rgheck said: (by the date of Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:18:35 -0500) > Since I don't use maxima etc myself, I don't have a lot of thoughts > about this. What happens at present is that LaTeX that is entered into a > math inset gets translated into maxima's input format; LyX calls maxima > to do the calculation; retrieves the result, which is presumably in > maxima's output format; and then translates that back into LaTeX, for > inclusion in the document. Improving this means improving the > translation mechanisms, mostly, so that LyX is able to formulate more > complex queries and understand more complex answers.
besides improving that communication, the "only" missing thing is to be able to declare variables within maxima, and operate on them later. It means a running maxima session, instead of standalone/separate calls for each thing. Those separate calls mean that everything is forgot after the call to maxima is done. Ideally I would want to derive calculations within lyx, while writing comments about it. All with the beauty of latex. Perhaps I'll start with this communication formatting thing that you explained, it should be an easy start to get feel of the workings. > What you are proposing, I think, is somewhat different and looks almost > like one of LyX's "external" insets. Indeed, something very like it > could surely be implemented using external templates, which define a way > that LyX can interact with external programs. These insets are inserted > using Insert>File>External Material, and we have support for several > external programs now. The difference from what you are proposing is > that the information would not be stored in LyX but rather in external > text files referenced from within the LyX document. These would also be > edited in an external text editor, but this can be called from within > LyX, from the context menu. Have a look at lib/external_templates, which > defines several of these things, and at chapter 6 of the Customization > manual. > > My sense is that, for full maxima integration, this is definitely the > easiest way to go. The disadvantage, compared to the current system, is > that there's no integration with the math insets. I see. I would prefer to stay within lyx boundaries. A split window, with the maxima buffer or such. I don't know yet. Storing input in external file is better than putting it into .lyx as comments, I didn't know this is possible. maxima runs well even in a text terminal, it should be possible to pipe this somehow. I should look in the code now, or else it becomes just babbling. The time limitation allows me to do it only on fridays, only an hour or two per week, so I hopefully will come with more interesting questions next week. -- Janek Kozicki http://janek.kozicki.pl/ |
