[Parley-devel] [PATCH] adding LaTeX support to parley

[Frank C. Eckert]

Hi Daniel

thanks for taking the time to look at the code.

> There are also a few issues I had with the patch:
> - It looked like there was some error checking missing (e.g. checking if
>   converting succeeded)
Well, I guess that's one of the rough edges. If conversion fails, it will only 
show a small image icon indicating that the image was not found, i.e. 
conversion has failed. The usability issue of course is that you have to run 
parley from the terminal to see what the error was ;)
 
> - I doubt that the "\input{/home/opahk/study/partIII/abbr}" should have
> stayed in the preamble. ;)
True :) Sorry about that.
 
> However, the biggest issue is that LaTeX support doesn't really fit with
> the concept of Parley as a language trainer. Your patch implements this in
> a way that is quite visible, exposing it as a top-level training mode to
> the user. Additionally, LaTeX is not something most of our target users
> know and seeing it there might be confusing.
> 
> That doesn't mean that we don't want LaTeX support in Parley. It's
> perfectly fine if it's integrated in a way that doesn't make Parley harder
> to use for our target users. And personally, LaTeX is something I might
> also like to use in Parley in the future. ;)
I understand that this feature should not make using Parley more difficult for 
the average user who is mostly concerned with using Parley as a language 
trainer. However, I don't see why the usage has to be limited to languages. 
Using flashcards can be beneficial in virtually any subject, especially when the 
information is more complex than simple word - translation correspondance.

Anyway, I see that Parley should be as simple to use for a language user as it 
can be, but I don't see why the user should not be able to use their favourite 
desktop environment's flashcard program for other (more advanced) things ;)

> I spent some time thinking about the best way to integrate it in the new
> practice UI and this is what I came up with:
> 
> - In the flash card and written practice modes, the text is interpreted as
>   LaTeX if it's enclosed in "$$" (like "$$\frac{a}{b}$$", just the way
> Kopete does it). This means that there is no extra mode, you just need to
> use $$ when writing the files and it will just work.
I like this idea and I thought about it as well. The issue I have with it is 
that I want to be able to do more than formulas, i.e. use things like list 
environments, line breaks, etc. How about proceeding like this: $$formula$$ 
triggers just the conversion of "formula", however, if there is some other 
command \command present, it will convert the whole entry. This way the 
language user notices nothing, the formula guy gets his formulas and I get my 
lists, etc :) 

However, this would require the line-edits and labels in the practice view to 
be expandable in the vertical direction (to cater for multi-line entries). I 
haven't looked at the new code, but this might be a problem.

> - Maybe add a dock widget to the editor that helps with the creation of
> LaTeX entries. This will just be a line edit and a preview. Finding syntax
> errors only while practicing doesn't sound like fun. :)

Sure it's not fun, but to be honest, I'd rather start with implementing syntax 
highlighting and the possibility of word wrap in table cells before moving on 
to extra widgets. I would find that more helpful to start with.

As far usability is concerned, all LaTeX options could be placed in an extra 
tab under "Advanced" settings. In that way they would be less visible to the 
casual user.

Those are my thoughts. Does that sound better?

Many thanks,

Frank


> What do you think?
> 
> I also had this on my TODO list, but currently getting the new practice
> done has a higher priority.
> 
> Cheers,
> Daniel
> 
> > The attached patch applies to the directory  kdeedu/parley/src of trunk.
> > Please place the config files "preamble" and "convert-options" into
> > $KDEHOME/share/apps/parley/latex. The patch assumes that convert and
> > pdflatex are available in $PATH.
> > 
> > Description: The patch adds a LaTeX query mode to Parley which converts
> > entries to rendered png's via pdflatex. There is no input possibility and
> > checking algorithm involved, as this would be pointless for the use cases
> > I have in mind (basically mathematics).
> > 
> > Any feedback would be highly appreciated.
> > 
> > Cheers, Frank