Hi there!
I am still switching forth and back between scientific workplace
(running on virtual PC with WindowsNT 4 on my Mac :(, and under
Crossover Office on my Linux box) and LyX. Obviously, that is a very
undesirable state, but I am still missing many things in LyX which my
daily life as a Ph.D. student depends on.
Therefore, I would like to help making the LyX community aware of
features, ideas, recommendations, etc - but also of mistakes & catches
which it should avoid. In order to avoid redundancies with the
achivements in LyX 1.4, I would like to wait for its release date.
Can anyboday tell me when will LyX 1.4 be available? Is there any
estimated release date yet? Is there maybe a beta version (preferably
for Mac OS X) which I can download without too much hassle? My main
point in this review would obviously be from a users perspective :).
One of the main problems in a comparison between LyX and Scientific
Workplace is that LyX does not (yet?) support computer algebra. Has
anybody ever worked on integrating computer algebra into LyX? Or
would it be "straight-forward" to integrate at least an elementary
connection to Maxima or another open source computer algebra engine?
You might say: use TexMacs - and I say NO! Texmacs went the wrong way,
it requires you to code equations in Maxima. What we need is an
elementary functions which converts, and maxima code to LyX/Latex. Let
me demonstrate two examples:
1. Evaluate: We have an equation \int \frac{1}{x} dx and want to evaluate it.
Convert LyX/Latex-Equations "\int \frac{1}{x} dx" to Maxima Code
"integrate(1/x,x)"
Applying Maxima yields "log(x)+C"
Convert Maxima Code "log(x)+C" to LyX/Latex "\log (x)+C".
2. Plot a function: We want to plot 1/x between 0.1 and 10, and
include the output as figure in LyX. This requires:
Convert LyX/Latex-Equations "\frac{1}{x} dx" to Maxima Code "1/x"
Evaluate "plot(1/x,[x,0.1,10], [grid,10]);
Probably, there is code from other open-source projects which can be
used for parts of this (TexMacs has one of the two conversions, but is
it compatible?).
Here comes my promise: If somebody creates examples (1,2), and a
pulldown-menu which starts these, I will not rest and
implement/test/debug all other computer algebra functions which
Scientific Workplace offers - and probably more.
Best wishes
