Others ⇒ Try ScientifcAuthor 1.0 Visual LaTeX Editor for FREE!

[dstelio]

Scientific Author v1.0 document editor is introduced to the world. It
is a Windows editor which supports LaTeX 2e.

Visit http://www.scientificauthor.com for more information and
downloads.


Scientific Author is a visual LaTeX editor for mathematicians,
scientists and engineers, supporting industry standards like LaTeX
2e. It is a visual document editor, which exports LaTeX for rendering
by tools such as MiKTeX. Scientific Author also supports editing of
mathematical notation through tool palettes and templates. LaTeX
symbols are also supported, including American Mathematical Society
symbols. It also enables easy editing of tables, footnotes, and
margin notes.


Editing Features
- Visual editing
- Multiple level undo and redo
- Copy and paste
- Search and replace
- Content zooming
- Document structure navigator
- Grouping content structures


Typesetting Features


- Font formatting
- Subscript and superscript formatting
- Document classes
- Parts and chapters
- Sections, sub sections, and sub sub sections
- Paragraphs and sub paragraphs
- Bulleted, enumerated, description environments
- Quotation and verse environments
- Footnotes and margin note environment
- Abstract environment
- Theorem environments
- Inline and numbered mathematical equations
- Matrix editing
- Table and tabular editing
- Figure editing (support for JPEG, GIF, and EPS)
- Inclusion of caption to specific environments
- Labels and cross-references
- International character support
- LaTeX symbols and templates
- American Mathematical Society symbols


Spell Checking
- American, Canadian, and Brittish English dictionary


Publishing
- LaTeX export
- LaTeX build
- PDFLaTeX build

[localghost]

I can't see where this piece of software (obviously a product of your own) is free. There's only a 30 days trial version. So please tell me where I can find the free version.

[dstelio]

Hi,

It is not free that is why the message says TRY - try for free!

Thanks!

Danilo

[dstelio]

Hi, the anatomy - design & architecture of Scientific Author is beginning to be published, for the curious who just love to know "the way things work"

The source code is not available, but a high level view which is much more efficient to communicate the idea and life behind the project.

Visithttp://www.scientificauthor.com/anatomy

Thanks!

[T3.]

Write to me for any requests or to share your comments with me.

Well, I have a few comments but I'm afraid they are quite harsh.

I tried your program and it was on its way out as fast as it was in. Not that I found anything wrong with it technically - it seems to be quite polished and altogether nicely rounded - but I just don't see any reason why would anybody like to use it. Here's why.

The main feature offered by your program is WYSIWYG environment for document preparation. There are other programs with more or less similar goal. Not counting word processors we have:

on free software side:

• Emacs+AUCTeX
• LyX
• TeXmacs

on payware side:

• BaKoMa TeX
• Scientific Word/WorkPlace
• SciWriter

The above list is probably not exhaustive. There are still some lesser known ones like e.g. MicroIMP.

Now, here's what caught my attention on your website and what was the reason for me to try out Scientific Author:

Scientific Author is a visual LaTeX editor

This is just not true and you shouldn't advertise your editor as such. Your application has nothing to do with LaTeX except for the final export to that format. There is even no corresponding import function so outputting to LaTeX is the end of the road for the document. That choice is not all that surprising to me - with the exception of AUCTeX and BaKoMa, all the others that I mentioned don't use LaTeX as their native format (LaTeX sucks as such) and rather export to it as you do but that doesn't make them LaTeX editors.

Why this distinction is important you may ask. Because using some other format cuts you off from (or at least makes it inconvenient to use) the whole ecosystem of tools, packages, templates (often provided by publishers) and documentation/knowledge available for LaTeX. Moreover, your application seems to use some custom, binary storage format that is neither documented nor interoperable with any standard as far as I can tell. So in essence using your software = vendor lock-in. That was perhaps acceptable 10 years ago but not any more.

If you deem LaTeX as inadequate to use as a storage format, then you cloud take an approach of SciWriter - it uses xhtml+mathml as its format so it builds on well recognized standard with an additional advantage that your documents are immediately web ready. Another format to consider is ODF. That could make your application a bridge between the world of LaTeX and that of word processors - I would definitely see a niche market for such a product and there is nothing like that available ATM AFAIK.

However, in its current form I don't see any good reason why I or anybody else should choose your software over other available options.

Regards,

Tomek

[dstelio]

Hi, Thanks for dropping inthose lines.

I think it is fine to have a binary output still.

I am currently also working on LaTeX import, it is just long work, but the backbone of it is done, I have a LaTeX parser, it just has not been published, so I think peolple will find it convenient to use this program in the future even if it has it's own binary format.

We will see, I hope every thing works out.

Check out what I also did, at http://www.geocities.com/dstelio/ePad

I am thinking of fixing it and going open source!

What do you think?

[T3.]

Perhaps if you will be able to provide robust import/export to LaTeX (so that round trip export-import-export always ends up with the same document) then the choice of the native format won't be so crucial any more. For this to work you have to remember that there should be some possibility to "spice up" the document with arbitrary LaTeX inserts (let's call them "extras") for stuff not available from GUI. Right now it is not even possible to customize preamble - that's extremely limiting. Also, during the import everything that your parser won't recognize should be retained as "extras" and not simply discarded.

About ePad. Yes, I find it much more interesting than ScientifcAuthor. If you would like to open source it, I can only cheer you on. There is no decent free equation editor currently available, well maybe except TeXaide, but that one is only free as in beer. At this point ePad seems rather limited but it has a lot of potential, IMO. I would gladly replace TeXaide with something better integrated with my workflow.

Cheers,

Tomek