Math input panel -> Scrivener

Scrivener Wish List
1

Hi,

(Sorry for the double post - I put this originally in Tech Support, hoping there was a already a way to get this working)

The Math Input Panel in Windows 7 is very useful when writing equations.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows7/Use-Math-Input-Panel-to-write-and-correct-math-equations

You hand-write the equations and it turns them into MathML. Great!

However, you can’t access the MathML directly. Instead, it attempts to paste the results directly via the Windows Clipboard. This works fine with MS Word, but not with Scrivener. For some reason, I’m unable to paste the MathML into the MathML input window, nor directly onto the page.

It really should be quite easy to allow pasting of MathML into Scrivener. There’s some info here:
http://bartdesmet.net/blogs/bart/archive/2009/02/11/mathml-visualizer-in-c-on-windows-7.aspx and http://dpcarlisle.blogspot.de/2010/01/mathml-on-clipboard.html
on retrieving the MathML from the clipboard.

regards,
Matt

ps. Normally the Math Input Panel lives in Start Menu/Accessories/, but if you can’t see it, you may need to enable “Tablet PC Components” in “Turn Windows Features On or Off”, or just launch it directly from “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ink\mip.exe”

2

Thanks, this might be something we can do if the clipboard access library example is applicable to non C#/Visual C++ developers. It’s really annoying that Microsoft decided to provide no plain-text XML dump—at least by option so that their tool can work with every application on the planet. But, that’s why it doesn’t work in the MathML panel, that’s a plain-text field, not an OLE compatible input (which I’m assuming it’s producing). Try inserting a formula into Notepad—same exact principle: no dice. It’s just not a very “friendly” tool with other programs.

3

Yes, it’s nuts they try to make, of all things, a math editor, ‘code-free’.

this might be something we can do if the clipboard access library example is applicable to non C#/Visual C++ developers.

I’m curious, what are you coding in?

Matt

4

Ha, yeah, it’s a bit like making a text editor that just prints a JPEG of the text.

We’re using the cross-platform Qt toolkit, which is how we can produce a Linux version so easily. :slight_smile: Theoretically we could even build a version for the Mac and run it there to, although there wouldn’t be much point in that.

That said we do use Visual C++ runtime libraries for some stuff, so it’s not like we’re in a cage with no access to Windows; it might be doable.