[OS X TeX] Gems from Japan: RPN2TeX and AutoTeX

[Alain Schremmer]

Re. RPN2TeX

I too was won over by RPN within 10 minutes of using it on the frst 
programable HP  (I think it was the 65, so called because it cost $650. 
Comm Coll of Phila, where I still teach, bought 6 of them!)

So, it was a natural (except that I did not immediately realize that TeX 
was in PN.)

Of course the live previewer did not work for this Install-Idiot (I-I) 
and this is where I am asking for help:

    How, if at all possible, do I make the preview work with the Gerben
    Wierda installed TeXshop?

It would be even nicer if, in addition to the menu commands, it had a 
panel like TeXshop's Latex and Matris panels.
In fact, I wondered if it could be modified to be 
incorporated/installed/plugged in into TeXshop .

Which raises the more general question, at least in my mind. Why 
aren'there keyboard commands for at least the most common commands in 
the Latex panel?

And, to return, might there eventually be a "switch" whereby the "blue" 
in the tex window could be made invisible?

TeXFoG is also nice. Again, modified as a "panel" plugged in into 
TeXshop, it might help a lot of beginners used to MS Word's MathType. It 
also occurs to me that for those who are way past this entry stage 
and/or allergic to this or that "entry system", the possibility of 
"disconnecting" any or all of them might be the answer.

Regards to all
--schremmer


P. S. A couple of asides regarding some recent exchanges not totally 
irrelevant to the above.

When it comes to get into cold water, there are two kinds of people. 
There are those who like to jump in and get it over with once they have 
recovered their breath and there are those who are so afraid of losing 
their breath that they would rather go in very, very slowly. The end 
result, though, is really the same as even the second kind eventually 
gets into the water a lot faster than when they first started.

I am making (very slow) progress in learning TeX and, as an aside to a 
recent discussion as to how crucial Live Typesetting really is, I would 
like to say here that for a beginner like myself, being able to typeset 
as I go is a great learning tool. And, in fact, I am already beginning 
to typeset just a tiny little bit less often.

I wish there was something like it for students when they learn to "make 
a case for" (i. e.,  in a very informal way, "prove")  a mathematical 
statement.






Ramon M. Figueroa-Centeno wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I found this gem from Japan: RPN2TeX
><http://homepage.mac.com/wataru_maeda/software/RPN2TeX/index.html>, by
>Wataru Maeda (I think, but I do not speak Japanese). It is a TeX equation
>editor which takes a different approach than TeX FoG
><http://homepage.mac.com/marco_coisson/Personal.html>, as it uses Reverse
>Polish Notation to enter the expressions and offers a live preview of the
>equation. Apparently, it is still a beta version, but I find it, so far,
>quite usable and certainly a very original idea. The web page is in
>Japanese, but Babel Fish <http://world.altavista.com/> did a good job of
>translating it. For anyone who is not used to RPN (I used it a lot 20 years
>ago when I had my trusty HP 41 calculator in High School), there is a
>learning curve, but once you get over it you can type equations quite fast
>and efficiently.
>
>Another gem from Japan (it can be used effectively with any editor, for
>example SubEthaEdit) is "AutoTeX for MacOS X"
><http://www.surf.nuqe.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ichimiya/documents/index-e.html>, by H.
>Nakahara. I use it when I need a quick PDF of an archived TeX file, it
>generates the PDF and it cleans the mess for me.
>
>The paths in the preferences of both programs must be changed to reflect
>your LaTeX installation, in my case Gerben Wierda's. For example, for
>RPN2TeX both my paths are ³/usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin6.8/².
>You must know the basics of using TeX et al., from the terminal.
>
>Both these applications have beautiful interface design.
>
>Enjoy and if you wish share other gems with the rest of us please go ahead
>and do so :),
>
>Ramón
>
>  
>

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