[Texmacs-dev] Mathematics as a drawing; clipboard; a motto

[Álvaro Tejero Cantero]

Hello

> 
> Right this is exactly what I am working towards to and
> I see images, tables and trees (hey!) as such universal tools.

Why trees and not graphs?

> > Anyway, an image has no semantic meaning as far as TeXmacs is
> > concerned.
> 
> But it can *make sense* inside mathematics.
>

I think one of the biggest disadvantages of digital mathematical
authoring is the lack for support for "mathematics is as much a drawing
as a text". This is why arguments developed in the blackboard, which
rely heavily on braces for grouping and 'bézier' arrows (i.e. very free
in form) for aliasing are shorter and more convenient to write. I don't
see exactly how to do it, but it would be great if TeXmacs had some
support for this shortened form of writing, which is the one used by the
majority of the people in the blackboard or conventional paper. This
saves a lot of 'temporary variables', just defined to be carried from
one formula to the next.

For that a way to signal a part of a formula structurally (i.e.
independent of the bracing style, like with color) should be provided,
as much as an aliasing mechanism to be associated to arrows. 


Selections
-----------
The least confusing behaviour for me, concerning selections is, if not a
platform specific-scheme:

-> implicit copying/cutting goes to clipboard 'A'
-> C-c/C-x copying/cutting goes to clipbuard 'B'
-> Middle button pastes from 'A'.
-> C-v pastes from 'B'.

That way everybody get their expected behaviour, plus X11 users have 2
clipboards at their fingertips, which is very handy.

------
Absolutely unrelated, I want to state that one of the reasons for me to
use TeXmacs is that it is so pleasurable. I insist that a motto might be
useful for TeXmacs, either to counter the unfortunate confusion of the
name it bears or else to promote it better. As I think that the
aesthetical component dominates so much the motivations of both
developers and users of TeXmacs, I suggest using

TeXmacs. Writing is a pleasure.

I hope this will attract many people to TeXmacs, stressing that TeXmacs
is to conventional wordprocessors what a stylographic pen is to a biro.

regards,

-- 
álvaro.tejero.cantero
alqua.com, la red en estudio
"La perfection est atteinte non quand il ne reste rien à
ajouter, mais quand il ne reste rien à enlever"
Saint-Exupéry.