[xtal]

http://evolve.lse.ac.uk/software/EquationEditor/

But it's 52 MB?!?!??!?!

I may stick with Equation Service...

[Neo.cmg]

Originally posted by xtal:
http://evolve.lse.ac.uk/software/EquationEditor/

But it's 52 MB?!?!??!?!

I may stick with Equation Service...

Why wouldn't you just write up the equations in TeX, or LaTeX yourself? It's not like it's something difficult that requires a program as this.

Neo.cmg

[chwbauer]

The point is that it creates nicely cropped pdf output, which can easily be dragged into other applications. But why is the program so huge? It is 174 MB for me, Equation Service was 4!

Christian

Originally posted by Neo.cmg:
Why wouldn't you just write up the equations in TeX, or LaTeX yourself? It's not like it's something difficult that requires a program as this.

Neo.cmg

[mh123]

It is so big because it includes the complete LaTex package. Since pretty much everyone using this will have set up Latex anyway, maybe it would be better to have a way just to point to a pre-existing Latex install. I can imagine there would be some problems with that too. Anyway though...

Has anyone got this to actually work? Every time I try to type something in I get an error in the compile. The log file indicates it makes the dvi file all right but then I get an error. Also, when you get an error, the log file pops up whether you select that you want to see it or don't.

I am running TeTeX and TeXshop so could this be creating the conflict for me? Or I could be missing something obvious.

mh

[cambro]

You aren't missing anything, mh123.

The program does not work as is. The equation.eps file is created correctly but there is a problem when generating the pdf. If you have an eps reader you can open the application package contents, find this file, and open your generated equation.

Regarding the need to include the entire tex distribution...I actually think it is a good idea. This makes the program entirely stand-alone and saves the user the bother of installing tex. I personally don't use tex, but would really appreciate being able to generate equations using tex in one, easy to use application.

[mh123]

Thanks Cambro.

I hope they fix this problem. More pointedly, I guess I don't understand why they released it like this. I don't want to complain; it just seems odd.

I don't really care about the packaging. I just imagine 56k modem users groan when they see a 50 meg download.

[jmckalex]

Originally posted by xtal:
http://evolve.lse.ac.uk/software/EquationEditor/

But it's 52 MB?!?!??!?!

I may stick with Equation Service...

Hi.

I was just informed of this thread (having been answering email and coding for the last day or so).

The original version (the "thick" 52 MB version) was written for people who don't have a full teTeX/ghostscript distribution installed. It was intended to hide all of the details of TeX & Friends from the casual user.

A beta version of a "thin" client (350KB) with all the same functionality is available for download from:

http://evolve.lse.ac.uk/jalex/misc/L...r-thin.dmg.sit

If you think 52MB is excessive (and I agree it is, IF you already have teTeX installed), then grab the version at the link above. Please note, this is a beta version (which also fixes the "You MUST view the error log!" bug) so there may still be one or two things that need minor adjustment.

After launching the program, check that the paths to your local teTeX and ghostscript binaries listed under Preferences are correct. Once you've done that, all should work.

Cheers,

Jason

[jmckalex]

Originally posted by mh123:
Thanks Cambro.

I hope they fix this problem. More pointedly, I guess I don't understand why they released it like this. I don't want to complain; it just seems odd.

I don't really care about the packaging. I just imagine 56k modem users groan when they see a 50 meg download.

My apologies. I entirely understand that many people will be deeply annoyed at having downloaded such a fat program only to find that it didn't work as advertised. If you want one that works, and have TeX and ghostscript already installed, try the "thin" client available at

http://evolve.lse.ac.uk/jalex/misc/L...r-thin.dmg.sit

(it's only 350KB).

As for the bug in the "thick" client, I only have one machine for testing and neither myself (nor any of my other beta testers) found that it didn't work. The problem, I believe, was that I embedded a version of ghostscript which required certain dylibs from Fink (which I and others have installed). I'm currently working on a version which uses an older version of ghostscript (not taken from Fink) to see if it solves the problem. But as most people probably already have TeX & ghostscript installed, the thin client will be preferred by almost all, I assume.

Cheers,

Jason

[mh123]

jmckalex,

I just got the thin client and it works great. Thanks a bunch for putting together this application. It is going to be a real time saver for me.

[cambro]

Thanks Jason!

We certainly do appreciate your hard work on this and we all look forward to seeing your progress.

Of course if you need testers and such, post back and I'm sure you'll find some volunteers that may be able to help.

[fortepianissimo]

Originally posted by jmckalex:

...If you want one that works, and have TeX and ghostscript already installed, try the "thin" client available at

http://evolve.lse.ac.uk/jalex/misc/L...r-thin.dmg.sit

(it's only 350KB).

Thanks for the terrific program! A question though: on my system I have both tetex and ghostscript installed via Fink - I tried to set both paths in the preference dialog to /sw/bin and it didn't work. Could you elaborate it a little bit?

Thanks again for the great help to a poor grad student like me. :-)

[xtal]

Jason,

Thanks for the thin client. Very much appreciated. This looks to be an excellent piece of software.

Keep up the good work!

[jmckalex]

Originally posted by fortepianissimo:
on my system I have both tetex and ghostscript installed via Fink - I tried to set both paths in the preference dialog to /sw/bin and it didn't work. Could you elaborate it a little bit?

I don't use teTeX from Fink... are you sure that the latex binaries are available in /sw/bin? One way to check is the following: download the newest version (1.1) from the web site. (Version 1.1 no longer assumes that the user has write-access to the bundle and creates a temporary directory in /tmp for temporary files.)

Once you've got version 1.1, try creating an equation. The temporary directory should look something like /tmp/Your.Computer.Name-11298273432-234-2342_12/. Go there and verify that equation.dvi, equation.eps are produced.

The program assumes that latex, dvips, and epstopdf are all available inside the latex binary directory. Are they?

[fortepianissimo]

Originally posted by jmckalex:
I don't use teTeX from Fink... are you sure that the latex binaries are available in /sw/bin? One way to check is the following: download the newest version (1.1) from the web site. (Version 1.1 no longer assumes that the user has write-access to the bundle and creates a temporary directory in /tmp for temporary files.)

Once you've got version 1.1, try creating an equation. The temporary directory should look something like /tmp/Your.Computer.Name-11298273432-234-2342_12/. Go there and verify that equation.dvi, equation.eps are produced.

The program assumes that latex, dvips, and epstopdf are all available inside the latex binary directory. Are they?

Thx for the reply. I downloaded the 1.1 version off your site, and verified that I have the right paths (/sw/bin) for both latex and ghostscript:

> which latex dvips epstopdf gs
/sw/bin/latex
/sw/bin/dvips
/sw/bin/epstopdf
/sw/bin/gs


Then I tried the sample equation you gave in the ReadMe document, still it complained about errors.

In the dir under /tmp you mentioned, there're 2 files there: Equation Editor image.pdf and equation.tex; the first one is a pdf image of the equation showed up when the program was started up, and the 2nd file contains my equation trial:

\documentclass{article}

%The next line is important. Do not delete.
\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}
\[\sum_{i=0}^{n} {n \choose i} = 2^n\]
\end{document}


I'm no expert in LaTex - did you spot any error in all these?

[fortepianissimo]

Oh one thing might be relevant - I placed the app in Applications/Office instead of Applications.

[jmckalex]

Originally posted by fortepianissimo:
Thx for the reply. I downloaded the 1.1 version off your site, and verified that I have the right paths (/sw/bin) for both latex and ghostscript:

...

I'm no expert in LaTex - did you spot any error in all these?

That file is fine.

Did you enter the path with a "/" at the end? I think the program assumes that the entered paths end with that. If not, then you'd get an error because the program is trying to run /sw/binlatex instead of /sw/bin/latex.

Since I don't read this site except once every day or so, could you write back at my email account with updates? (The email address is in the help file and the About... box.)

[fortepianissimo]

Originally posted by jmckalex:
That file is fine.

Did you enter the path with a "/" at the end? I think the program assumes that the entered paths end with that. If not, then you'd get an error because the program is trying to run /sw/binlatex instead of /sw/bin/latex.

Since I don't read this site except once every day or so, could you write back at my email account with updates? (The email address is in the help file and the About... box.)

Argh so that's the problem - I added a trailing '/' and everything is fine now.

Thanks for the cool app and the tip!