On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Barton Willis <willisb at unk.edu> wrote:
> When you want to typeset an expression and
> have the typeset form match your expectations, instead of messing
> around with format, facout, and friends, it might be faster to type
> the expression in the form that you want; use Maxima to verify your
> typing; finally, tex your hand typed expression.
I'm not sure I agree with this recommendation. I think Maxima should
provide a full set of tools for changing the form of an expression
while preserving its value, allowing the user to massage the form for
either presentation or as preparation for a subsequent transformation
(e.g. rewrite an integrand in preparation for integration by parts).
We could probably do a better job of providing such tools....
Maxima has some tools which can be used for this today (format, rat,
partfrac, factor, trigrat, trigsimp, etc. etc.) but mostly it is up to
the user to invent his/her own tricks for value-preserving
transformations. Getting arbitrary forms will of course sometimes
require blocking simplification using mechanisms like box().
-s