[Scilab-users] New constant %chars to get sets of symbols

[Antoine Monmayrant]

On 31/12/2020 13:44, Samuel Gougeon wrote:
> Le 31/12/2020 à 10:36, Antoine Monmayrant a écrit :
>> On 29/12/2020 16:39, Samuel Gougeon wrote:
>>> As well, i must confess that having a ALT+X or any other keys 
>>> shortcut able to convert a series of 2 to 4 input unicodes to the 
>>> corresponding character -- as proposed in wish #16505 -- would be of 
>>> almost no help to me, because i do not remember unicodes of any 
>>> non-ascii characters. Who does? Such a ALT-X shortcut is used for 
>>> instance in the -- yet great -- /Inskscape/ free drawing software. 
>>> Then, each time that a greek letter or another symbol must be used, 
>>> we need to find its unicodes in an extra document (most often on 
>>> internet). It's definitely not handy.
>> I agree with you here.
>> It is not a good idea to use such a shortcut that replicates what is 
>> already present at the OS level: on linux for example Crtl+Alt+Maj+u 
>> allows to type the unicode of a character (like 3BB for λ). 
>> Equivalent shortcuts exist under Windows and MacOS.
>>
>> From my personal experience, my preferred implementation is the one 
>> used by Julia: type the LaTeX macro (like \lambda for λ) then Tab and 
>> you get the unicode character.
>> I assume implementation something like that in Scilab is quite a lot 
>> of work...
>>
>> Your proposition might be a good compromise between ease of 
>> implementation and usefulness.
>>
>
> Thank you for your input and for supporting the proposal, Antoine.
>
> About any shortcut proposal, may i add that, yes it would be a more 
> general solution than the selected characters in %chars. But while 
> getting an external document referencing unicodes of some requested 
> symbols, i don't see any reason to get the unicodes and use the 
> shortcut, instead of directly copying the character from this external 
> document and copying it wherever it is needed in Scilab or elsewhere, 
> as in a documentation page edited with Notepadd++ for instance.
> Therefore, the right external document to select is not a document 
> listing unicodes, but more simply a document listing characters sets 
> rendered without gif or other images. Before implementing this %chars, 
> it was what i used to do.
>
> I am not sure that implementing the Julia solution with LaTeX would 
> improve a lot the situation:
>
>   * first, we still have to remember a code, the latex one ; this is
>     simple for common characters, but get harder and harder for less
>     frequent ones. While a selection among displayed/rendered
>     characters do not need to remember any code. I have written 700
>     pages in LaTeX without wysiwym software like LyX, and hopefully i
>     had always a hand on "A Guide to LaTeX-2e"  and its tables of
>     illustrated codes to get the right one.
>   * Moreover, we can put in %chars some characters that have no LaTeX
>     code.
>   * Finally, implementing a LaTeX shortcut could not be used when
>     editing the documentation out of the console and Scinotes, except
>     to render the character in order to then, anyway, copy/paste it
>     wherever needed.
>
> So, to me, the main purposes are
>
>   * to stop having to remember any code for the -- say 500 or 1000 --
>     most used characters, when no complex expression is required.
>
Well, I don't see how this should work then.
How do I select λ in your proposed solution? Should I have to visually 
scan a 500-symbol long list?
I think I missed something in your proposal.
>
>  *
>
>
>   * to stop having to search in an external document when working with
>     Scilab
>   * and possibly, to present classes of characters, what can help
>     finding the required one.
>
> Beyong this current topic and the trivial implementation of %chars, it 
> could then even be useful to have an easy way to get the LaTeX code 
> from a selected character, instead of the opposite!
>
Well, here is my assumption (that might be wrong): most of the people 
trying to use λ or ∆ might be aware that they are called lambda and 
Delta and from there, the LaTeX naming convention is usually quite 
sensible: \lambda, \Delta.

I think there is quite a difference between remembering 
Ctrl+Maj+Alt+u+03BB and remembering \lambda+Tab to get λ!
For me, the second solution is way more user friendly... :-)


Antoine

> Regards
> Samuel
>
>
>
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