Writing Equation Editor

Le Furet · General User Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 6 Location: France

Suppose that one day, I wake up and say to myself "Why not writing a new equation editor for Ooo today ?", what should I know and what should I have read before ?

(please be serious in your answers, even if my question doesn't look to be. I am less naive than my question Smile

).

SergeM · Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 4:16 am Post subject:

Is it not beter to improve the existing one ?
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Linux & Windows OOo3.0
UNO & C++ : WIKI
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Using_Cpp_with_the_OOo_SDK
In French
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FR/Cpp_Guide

Le Furet · General User Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 6 Location: France

May be, don't know. But what to read ? Where can I find a valuable documentation on the sources ? On the mans of communication between every components of Ooo ?

SergeM · Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 12:12 pm Post subject:

Probably better to learn it through API programming first. With OOoBasic seems the simpler way but because you want to write something you can program in C++.
Second you go through source code.

Bear in mind the first step can take several months.
_________________
Linux & Windows OOo3.0
UNO & C++ : WIKI
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Using_Cpp_with_the_OOo_SDK
In French
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FR/Cpp_Guide

pitonyak · Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 7:40 pm Post subject:

I thought that there already was an improvied equation editor of sorts. I seem to remember that the project started with a D and it was done by a French man.
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Andrew Pitonyak
http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php

SergeM · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:41 am Post subject:

No knowledge of this project. Perhaps B Marcelly knows something ?
_________________
Linux & Windows OOo3.0
UNO & C++ : WIKI
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Using_Cpp_with_the_OOo_SDK
In French
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/FR/Cpp_Guide

pidde · General User Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 45

Le Furet · General User Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 6 Location: France

I won't call DMath an improved Equation Editor.

Several things bothers me with Equation Editor :

- bad vertical alignment when importing to Writer
- Didn't manage to change the Symbol Font, and default font is ugly (e.g integral sign)
- bad exponents and indices spacing
- few possibilities of customization

and that' only the beginning. To be honest, Word is far forehead for Mathematics, and I prefer not mentionning LaTeX.

I know there are macros for using LaTeX as Equation Editor (the famous OOOLaTeX macros by G. Piroux), and they do good job, but there is stille some drawbacks :

- they are slow
- vertical alugnment is still incorrect
- weird installation with Windows (you must install cygwin before, and TeX, ans some additionnal fonts, and LaTeX2Emf)
- very hard to change fonts (because it's TeX !)

You can also use Mathtype, but it's expensive, you still have bad alignments,and the OooMath way of typing a formula (inspired from TeX) is much faster.

In fact, it's only the rendering part that needs to be redone.

Is there a documentation on OooMath sources ? Where ? Or have I just to read myself the 194465890 lines of code, then 4 or 5 books about Ooo API (or the contrary) ?