead of or in addition to notebooks. I really hate to see so much fragmentation in this space. It's just a markup language, I don't see why everyone needs to have their own special snowflake variant. It feels like everyone wants to be the one to strike it big and achieve fame and glory, and they'd rather not collaborate too much with others lest they risk losing their chance to be the big winner. Edit: I stand corrected! Yes, they directly reference R Markdown as a source of inspiration in the specification, which also states that MyST is indeed a superset of CommonMark: https://www.myst.tools/docs/spec/commonmark https://www.myst.tools/docs/spec/commonmark. I'll definitely want to try this out then, thanks for the recommendation!
  - tvb12 4y ago
    I think Rstudio made a decent attempt to address that marketing problem. They introduced Quarto as a language-agnostic R Markdown. https://quarto.org/docs/faq/rmarkdown.html#quarto-sounds-similar-to-r-markdown.-what-is-the-difference-and-why-create-a-new-project https://quarto.org/docs/faq/rmarkdown.html#quarto-sounds-sim...
    - i_am_proteus 4y ago
      Quarto is great. Basically ipynb markdown plus pandoc, and so far my experiences with it have been that it Just Works.
      - nerdponx 4y ago
        How well does it work with Python or Julia as well as R? Does it support Jupyter kernels, or does it use its own system?
        tvb12 4y ago
        It works with all three. Jupyter is supported as an "engine". Although I haven't tried, it sounds like any Jupyter kernel will work. https://quarto.org/docs/faq/#what-programming-languages-are-supported-in-quarto https://quarto.org/docs/faq/#what-programming-languages-are-...
  - saboot 4y ago
    You are welcome, I only learned of it a few weeks ago and it solves a lot of problems. It's still relatively new, so while jupyter notebooks / lab support, using it inside other editors with runnable code blocks is still a work in progress. VS Code looks to have an extension for previewing the markdown, but I dont think it can run python code blocks in it (for now). I agree with you, RStudio's R Markdown feature was my favorite part about it, easily wrote my assignments for a statistics class with it. For more about MyST check out the talk I recently was introduced to it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-UCO1F09M4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-UCO1F09M4
- paro_nej 4y ago
  FWIW, texmacs files are encoded like any other markup language. This makes it the texmacs files very easy for any git-fu.
MontyCarloHall 4y ago
TeXmacs is one of those software projects that would see a lot more use if it had a better name. A lot of people just assume it’s an emacs package for editing LaTeX and overlook it, when in reality it has nothing to do with emacs or LaTeX.
- froggychairs 4y ago
  I legitimately assumed it was this exact combination…… Good to know it isn’t!
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  ... thank you for mentioning; it had never occurred to me that it might be anything but an EMACS package for LaTeX. Now I'm more interested:)
  - anthk 4y ago
    AUCTEX.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  Yeah I assumed this too and have mentioned this problem before.
- anta40 4y ago
  LaTeX can virtually produce anything I need/want: - algorithm pseudocode - cooking recipe - flowchart - Karnaugh map - chess board notation - etc Beautiful output, but sometimes the process isn't easy. Does Texmacs over some advantages over LaTex? If yes, I'm willing to learn. I use various tools for typing LaTeX code: sometimes vim, sometimes Texmaker, sometimes Lyx. Once I'm tempted to replace LaTeX with AsciiDoctor, unfortunately it lacks the ability to write complex math equations into PDF file.
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    > Does Texmacs over some advantages over LaTex? If yes, I'm willing to learn. Yes. Watch the video, it explains everything.
thangalin 4y ago
KeenWrite is my free, cross-platform, open-source text editor that supports plain TeX[0]. The editor converts Markdown into XHTML that's then fed into ConTeXt for later typesetting. Take a look at section 9.9.1 of my high-level design document[1] to see some sample output. I primarily developed KeenWrite to put interpolated variables at my fingertips[2]. [0]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/screenshots.md#equations https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/scr... [1]: https://pdfhost.io/v/4FeAGGasj_SepiSolar_Highlevel_Software_Design https://pdfhost.io/v/4FeAGGasj_SepiSolar_Highlevel_Software_... [2]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/variables.md#insert-variable https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/var...
ganomfg 4y ago
periheli0n 4y ago
The thing about notes is that I have gotten really used to have them available across all my devices. When I'm in a meeting I might want to jot down or cross off an item from my phone. When I'm on a train or plane I'd use my iPad. At my desk it will be my Macbook. Texmacs notes will be available only on devices where I can install texmacs, which excludes the iPhone and iPad. Currently, Obsidian + cloud storage ticks all boxes for me. It is free, works across all devices. It uses Markdown so it's quite readable even unrendered, and the renderer works without requiring any kind of compilation. Even smoother is Apple Notes, but without maths support (which I rarely need in notes though).
splittingTimes 4y ago
Does anybody know of plugins for code editors like Eclipse, Intellij ect where I could type in latex eq into function comments and it gets rendered into a proper math form? If not directly in the editor windows, but Let's say on mouse hover over, like a tool tip?
wrd83 4y ago
I would have expected this to be about overleaf not texmaxlcs..
lakecresva 4y ago
If op is affiliated with texmacs, your website (texmacs.org) is down.
teleforce 4y ago
The definitive book on TeXmacs written by TeXmacs original author himself: The Jolly Writer: https://www.scypress.com/book_info.html https://www.scypress.com/book_info.html
- hackrnusr 4y ago
  Surprised it was not available on LibGen. I prefer PDFs these days rather than hardcopy ...

63 points by amichail 4y ago

For scientific notes I'm really liking Jupyter notebooks using the MyST save option. All the pluses of Jupyter as a simple text markdown format, I can commit, diff, easily switch to another editor if I like

nerdponx 4y ago
It's a real shame that the "R Markdown" format never caught on, basically just Markdown with fenced code blocks that also act as runnable cells. I think RStudio really dropped the ball on marketing it outside of the R community, starting with its name (implying that it only works for R) and tying the reference implementation to R (the Knitr package). I haven't looked at MyST before, but it looks very much inspired by R Markdown (and of course without so much as a nod thereto anywhere on its website). I also wonder if it is a distinct Markdown dialect from CommonMark, or if it is a superset of CommonMark? It would be pretty cool to use MyST inside my code editor (Vim? Emacs? VS Code?) to run code blocks, essentially what R Markdown is/was. Or does that already exist? I would love to start using that instead of or in addition to notebooks. I really hate to see so much fragmentation in this space. It's just a markup language, I don't see why everyone needs to have their own special snowflake variant. It feels like everyone wants to be the one to strike it big and achieve fame and glory, and they'd rather not collaborate too much with others lest they risk losing their chance to be the big winner. Edit: I stand corrected! Yes, they directly reference R Markdown as a source of inspiration in the specification, which also states that MyST is indeed a superset of CommonMark: https://www.myst.tools/docs/spec/commonmark https://www.myst.tools/docs/spec/commonmark. I'll definitely want to try this out then, thanks for the recommendation!
- tvb12 4y ago
  I think Rstudio made a decent attempt to address that marketing problem. They introduced Quarto as a language-agnostic R Markdown. https://quarto.org/docs/faq/rmarkdown.html#quarto-sounds-similar-to-r-markdown.-what-is-the-difference-and-why-create-a-new-project https://quarto.org/docs/faq/rmarkdown.html#quarto-sounds-sim...
  - i_am_proteus 4y ago
    Quarto is great. Basically ipynb markdown plus pandoc, and so far my experiences with it have been that it Just Works.
    - nerdponx 4y ago
      How well does it work with Python or Julia as well as R? Does it support Jupyter kernels, or does it use its own system?
      - tvb12 4y ago
        It works with all three. Jupyter is supported as an "engine". Although I haven't tried, it sounds like any Jupyter kernel will work. https://quarto.org/docs/faq/#what-programming-languages-are-supported-in-quarto https://quarto.org/docs/faq/#what-programming-languages-are-...
- saboot 4y ago
  You are welcome, I only learned of it a few weeks ago and it solves a lot of problems. It's still relatively new, so while jupyter notebooks / lab support, using it inside other editors with runnable code blocks is still a work in progress. VS Code looks to have an extension for previewing the markdown, but I dont think it can run python code blocks in it (for now). I agree with you, RStudio's R Markdown feature was my favorite part about it, easily wrote my assignments for a statistics class with it. For more about MyST check out the talk I recently was introduced to it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-UCO1F09M4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-UCO1F09M4
paro_nej 4y ago
FWIW, texmacs files are encoded like any other markup language. This makes it the texmacs files very easy for any git-fu.

MontyCarloHall 4y ago

TeXmacs is one of those software projects that would see a lot more use if it had a better name. A lot of people just assume it’s an emacs package for editing LaTeX and overlook it, when in reality it has nothing to do with emacs or LaTeX.

froggychairs 4y ago
I legitimately assumed it was this exact combination…… Good to know it isn’t!
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
... thank you for mentioning; it had never occurred to me that it might be anything but an EMACS package for LaTeX. Now I'm more interested:)
- anthk 4y ago
  AUCTEX.
IshKebab 4y ago
Yeah I assumed this too and have mentioned this problem before.
anta40 4y ago
LaTeX can virtually produce anything I need/want: - algorithm pseudocode - cooking recipe - flowchart - Karnaugh map - chess board notation - etc Beautiful output, but sometimes the process isn't easy. Does Texmacs over some advantages over LaTex? If yes, I'm willing to learn. I use various tools for typing LaTeX code: sometimes vim, sometimes Texmaker, sometimes Lyx. Once I'm tempted to replace LaTeX with AsciiDoctor, unfortunately it lacks the ability to write complex math equations into PDF file.
- codetrotter 4y ago
  > Does Texmacs over some advantages over LaTex? If yes, I'm willing to learn. Yes. Watch the video, it explains everything.

thangalin 4y ago

KeenWrite is my free, cross-platform, open-source text editor that supports plain TeX[0]. The editor converts Markdown into XHTML that's then fed into ConTeXt for later typesetting. Take a look at section 9.9.1 of my high-level design document[1] to see some sample output. I primarily developed KeenWrite to put interpolated variables at my fingertips[2]. [0]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/screenshots.md#equations https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/scr... [1]: https://pdfhost.io/v/4FeAGGasj_SepiSolar_Highlevel_Software_Design https://pdfhost.io/v/4FeAGGasj_SepiSolar_Highlevel_Software_... [2]: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/variables.md#insert-variable https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/var...

ganomfg 4y ago

periheli0n 4y ago

The thing about notes is that I have gotten really used to have them available across all my devices. When I'm in a meeting I might want to jot down or cross off an item from my phone. When I'm on a train or plane I'd use my iPad. At my desk it will be my Macbook. Texmacs notes will be available only on devices where I can install texmacs, which excludes the iPhone and iPad. Currently, Obsidian + cloud storage ticks all boxes for me. It is free, works across all devices. It uses Markdown so it's quite readable even unrendered, and the renderer works without requiring any kind of compilation. Even smoother is Apple Notes, but without maths support (which I rarely need in notes though).

splittingTimes 4y ago

Does anybody know of plugins for code editors like Eclipse, Intellij ect where I could type in latex eq into function comments and it gets rendered into a proper math form? If not directly in the editor windows, but Let's say on mouse hover over, like a tool tip?

wrd83 4y ago

I would have expected this to be about overleaf not texmaxlcs..

lakecresva 4y ago

If op is affiliated with texmacs, your website (texmacs.org) is down.

teleforce 4y ago

The definitive book on TeXmacs written by TeXmacs original author himself: The Jolly Writer: https://www.scypress.com/book_info.html https://www.scypress.com/book_info.html

hackrnusr 4y ago
Surprised it was not available on LibGen. I prefer PDFs these days rather than hardcopy ...