run-reduce

Run-REDUCE-FX

A JavaFX GUI to run any CLI version of the REDUCE Computer Algebra System

Francis Wright, November 2020

Run-REDUCE-FX is a re-implementation of Run-REDUCE using JavaFX instead of Swing. The latest version of Run-REDUCE-FX requires Java 11 or later plus JavaFX 11 or later.

For further general background information please see the Run-REDUCE-FX web page. For information about how to install and run Run-REDUCE-FX please see the Install and Run Guide. For information about how to use Run-REDUCE-FX please see the User Guide (which is also included in Run-REDUCE-FX and easily accessible via the Help menu).

Run-REDUCE-FX should run on any platform that supports JavaFX 11 (or later), but I can only test it on Microsoft Windows and Linux. (Whilst Java is portable, filesystem structures, installation conventions and display systems are not!)

REDUCE itself is an open source project available from SourceForge. I'm releasing Run-REDUCE-FX under the BSD 2-Clause License, mainly because it's the license used by REDUCE.

This project is set up for development using IntelliJ IDEA with Run-REDUCE-FX as the top-level directory.

Run-REDUCE-FX currently uses a bundled copy of KaTeX to render LaTeX output by code based on the REDUCE tmprint package when the Typeset Maths option is selected.

Release Notes

Version 1.1

• Avoid warning messages and hanging Help menu items on Ubuntu, but suppress display of PDF files via the Help menu on non-Windows platforms since it's probably not currently very helpful!
• Add instructions for installing and running using Java 11 on Linux and improve the appearance of the User Guide.
• Use CSS to set the REDUCE font, size, weight and colour, and use the same font and size for input as well as output.
• Validate direct input to the FontSizeDialog via the editor.
• Validate generic root directories in REDUCEConfigDialog. Rebuild the Run REDUCE submenus on saving REDUCEConfigDialog. Improve error messages.

Version 1.2

• Update the build environment to Java 11 and JavaFX 11, which are now also required to run Run-REDUCE-FX.
• Provide batch files to run Run-REDUCE-FX more easily.
• Re-instate display of PDF files via the Help menu on non-Windows platforms.
• Fix truncated text in the About dialogue.

Version 1.3

• Provide templates for df, int and mat expressions and for statements.
• Add a hyperlinked Contents section to the User Guide.

Version 1.4

• Provide templates for multiple integrals, finite sums and products, double- and single-sided limits, and solve.
• Provide a Functions menu offering dialogues that facilitate access to key elementary functions, Gamma, Beta and related functions, integral functions, Airy, Bessel and related functions, Struve, Lommel, Kummer, Whittaker and spherical harmonic functions, and classical orthogonal polynomials. Special function names link to the online NIST Digital Library of Mathematical Functions.
• Appropriate templates include a symbolic/numeric option and access to relevant REDUCE switches and packages.
• Provide a pop-up keyboard (currently only on template and function dialogues) for symbolic constants, Greek letters, elementary functions, trigonometric functions (using radians or degrees) and hyperbolic functions. Still need to arrange that the pop-up keyboard loads the trigd package as appropriate.
• The function dialogues and pop-up keyboard together offer all the functions listed in section 7.2 Mathematical Functions of the REDUCE Manual plus degree versions of all trigonometric functions.

Version 1.5

• Add REDUCE Manual hyperlinks to all template and function dialogues.
• Add Help menu items that open the REDUCE Web Site and SourceForge Project Site in the default browser.

Version 1.6

• Use WebView to display REDUCE output, and update instructions and batch files for running Run-REDUCE-FX accordingly.
• Set the default Session Log filename to session.log.
• Turning bold prompts on and off now works retrospectively.
• Turning I/O colouring on and off now works retrospectively (as far as possible).

Version 1.7

• Add experimental Typeset I/O option, currently hidden, to the View menu to use fmprint and KaTeX, which does not yet work reliably.
• Update the documentation to try to make it easier to access the latest jar.
• Redesign the REDUCE Configuration dialogue:
  • Replace Packages Root Directory with REDUCE Packages Directory.
  • Split Documentation Root Dir into REDUCE Manual Directory and REDUCE Primers Directory.
  • The above two changes are not backwards compatible!
  • Add Initial I/O Directory, which defaults to the user's home directory, as before.
  • Add a ContextMenu to implement key choices for Initial I/O Directory: Home Directory; Current Directory; Another Directory.

Version 1.8

• The Typeset Maths View menu option enables typeset-style display of algebraic-mode output. But beware that this is currently experimental and has a number of limitations.
• Rename Initial I/O Directory to REDUCE Working Directory in the REDUCE Configuration dialogue. This now sets the initial directory for both REDUCE and the file selectors and defaults to the user's home directory.
• View options apply to each REDUCE panel independently, initialised from the last selected (and saved) values, and the redfront View option takes effect after the next prompt.
• A toggle button on each REDUCE panel hides the input editor.
• When split-pane view is enabled after startup, the new panel is active and a green dot at the top right shows which panel is selected.

Version 1.9

• Detect question prompts correctly.
• Add a Print Session Log... item to the File menu, which prints the entire content of the I/O Display pane as it appears on screen.
• Fix the Save Session Log... code to output the TeX markup used to display typeset maths.
• Move Load Packages... to the REDUCE menu.
• Support the pop-up keyboard on the input editor and add a label "Control+Click for the Pop-Up Keyboard" with a tooltip to the top of the input editor and the bottom of each template dialogue.
• Handle more of the non-standard TeX markup generated by fmprint.

Version 2.0

• Fix the display of big delimiters in typeset maths.
• Always insert parentheses when calling a function using the pop-up keyboard, rewrite ln to log and remove the space after sqrt.

Version 2.1

• Remember the directory used in the filechooser.
• Always decode non-ASCII characters from the pop-up keyboard and from templates to their correct REDUCE or TeX names.
• Replace loading the fmprint package with inputting and compiling the new source file "rrprint.red" contained in the JAR file, which is based on "tmprint.red".
• Typeset maths improvements:
  • Apply the fix by Eberhard Shruefer so that order commands work.
  • Output identifiers in mathit instead of mathrm style.
  • Correct spacing of := and leading + and - signs.
  • Display a trailing multiplication sign but otherwise ignore multiplications. (This may be too drastic.)
  • Support all trigonometric and hyperbolic functions and their inverses, and logb and log10.
  • Display the gamma function, but not the identifier gamma, using a capital Gamma.
  • Support the polygamma, iGamma, iBeta, dilog, Pochhammer and integral functions.
  • Support Airy and Hankel functions.
  • Support Struve, Lommel, Kummer, Whittaker and spherical harmonic functions, and the classical orthogonal polynomials.

Version 2.2

• Remove the middle mouse button binding for the pop-up keyboard, since it clashes with the X Window primary paste gesture (although this is not supported).
• Scroll more reliably to the bottom of the REDUCE I/O display window.
• Add a Kill REDUCE item to the bottom of the REDUCE menu. Display an information alert when REDUCE is killed and an error message if this may have failed. Handle failure of REDUCE to start better and check that REDUCE is alive before trying to send it input.
• Improve alerts relating to printing.
• Display the version number on the title bar.
• Add new sections on Editing, Typeset Maths Display and Printing on Linux to the User Guide.
• Typeset maths improvements:
  • Restore compatibility with tmprint so that excalc.tst runs.
  • Use a narrow space to indicate multiplication (except at the end of a line) because with no space x*y is indistinguishable from xy.
  • Output strings as text rather than maths and identifiers using mathit. Support the dfprint switch.
  • Treat trailing digits in an identifier (optionally preceded by _) as a subscript. Treat the final _ in an identifier as introducing a subscript if it is followed by (the name of) a single character. But as a special case, display body_bar as \bar{body} for a single-character body or \overline{body} for a multi-character body.
  • Ensure that operator identifiers are subscripted like non-operator identifiers. Note that line breaking is thoroughly broken!
  • Display repart and impart as \Re and \Im.
  • Display matrices more readably by using \displaystyle for each element and increasing the row spacing to 1.5em.
• REDUCE Configuration Dialogue improvements:
  • Use \ as directory separator in the Windows default configuration.
  • Detect unreadable directories and files in more fields.
  • Substantial revision to fix some subtle misbehaviour.

Version 2.3

• Make Generic information for all REDUCE commands fields all optional, resetting to defaults where appropriate. Correct the behaviour to allow the REDUCE Root Directory text field to be empty, and to use the Command Root Directory if it is set.
• Add a Restart REDUCE item to the REDUCE menu to do a full clean restart of the last-run REDUCE command.
• Set a minimum size for the main window.
• Allow space at the bottom of the main display so that the horizontal scroll bar does not obscure the prompt.
• Improve automatic scrolling to the bottom of the display pane.
• Highlight warnings and errors with an appropriate background colour.
• Typeset maths improvements:
  • Improve line breaking.
  • Allow special function symbols to depend on a function's arity and use this for the gamma function to avoid perturbing "excalc.tst".
  • Process _bar in an identifier as an over-bar even if it is followed by digits or _k.
  • Improve display with on list and display matrix assignments as assignments, which now both appear correct for "alg.tst".
  • Display abs(x) as |x|.
  • Remove all superfluous space around commas in algebraic lists and flat printed matrix rows.

Updates since last release