Years ago I looked into both LyX and TeXmacs. I could already quickly write math in LaTeX but I wanted to work out calculations on a single screen without the code/renderer split screen setup (having the math directly visible is a game-changer for doing long calculations, by the way). TeXmacs won hands down for me. I had no problem learning the intuitive shortcuts (e.g. any letter - TAB for its Greek counterpart). If you know the LaTeX counterpart you can almost always type that in. The converter to LaTeX source is quite good. I love that the "nesting hierarchy" in a math expression is visible. For instance,
"(x^2 + 4)"
has four distinct components: the parentheses "(...)", the term "x^2" (two components, "x" and "2"), and the term "4". If you place your cursor before or after the parentheses and use SHIFT+RARROW or SHIFT+LARROW (respectively), you highlight the parentheses; if you do the same before or after the x^2 term, you highlight x^2. I find a lot of math editors (e.g., Word 2016) get this wrong because they will just highlight the parentheses or the exponent. Smart highlighting is super useful for fast manipulation of equations. Oh, and also -- if you are within a set of parentheses, you can keep hitting TAB to cycle through (), [], {}, ... . Not to mention, TeXmacs handles all the \left and \right parentheses sizing for you (the parentheses in the above example would expand if, for instance, you made 4 a fraction like 4/3 -- a quick Meta-f away)
> but I wanted to work out calculations on a single screen without the code/renderer split screen setup (having the math directly visible is a game-changer for doing long calculations, by the way).
If anyone wants to play with this there are 'online editors' so you don't even have to download/install software nowadays:
https://www.mathcha.io/editor is indeed much closer to TeXmacs than https://latex.codecogs.com/eqneditor/editor.php. No matter how instant the rendering is, the latter is still split-screen. It may not seem like much, but when you are knee-deep in a calculation the advantage of having a single point of focus for your eyes is huge (at least to me).
Thanks, I'll look into it. I enrolled in a Master' Degree after almost 20 years out of the University, and had to do some mathy reports. Forgotten most of my raw LaTeX skills and not interested on doing the investment again, went directly into LyX, which I remembered it was already nice in the 00's. It was OK.
But if I have the time(and the need), I'll try TeXmacs.
"(x^2 + 4)"
has four distinct components: the parentheses "(...)", the term "x^2" (two components, "x" and "2"), and the term "4". If you place your cursor before or after the parentheses and use SHIFT+RARROW or SHIFT+LARROW (respectively), you highlight the parentheses; if you do the same before or after the x^2 term, you highlight x^2. I find a lot of math editors (e.g., Word 2016) get this wrong because they will just highlight the parentheses or the exponent. Smart highlighting is super useful for fast manipulation of equations. Oh, and also -- if you are within a set of parentheses, you can keep hitting TAB to cycle through (), [], {}, ... . Not to mention, TeXmacs handles all the \left and \right parentheses sizing for you (the parentheses in the above example would expand if, for instance, you made 4 a fraction like 4/3 -- a quick Meta-f away)