LITERAL: A SIMPLER MATH NOTATION EDITOR FOR THE INTERNET


                            © 2002 Eugenio Vilar


    This text was prepared with Literal, a visual editor for multilingual
    and scientific expression over the Internet. It runs on PC's under
    Windows 9x.

    Examples of multilingual text

        Não morrerá sem poetas nem soldados a língua em que cantaste
        rudemente as armas e os barões assinalados. (M. Bandeira)

        Was sich überhaupt sagen läßt, läßt sich klar sagen; und wovon man
        nicht reden kann, darüber muß man schweigen. (L. Wittgenstein)

        'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
        (L. Carroll)

        Citoyens, je viens, au nom du Comité d'Instruction publique,
        soumettre à votre discussion un travail sur l'ère de la République,
        que vous l'aviez chargé de vous présenter. (G. Romme)

    Most languages written in the roman alphabet, corresponding national
    keyboard layouts, are supported.


    Examples of math notation

   
    The whole greek alphabet is available, plus many algebraic symbols.
    Entering math is done by typing, rather than picking.


    Examples of simple diagrams

   
    The preceeding flowchart describes the transformation of visual input
    into Html. I would like to emphasize that this text looks essentially
    the same on both Literal's screen and on a browser's.

    Literal produces the necessary minimum Html for a decent, plain
    rendering of our ideas. It concentrates on what Html lacks: a literal
    notation for math. From then on, we may either send the result directly
    for browsing, or use a Html editor to enhance it. For this document, I
    have used Literal itself to apply a few tags.


    Text structure

    A text is a sequence of lines. The user chooses which lines the browser
    should display as text, which ones it should draw as images. Literal
    handles image lines and leaves the rest to the browser (and to an
    optional Html editor). Image and text lines are separated as follows:

   
    For text areas, multilingual support is such that the appropriate ISO
    character set is automatically selected according to the keyboard.


    Technical remarks

    Literal is a small efficient graphics program disguised as a text editor
    with an extended character set. It produces Html plus the Javascript
    code that will actually render inline bit-mapped images on the client.
    Bulky image data is not transferred and does not reside in any remote
    server. We don't have to upload text, just send it as e-mail attachment.
    Literal is not needed at the receiving side.

    So far, I have successfully used Netscape Navigator 4.x and Internet
    Explorer 5 and 6 to browse Literal's output. I have also sent and
    received the same as e-mail attachments. Unfortunately, the Microsoft
    browser displays fast but ignores printing Javascript-generated images.
    Netscape 6 and Mozilla owe us support for xbm.


    Legal notice

   
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