MathEdit: A Web-based Visual Interactive Editor for Mathematical Expressions Wei Su ( 苏伟 ) 1,...

MathEdit: A Web-based Visual Interactive Editor MathEdit: A Web-based Visual Interactive Editor for Mathematical Expressionsfor Mathematical Expressions

Wei Su (苏伟 )1, Paul S.Wang 2 and Lian Li (李廉 ) 1 Department of Computer Science, Lanzhou University, PRC Department of Computer Science, Kent State University, USA wsu@cs.kent.edu

2009-11

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http://www.mathedit.org

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OutlineOutline

1. Background

2. Introduction

3. Input methods

4. Output format

5. Customization and MathEdit API

6. Content-based Editing and Presentation-based Editing

7. Comparison

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1. Background1. Background

WME is a modern distributed system on the Web for mathematics education. The approach is to provide each participating school with a website that is comprehensive, well-organized, dynamic, interactive, hands-on and ready to use by teachers for mathematics teaching in the classroom.

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BackgroundBackground

1. A totally Web-based tool for the interactive entering and editing of mathematical expressions especially for applying the Web in of mathematics, science, and technology.

2. The editor should be easy to use and provide an intuitive GUI for editing mathematical expressions

3. This editor must be easily integrated with the Web-based systems. And the entered expressions should be encoded as common formats which have interoperability with other programs .

4. The editor must also be flexible, customizable and extensible to address different user groups at various levels.

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Background (cont.)Background (cont.)

5. The editor should satisfy two distinct needs for mathematical expressions

– Capturing meaning and semantics (Content)

The expressions can be used to compute, prove and plot

– Describing the visual appearance (Presentation)

The expressions can be used to display, typeset in the applications or on the Web.

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MathMLMathML

The Mathematical Markup Language (MathML), a W3C standard, supports both a presentation encoding and a content encoding for the different purposes.

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2. Introduction2. Introduction

• MathEdit, a Web-based visual interactive mathematical expression editor, aims to provide an integrated solution of on-line entering and editing of mathematical expressions.

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MathEdit Overview MathEdit Overview

MathEdit provides convenient and intuitive graphical user interface.

It provides MathML-Content based editing and MathML-Presentation based editing.

MathML, OpenMath, LaTex, Infix, Picture (Gif, Png), PDF could be generated by MathEdit.

It also provides well-defined API.

It can work with IE and the Mozilla-family browsers

Written in JavaScript and MathML.

Developed jointly by Lanzhou university/China and Kent State University/USA .

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MathEdit Authoring EnvironmentMathEdit Authoring Environment

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The Feature of MathEditThe Feature of MathEdit

Totally Web-based tool

Integrate Content-based editing and Presentation-based editing

Easy to use, what you see is what you get

Various editing mode

Adaptable and customizable

Easily to include in your web application

Open source and Free

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The architecture of MathEditThe architecture of MathEdit

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Some Examples of Math expressionSome Examples of Math expression

Demo

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3 Input Methods in MathEdit3 Input Methods in MathEdit

Full-visual Input Style

In full-visual input style the expression is edited by directly manipulating and navigating its on-screen display.

Character-string Input Style

In character-string input style editing can be done via infix or some other string representations of the expression.

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3.1. Visual Navigation3.1. Visual Navigation

Convenient visual navigation is important and a user has two ways to visually navigate the displayed expression:

Basic Navigation Traversal Navigation Mouse Click

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Basic Navigation Basic Navigation

▪MathEdit keeps track of the sub-expression and displays a color background to visually identify it to the user.

▪The arrow keys are used to move the current sub-expression

up to the parent node

down to the first child

left/right to sibling nodes.

▪MathEdit also allows the user to use the mouse click to select single operand.

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Traversal Navigation Traversal Navigation

MathEdit also supports a systematic traversal of the entire expression so the user has a way of reaching any node on the tree. By pressing the PageDown key, the current node is moved in a traversal sequence defined by DFS (depth-first search). The PageUp key, on the other hand, provides the inverse-orient traversal.

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PageDown Key or Tab KeyPageDown Key or Tab Key

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PageUp Key or PageUp Key or Shift+TabShift+Tab

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3.2 Standard Infix Format3.2 Standard Infix Format

In all the character-sting input formats, infix is the most readable and efficient for entering mathematical expressions.

Infix is also most widely used in computing systems such as computer algebra systems (maple, mathematica, maxima), general-purpose programming languages, and electronic calculators.

Unlike being concerned with presentation in asciimathml and MS word, the standard infix format represents the semantic content of mathematical expressions with proper typographical display.

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Standard Infix FormatStandard Infix Format

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ExampleExample

(sin(AL)-cos(x^2))/sqrt(x^3+1)

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MathEdit Infix VersionMathEdit Infix Version

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4. Output Format4. Output Format

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ConversionConversion

Mathematical Expression Conversion Web Service can be accessed at http://www.mathedit.org/mets/

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5. Web API and Customization 5. Web API and Customization

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User-customizable ConfigurationsUser-customizable Configurations

1. GUI properties such as the toolbar, the input palettes and other properties

2. Input methods and output formats

3. Editing mode such as Presentation-based editing, Content-based editing or mix editing mode

4. Initial mathematical expression for editing

5. Shortcut key for entering and editing formula

6. Templates and corresponding MathML

7. Mathematical functions

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Web APIWeb API

var matheditWin2=new mathedit("matheditWin2");

matheditWin2.set("editmode","content");

matheditWin2.set("EditorSize","286,100");

matheditWin2.set("toolbarID","tnew,tundo,tredo,tcut,tcopy,tpaste");

matheditWin2.set("templateID","s1sqrt,s1root,s1sup,s1divides,s3log");

matheditWin2.display("embed2");

var mathmlpst=matheditWind2.get("mmlpresentation");

var infixm=matheditWind2.get("infix");

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MathEdit Usage ExamplesMathEdit Usage Examples

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6. Content-based editing Vs. Presentation-based editing6. Content-based editing Vs. Presentation-based editing

Content

perform computations indicated by the formulas (semantics)

Presentation:

visually display mathematical formulas

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Content-based editing and Presentation-based editingContent-based editing and Presentation-based editing

The two distinct needs for mathematical expressions are to visually display mathematical formulas and to perform computations indicated by the formulas. The former is the presentation aspect whereas the latter is the semantics aspect of a mathematical expression.

By customizing by MathEdit API, MathEdit supports Content-based editing and Presentation-based editing for the two purpose of entering mathematical expression mention above.

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For MathEditFor MathEdit

we must improve the ability for capturing semantic meaning in content-based editing and describing more layout appearances in presentation-based editing, very different requirements indeed.

But our editor should provide a uniform user interface, coherent user interactions, and same output results in both of these modes.

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Well-formedWell-formed

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Presentation-based editingPresentation-based editing

Presentation-based editing enables users to enter arbitrary expressions that may or may not have widely accepted mathematical meaning or may not be mathematical at all.

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The Difference between Content-based Editing The Difference between Content-based Editing and Presentation-based Editingand Presentation-based Editing

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Integrated for Content and PresentationIntegrated for Content and Presentation

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7. Compare the other editors with MathEdit 7. Compare the other editors with MathEdit

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MathBoardMathBoard

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MathEdit UsersMathEdit Users

More than 200 users downloaded MathEdit from April 2009

The Users came from 32 countries, including: China , USA, UK, India, Greece, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Romania, Finland, Canada, Nigeriam, Philippines, Colombia, Malaysia, Austrilia, Iran, Japan, Korea,…

25 universities, including:University of Oxford, Bluesky Academy, Korea University, NTU, NAU, OSU, University of Toronto, College of Charleston

Some companies:IDEAL Group Inc.,June Inc.,TSL Jamaica Ltd,and pellissippi State Tech CC,GMA Enterprise.

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Thank you！