Using TeX (Was RE: [Maxima] imaxima, xemacs and windows)

--- Stavros Macrakis <stavros.macrakis@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > If we could get maxima itself to generate TeX with the
> > > proper breaking included it would be wonderful,...
> 
> Why bother with TeX at all if it can't handle line breaking?

It's not a question of Maxima using TeX as its default output format
for graphics - that's not the reason to output TeX.  The reason for TeX
output is to easily fit Maxima output and sessions into LaTeX
documents. That I have found to be a very nice feature, and worth the
occasional tweaking of the TeX output at need.

I think the current approach, at least for now, is sufficient -
apparently Richard disagrees.

> For Maxima to generate line breaks for TeX, it would have to know all
> the details of font sizes, kerning, page width, etc.  If it has to
> know all these things, it is not generating portable output, and it
is 
> not benefitting from TeX's algorithms.  So it might as well generate
> Postscript directly.

In the case of a full featured, robust graphical interface with 2D
display for Maxima, I agree that TeX is not the proper native display
format to use.  That will be one component of the interface discussion
when the time comes.  However, when the time does come, it is almost a
certainty that to do true graphical mathematical display "right" Maxima
will have to learn about those things.  If/when we impliment that for
GUI purposes, it might be useful to have TeX take advantage of it too. 
But I agree TeX by itself is not sufficient motivation to do it.

> For standalone use, this also avoids the overhead of the TeX and
> dvips processes.

For standalone use we need something altogether different from TeX. 
This is one area where I like what Mathematica did, at least in general
- their display technology is excellent for casual/newbie users.

> For use within a document, presumably TeX handles embedded
> Postscript.

I believe it does, but I don't think much would be gained by going that
route.  If we know enough to generate good postscript my guess is we
know enough to generate good TeX.  Of course, that's just IMHO, based
on my understanding of postscript and TeX.

The problem is not a trivial one, and I don't wonder that Richard is
less than thrilled with the current state of affairs.  However, I am
thrilled with Emaxima and what it is accomplishing with the help of
Imaxima.  For me, with admittedly simple needs, it works wonders.  When
the time for a full GUI revamp arrives we may come to full grips with
the problem of graphical math display, but that's definitely a post-6.0
development.

If all else fails, one can use the 2D text output in Emaxima, which
loses all the nice TeX formatting but does get the mathematics in.  I
did that with one example in the basics chapter until the recent
addition of breqn support.

CY

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