I'm working on a calculator that performs some calculations on symbolic expressions. for now I'm collecting input with a text field and using latex interpreter to render the expression on a uiaxes.

I'm working on a calculator that performs some calculations on symbolic expressions. for now I'm collecting input with a text field and using latex interpreter to render the expression on a uiaxes. But I want to be able to input d expression in natural display format . Probably if I can input d text directly on uiaxes or something

[Walter Roberson]

How are you currently doing the displaying?

When you say that you want to input the expression in natural display format, do you mean that if the user were to type in X^2 then right as they were typing you would want it to display as X² ?

[brolaja]

Yes. They won't see the x^2 instead it will look as if they were typing x² directly

[Walter Roberson]

That is a fair bit of work. For example if the user has so far typed in

((x+k^2

then you cannot just

S = '((x+k^2'
try
    F = str2sym(S);
    L = latex(F);
    display_the_latex(L);
catch ME
    %must be in the middle of an expression
end

because you would want that converted to immediately as the user types. Therefore you would need to parse the expression yourself looking for sub-expressions that can be converted and do those.

You also cannot use latex() for the purpose of creating the latex to display, because you would have to convert the expression to sym to do that, but str2sym() evaluates the expression -- for example it would be likely to re-arrange to which is not an action suitable for user input.

See also https://www.mathworks.com/help/symbolic/sym.mathml.html mathml() to convert symbolic expressions to MathML . However even that requires syntactically valid symbolic expressions.

[brolaja]

I'll probably just stick with what I have.

[Walter Roberson]

Maplesoft's maple program has a 1D input mode that automatically does things like putting in raised subscripts as you go. It also has a 2D input mode that permits dragging in symbols like integral symbol and filling in bounds and formulas by clicking at the appropriate points on the symbols.

And after more than 25 years... maple still has bugs in the 1D and 2D input modes. It is surprisingly difficult to get thoroughly right.

[brolaja]

Is there anyway to add Microsoft equation editor as a plug-in.

[Walter Roberson]

No, not as a plug-in. You just might be able to use ActiveX or .NET to talk to it, but it might be a bit tricky to move between internal representations perhaps.