On Sat, May 19, 2018 at 01:02:05PM +0000, Joel Kulesza wrote:
> On Fri, May 18, 2018 at 11:04 PM, Scott Kostyshak <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > When in a math display equation, if you press "ctrl + return", LyX will
> > turn it into a multi-line equation. I think the default is an "align"
> > environment. To do this, LyX tries "split" your current equation into
> > two parts. For example, if the equation is:
> >
> >   y = 3x + 5
> >
> > LyX guesses that you want "y" on the left box, and "= 3x + 5" in the
> > right box. In other words, it splits on the "=" sign.
> >
> > Do you use this feature?
> 
> 
> Yes.  For an example of some of the equations I contend with, please see
> the attached (particularly slides 15–20).  Breaking and fine-tuning
> equations has become a way of life.  Also, you can see why I'm reluctant to
> typeset these in raw LaTeX and prefer a utility like LyX... :-)

Ah yes that is a lot.

> > Are there any improvements that you can think
> > of?
> 
> 
> Things that aggravate me / improvements I'd propose (not necessarily in
> order):
> 
>    1. I'm usually splitting equations because they are long.  If I use
>    multiline, only one equation number is kept and kept in the bottom row of
>    the equation.  However, if I use splitting as described here (or manually
>    select "align" a priori because I know the equations lend themselves to
>    this appearance), I have to manually toggle on/off equation numbers so that
>    one, multi-line aligned, equation is properly numbered.  For complex/busy
>    equations, this can be overlooked.  I don't have a good solution, but if
>    something better were done to handle this, I'd be *quite* happy.

That does sound like it could be improved.

>    2. If I'm within a set of delimiters, and break the equation as
>    described, I'd like the break to happen at the cursor and to have the
>    matched set of delimiters split into two unmatched sets with the proper
>    open/close delimiters and a matching "None".  At present, I do this
>    manipulation manually; however, if I have to reformat the equation, this
>    can lead to lots of jousting with delimiters.

That is a good idea, and consistent with what JMarc suggested (of
splitting at the cursor). I see there's lots of room for improvement.

> If you recall, dealing with
>    this situation lead to my first LyX code contribution (within the Insert
>    delimiter dialog), so you can see that it's something I deal with
>    frequently.

Ah I had forgotten about that.

> 
> I haven't looked at the code yet, but I'm considering trying to
> > improve the algorithm for splitting. My personal use case is that I
> > often have expressions of the form
> >
> >   P(X < 3) = 2
> >
> > Currently LyX splits this on the "<". I would like to have the algorithm
> > prioritize a relation character that is outside of delimiters.
> >
> 
> What happens if you use matched parenthesis (Ctrl-M, "(" in the math editor
> on macOS) rather than statically written ones (individually typing "(" and
> ")")?  If I used matched parenthesis (on macOS, at least), the break
> happens before the equal sign.  Unmatched, yes, the break happens before
> "<".  Note that I always use matched delimiters as a matter of course
> because, for me, it's highly probable that whatever is within them will
> cause them to grow in height.

Makes sense. I often forget to use the, but I should get in the habit.

Thanks,

Scott

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