aimmath-developers — Development related messages

[Aimmath-developers] new package aim/Calc

[Gustav W D. <gu...@ma...>]

I have just committed Mike's new package for the automatic generation of
calculus solutions into CVS in the file aim/Calc. If someone thinks that a
different name would be better, I will change it.

I added the new package to the end of PackageList. I tried to put it in the
middle of the list (right after aim/Int) but that produced a compiled AiM
that wouldn't work. Can someone explain this? Is there something wrong with
the aim/Calc?

If we play to our own rules then this feature will not be in AiM 3.0 because
it came in after the deadline. What do people think?

Gustav

RE: [Aimmath-developers] aim/Latex package

[Ken M. <mo...@pt...>]

I just committed a batch of changes that should help with some of the
problems you raise below.  In particular,

1. The default for formatting e is now italics, and not boldmath.  I
originally made it boldmath because TtH doesn't italicize math mode
variables and the plain non-italicized e looked really bad, and I wanted to
emphasize to the students that it was exp(1) and not the variable e.  But
with italics it actually looks pretty good on screen now, it is easy to
distinguish it from the other variables and it look closer to what you see
in textbooks.  It should also look fine in your pdf documents now.  It is a
definite improvement, and now looking back, I realize that I should have
tried italics instead of boldface in the first place.

2. I fixed the problem with @sin(x)@, it now produces \sin \left( x \right).
Same for the other functions too.

3. I found the cause of the original "ln in italics" bug.  For some reason
`latex/ln` and `latex/log` were being unassigned in AliceServer.mpl, but no
replacement for those routines was in LaTeX.mpl.  I changed AliceServer.mpl
so it no longer unassigns them.  However, I'm a little concerned about why
they might have been unassigned in the first place.  Hopefully it was just
some problem with older versions of Maple and TtH. Does anyone know why they
were originally unassigned?

4. The routine `latex/latex/symbol` is no longer modified by AIM. (Neil
deleted it a while ago, then I put it back to fix the ln bug, now we are
back to not needing it again. :)).  I also checked the routine in LaTeX.mpl
for `latex/latex/function` against the code for the same function in Maple 7
and they seemed almost identical, so I also removed that routine from
LaTeX.mpl. I also don't know why we were overriding that routine. Perhaps it
was originally added to add a feature that wasn't present in an older
version?  Anyway, I only commented out both of these routines, so if some
texing bugs reappear we only need to uncomment them to get them back.  I
tested it as much as I could on my machine, but my questions don't test
everything, so it would be helpful if everyone would test their own
questions to see if there are any new formatting quirks introduced.

5. We still override `latex/latex/*` and `latex/latex/**` (for reasons
discussed below) but I replaced both routines with modified versions of the
same routine from Maple 7, so that it is more up to date.  In particular,
this was the original  source of the (I+1)(a-b) bug which is (still) fixed.
I didn't touch the `latex/latex/matrix` in LaTeX.mpl routine since I know
nothing about that.  I also changed the behavior so that the default
formatting for n^(1/2) is \sqrt{n} if n is a one digit integer (see more
discussion on radicals below).

So they are the changes I just committed.  Let me now reply to your original
message:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gustav W Delius
> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 6:11 PM
> To: AIM developers
> Subject: [Aimmath-developers] aim/Latex package
>
>
> As you know, I am passing the AiM latex output through pdflatex to obtain
> nicely typeset problem and solution sheets. Unfortunately it turns out
that
> the latex that AiM produces has some shortcomings. I need help from people
> who understand the aim/Latex package to overcome these problems.
>
> As far as I understand the aim/Latex package has 3 goals:
>
> 1) remove shortcomings in Maple's Latex,
>
> 2) avoid some of the simplifications that Maple would do automatically
that
> the Inert package doesn't want,

Let me clarify this a bit.  One main purpose of the Inert package is to
override the latex formatting that AIM and Maple produce for a given
expression. An InertExpr object carries around its own latex formatting
internally, so it doesn't depend on what AIM or Maple decides is the latex
string for a given expression. So in that sense, whatever changes we make to
the default latex formatting for Maple expressions, it will have no effect
on the way InertExpr objects display.

However, there are several situations where you can't override the default
latex formatting with the Inert package.  The most obvious one is the when
AIM echo's back the student's answer to the student.  Since the students are
entering ordinary Maple expressions and not inert expressions the formatting
of their answer is determined by Maple's latex package and the modifications
to it that we incorporate into AIM.  Another place where the default
formatting is important is when printing the value of an InertExpr, since
that is an ordinary Maple expression.  This comes up quite often when
showing a solution, where you might start with the unevaluated expression
and simplify it in a few steps with the last step being the inert
expression's value.

The bottom line is that what we choose for the default latex formatting of
Maple expressions is important, but it doesn't affect the display of inert
expressions, so we can choose it to be whatever we like without affect that
package per se.

> 3) change the latex so that it looks good after conversion by tth.
>
> Now I think 1) and 2) are a good idea. Obviously I am not so excited about
> 3) because what makes tth look good doesn't necessarily look good when
> typeset. Clearly I would want to switch off this tth conditioning to
produce
> good latex output. That would be easy to do if only I knew which parts of
> aim/Latex served which goal.

I can tell you about the parts I know about.

Currently aim/LaTeX.mpl overrides the following built-in Maple functions
from Maple's latex package:

1. `latex/latex/*`

The only reason this is overridden is to prevent it from resetting the value
of _LatexSmallFractionConstant to 50 when formatting a product with a
numerical first factor.  Maple has the default for this constant set to 50,
but I changed the default to 5000 in AliceServer.mpl.  The motivation for
doing this is that Maple latex formats any numerical fraction n/m
vertically, i.e. \frac{n}{m}, whenever the value of abs(n*m) is greater than
_LatexSmallFractionConstant, but horizontally as n/m otherwise.  However,
TtH is very bad at formatting fractions vertically in inline math mode (it
basically can't) so this causes a headache in questions where randomization
might choose 2/3 for the fraction in one question instance and 7/8 in
another instance.  With the original default value of
_LatexSmallFractionConstant=50, 2/3 would format horizontally, but the 7/8
would be formatted vertically, resulting in (a) an ugly inline display
because of TtH and (b) inconsistent formatting in the question even in
display math mode depending on the particular randomization.

2. `latex/latex/**`

The main modification to this routine is to prevent Maple from producing
radical's, since TtH is terrible at producing anything but the simplest
expression using radicals.  Even in display math mode, it can't connect the
leading root symbol to the overbar on a big expression. The only thing that
looks half decent is something like \sqrt{x} or \sqrt(2) where there is only
one character after the root sign, since then it doesn't try to put the
overbar above the character.  So I just tweaked it so @n^(1/2)@ becomes
\sqrt{n} if n is a single digit integer.  It would be easy enough to change
it so it would work for single character variables too, but I don't think we
should do that.  It is better to let all of the expressions that have
rational exponents format in a consistent manner, and it is usually more
useable to have them in exponential form than radical form when writing
solutions to questions.

The only other tweak to this routine is to prevent it from putting
parentheses around the e when formatting @exp(1)^2@.  Maple doesn't
automatically simplify this expression to exp(2), so if a student enters e^2
for his answer, then since we have defined e:=exp(1), this is the actual
expression that AIM tries to format.  The default is (e)^2 instead of just
e^2, so this tweak prevents the parentheses in that case.

3. `latex/exp`

This is overridden so it formats exp(1) as {\it e} and exp(x) as {\it
e}^{x}.

4. `latex/latex/float`

I rewrote almost all of this routine to improve the default latex formatting
for Maple floats in AIM questions.  In particular, the default for Maple is
to latex format a float using all of the digits determined by the global
variable Digits.  This is almost always way too many digits for a reasonable
question involving floats.  This routine now uses a new global variable
'LaTeXDigits' to determine how many digits it should use by default when
displaying a float.  Thus we can specify the number of digits displayed in
the latex output of a float without affecting the accuracy of the internal
computation (as it would be if we reset Digits instead).  The default is
three digits.

So that is the complete list of the modifications I have made to the latex
code.  Aside from whatever is going on in `latex/latex/matrix`, they are the
only variations from what Maple produces by default.

> Some things are obvious, for example typesetting $e^x$ with a bold e is
good
> for on-screen display but something I would want to switch off for
> conventional mathematical typesetting.

I changed this to italics now, so it should be good for both.

> Another thing that I certainly want
> to switch off is the typesetting of $\sqrt{2}$ as $2^{1/2}$.

This is changed now too, but only for single digit integers.  I think it
will be a bad idea to do this for other expressions.

> But there already I have difficulties finding where it is done. Can you
help?
>
> Finally there is the matter of the missing \ in front of \cos and similar
> things. I don't know if that is a bug or part of 3)

This is fixed now.

One final philosophical comment about this topic...

I think we really should try to keep the pdf and on screen versions of an
AIM quiz as identical as possible.  In particular, if TtH cannot display
radicals like $$\sqrt[3]{\frac{x+1}{x}}$$ and so we have it print as
$${\frac{x+1}{x}}^(1/3)$$ instead, then we should not use the radical
notation in the pdf quiz and the exponential notation on the onscreen
version.  Otherwise we will have angry mobs of students pounding down our
office doors saying "When I saw the question on the screen it had a 1/3
power but when I printed the quiz it changed to a different question with
roots and stuff! So I just skipped that one because I didn't know which
question you wanted me to answer?"

:)

KEN

Re: [Aimmath-developers] confusion about "missing parentheses" bug cleared

[Greg G. <gr...@ma...>]

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003, Gustav W Delius wrote:
> It worked in Maple 9 for Ken but not in Maple 8 for me. Ken has now fixed it
> so that it works in Maple 8 as well and presumably in Maple 7 (does anyone
> still have a version to test our new AiM on it?).

Yes ... I have both Maple 7 and Maple 8 on my development machine. So, I 
can test Maple 7 out. It may be the weekend before I get to it though.

  Regards,
  Greg

RE: [Aimmath-developers] AuthoringGuide

[Greg G. <gr...@ma...>]

On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, Ken Monks wrote:
GWD> I assume you are using tex to produce the pdf?
> 
> Well not exactly.  I'm using Scientific Workplace, which is a WYSIWYG front
> end for LaTeX (it's really nice, IMO!).  The pdf file was produced by
> printing the WYSIWYG version directly from the editor to Acrobat Distiller.
> The file is saved as LaTeX, but I didn't compile the LaTeX to print it.  If
> I do compile the LaTeX, I will loose all of the colors and fonts that you
> see in the pdf, and it will look like a plain LaTeX document.  While I do
> have a style file that makes the fonts and colors, it is a SWP style file,
> not a LaTeX style file. SWP can also export the document to HTML and will do
> a decent job of keeping the fonts and colors.  However, the downside is that
> it produces a zillion image files for all of the included mathematics and as
> usual the conversion isn't formatted quite as well.
> 
> But the bottom line is that we can have it in pretty much whatever format we
> like eventually.
> 
> > > Would you share your style file?
> 
> Sure, if anyone else is using Scientific Workplace. :)  I'll also be glad to
> post the html and LaTeX source as soon as I'm done.

What can I say ... I'm not in favour of using Scientific Workplace. My 
feeling is that the base format should be plain text, and something easily
transformed into the wanted formats (.pdf, .html, ...) from that base 
format by anyone of us. Now, if you were able to provide a LaTeX 
documentclass. Then that could go into an etc/ directory of the CVS 
repository, and we would all be able to add to the base format file
and be able to reproduce the wanted formats (given that a translation
function, probably written in Maple because that's accessible to all).

What I don't like about Scientific Workplace is the sort of LaTeX it
produces; because its WYSIWYG, centring is done by a series of \  
(explicit space commands) rather than by using the appropriate centring 
environments, i.e. markup tends to be done explicitly rather than 
logically.  

> No, what happened is that I found myself up against the beta release
> deadline and am writing up documentation as fast as my little fingers can
> type. It is *much* easier for me to type it in SWP than in HTML because of
> the all of the mathematics I needed to include.  SWP can export to html when
> I'm finished, and saves the document in LaTeX, so I knew I wasn't locking us
> into any particular format by typing it in SWP, just making my life easier
> while trying to finish all of that documentation ASAP.

Look ... I don't want to be a stick-in-the-mud. I agree with you. It's 
much more important to get the documentation `out there' ... but please
make a plain text version available. Maybe, when I've got time I can put
together a tool or tools to make the form consistent. I don't know about
you, but I find documentation *much* easier to read if it's in a 
consistent form, and much more difficult when the style keeps changing.

> > Also, I'd like to see the documentation for Rand with all the other
> documentation.
> 
> The documentation for Rand, and Inert and all of the other minor packages I
> uploaded is indeed also autogenerated and included with all of the other
> documentation, in addition to being discussed in Authoring Guide.  However,
> I think asking someone to learn about the Inert package by reading the
> autogenerated documentation is like asking them to learn calculus by giving
> them the axioms for the real numbers.  Similarly, while the autogenerated
> docs for Rand() give the exact syntax, they don't explain how the recursive
> nature of it can be used to define more complicated random structures, as
> illustrated in the Authoring Guide. I think if you read the AuthoringGuide
> and compare it with the autogenerated docs you will see what I mean.

I agree with all this too. I have produced quite a lot of documentation 
myself. What I find is, most users go straight to the examples or 
templates ... only serious users read the manual, and most of these only
become serious users after playing with the examples first. Hence why
I thought an examples/ directory ought to be there with, eventually,
examples of all of the features of AIM.
 
> Also, in general, I think we need an Authoring Guide.  There is SO much
> autogenerated documentation, that I don't think we could expect a new AiM
> author to read all of it and to realize which parts of the documentation
> deal with authoring tools and which are documenting the internals of AiM.
> For example, the Int, Diff, Trig, SET, Decimal, Number, Functions, and Inert
> packages all deal with things that a question author might find useful for
> writing questions, while most of the other packages would never be used.
> Even within the packages I just mentioned there are some routines that are
> internal utilities, and lots of documentation about the fields and methods
> defining the classes that the question author does not need to be concerned
> with.  So I think we definitly need a document that a question author can
> read in order to learn about all of the built-in tools for question
> authoring, and to see examples of how they can be used, all in one place
> rather than them having to read through the entire autogenerated
> documentation system to find out what is available, and trying to figure out
> on their own how it all works.

I agree absolutely.

> > It doesn't hurt to have other formats available as well, but rather than
> produce
> > a whole lot of different pieces of documentation in a hodge-podge way,
> > it should be consistent ... to do this means accepting one format as
> > a base format, inventing some rules about style (largely done already
> > by Neil when he created the auto-documentating tools for AIM), and
> > creating tools to convert from the base format to the other formats.
> > The base format could be HTML or it could be LaTeX or even XML.
> 
> It can easily be converted to HTML and easily posted as LaTeX.  I'm still
> typing more documentation, but when I'm done I'll gladly post it in HTML,
> LaTeX, SWP, and pdf. :)

My reservation is that we should all be able to regenerate the 
documentation from a simple plain text base format. If you can use
Scientific Workplace in such a way that generates a simple plain text base 
format, then that's fine with me.
 
> > IMHO, if we are to go down this road, I'd like it to be LaTeX,
> > which would mean defining the style and tailoring a LaTeX-to-HTML
> > tool to give output that matches the existing AIM auto-documentation.
> > Perhaps, Neil already has such a tool that he used to generate
> > syntax.html etc.??
> 
> Sorry if I made you think there was any "road" we were going down.  The only
> road I'm headed down is the "hurry up and type up all this stuff any way
> possible and worry about the permanent version later" road. :)

I'm ok with that ... as you say, we can make things more consistent later,
and having a few example docs helps in formulating the consistent style
(and the `rules' I spoke of, previously) anyway.

> However,
> since the topic came up, I would say that it might not hurt to have a nice
> AiM User's Manual that includes the Authoring Guide and the contents of
> syntax.html in LaTeX and pdf in addition to the available html docs.

Yes, I agree with that.
 
  Regards,
  Greg

RE: [Aimmath-developers] delayed messages

[Gustav W D. <gu...@ma...>]

Hi Neil,

> I don't think we should change mailing lists in a hurry.  Apart
> from just avoiding disruption, I think it is important that we
> should have the list manager integrated with the bug and feature 
> request trackers.  Someone mentioned bugzilla at one point, and
> there are probably other possibilities.  I don't think we should
> make any changes until we've looked into all this properly.

I don't think switching to a different list should cause any disruption.
But the current situation where we can never know how many hours or
days later our message will be delivered very disruptive.

What do you mean when you say that the list manager should be
integrated with the bug and feature request trackers. Do you have
an example?

I will have a look at bugzilla.

> Also, I think we should keep the users list separate from the
> developers list.  

Yes, I entirely agree. But the users are moving over to the aimmath
site anyway.

> At the moment there are not too many users who
> are not developers, but I hope that this will change.

I hope there will eventually be hundreds of users. You wouldn't want all
of them to be developers, would you?

Gustav

RE: [Aimmath-developers] delayed messages

[Neil S. <N.P...@sh...>]

I don't think we should change mailing lists in a hurry.  Apart
from just avoiding disruption, I think it is important that we
should have the list manager integrated with the bug and feature 
request trackers.  Someone mentioned bugzilla at one point, and
there are probably other possibilities.  I don't think we should
make any changes until we've looked into all this properly.

Also, I think we should keep the users list separate from the
developers list.  At the momentthere are not too many users who
are not developers, but I hope that this will change.

Neil

RE: [Aimmath-developers] delayed messages

[Ken M. <mo...@pt...>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: aim...@li...
> [mailto:aim...@li...]On Behalf Of
> Gustav W Delius
> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 3:17 PM
> To: AIM developers
> Subject: [Aimmath-developers] delayed messages
>
>
> The delays on this sourceforge mailing list are a real nuisance. I propose
> that we switch over to the JISC mailing list. The people who are currently
> on there will be invited to move over to the forum on the aimmath website
> anyway. Are there any developers who are not on the JISC list yet? You can
> subscribe at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=aim&A=1.
>
> Gustav

I would be quite happy to use the JISC list instead of the developers list
because of the terrible turnaround times on this sourceforge list.  There
are currently 50 subscribers to the AIM JISC list, so I'd feel a little bad
bombarding all 50 of them with our technical developers' messages.  But then
again, maybe some of them would assist with various technical problems that
come up... they have in the past.  Either way, count me in for a change of
developers' list to something faster.

KEN

[Aimmath-developers] aim/Latex package

[Gustav W D. <gw...@yo...>]

As you know, I am passing the AiM latex output through pdflatex to obtain
nicely typeset problem and solution sheets. Unfortunately it turns out that
the latex that AiM produces has some shortcomings. I need help from people
who understand the aim/Latex package to overcome these problems.

As far as I understand the aim/Latex package has 3 goals:

1) remove shortcomings in Maple's Latex,

2) avoid some of the simplifications that Maple would do automatically that
the Inert package doesn't want,

3) change the latex so that it looks good after conversion by tth.

Now I think 1) and 2) are a good idea. Obviously I am not so excited about
3) because what makes tth look good doesn't necessarily look good when
typeset. Clearly I would want to switch off this tth conditioning to produce
good latex output. That would be easy to do if only I knew which parts of
aim/Latex served which goal.

Some things are obvious, for example typesetting $e^x$ with a bold e is good
for on-screen display but something I would want to switch off for
conventional mathematical typesetting. Another thing that I certainly want
to switch off is the typesetting of $\sqrt{2}$ as $2^{1/2}$. But there
already I have difficulties finding where it is done. Can you help?

Finally there is the matter of the missing \ in front of \cos and similar
things. I don't know if that is a bug or part of 3)

Gustav

[Aimmath-developers] [ aimmath-Bugs-804025 ] \cos is cos

[SourceForge.net <no...@so...>]

Bugs item #804025, was opened at 2003-09-10 21:51
Message generated for change (Tracker Item Submitted) made by Item Submitter
You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=804025&group_id=44411

Category: Formatting
Group: None
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: \cos is cos

Initial Comment:
In the latex produced by AiM function names are missing 

the backslash. I guess one doesn't notice that if one 

uses tth for output, but we need to fix this to be able to 

produce correctly formatted output.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Aimmath-developers] delayed messages

[Gustav W D. <gw...@yo...>]

The delays on this sourceforge mailing list are a real nuisance. I propose
that we switch over to the JISC mailing list. The people who are currently
on there will be invited to move over to the forum on the aimmath website
anyway. Are there any developers who are not on the JISC list yet? You can
subscribe at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=aim&A=1.

Gustav

[Aimmath-developers] [ aimmath-Bugs-797257 ] missing parenthesis around complex numbers

[SourceForge.net <no...@so...>]

Bugs item #797257, was opened at 2003-08-29 12:51
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by gustav_delius
You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=797257&group_id=44411

Category: None
Group: None
>Status: Closed
Resolution: Fixed
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: missing parenthesis around complex numbers

Initial Comment:
The following toy example illustrates the problem:



t> Type in $@(I-1)*(a-b)@$.

a> (I-1)*(a-b)

end>



The parenthesis around (I-1) are not printed in AiM's 

output.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

>Comment By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Date: 2003-09-10 16:02

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=737246

This was due to AiM using an old version of tth that it found 

on my harddrive. Changed AutoConf.mpl and AutoConfWin.mpl 

so that AiM will always use the version that comes with the 

release.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Date: 2003-09-10 11:02

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=737246

The bug is still there.



Also: it would be very useful to put some comments into 

aim/Latex.mpl to explain what is being done.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Ken Monks (monks)
Date: 2003-09-10 02:44

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=766386

I originally restored some of the routines that Neil said were 

no longer needed in order to fix bug #798642 "ln formats in 

italics".  Unfortunately this must have reintroduced this 

parentheses bug. I have posted a new version of 

aim/LaTeX.mpl that should fix both bugs simultaneously. Let 

me know if it causes any other problems.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Date: 2003-09-09 22:11

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=737246

This bug has reappeared, even though Neil had already fixed 

it. This must have to do with the code that Ken added to 

aim/Latex.mpl.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Neil Strickland (npstrick)
Date: 2003-08-30 21:18

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=430681

aim/LaTeX.mpl used to override various of Maple's latex'ing

functions, because they did not work properly with TtH when

I first started using it.  Unfortunately, I did not record details

of what I changed or why.  The Maple 8 versions of these

functions are better, so I just removed most of the overrides.

This cured the bug reported by Gustav, but may have 

(re)introduced some other problems.



----------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Aimmath-developers] confusion about "missing parentheses" bug cleared

[Gustav W D. <gw...@yo...>]

The confusion is cleared:

> 1) version 1.6 of aim/Latex (the latest version) gives me lots of
> Maple to Latex errors even though it works for Ken.

It worked in Maple 9 for Ken but not in Maple 8 for me. Ken has now fixed it
so that it works in Maple 8 as well and presumably in Maple 7 (does anyone
still have a version to test our new AiM on it?). Thanks Ken.

> 2) I now rolled back to aim/Latex version 1.3 which is the one
> where Neil had taken out most of the old stuff that predated
> Maple 8. This had fixed the bug for Neil, but it does not fix it for me.

I was using an old version of tth. I will now change the AutoConf.mpl and
AutoConfWin.mpl so that they do not look for old versions of tth elsewhere
on the harddrive but use the one that comes with the distribution.

Gustav

RE: [Aimmath-developers] confusion about "missing parentheses" bug

[Ken M. <mo...@pt...>]

> I am very confused about the "missing parenteses" bug which has oscillated
> forth and back between being fixed and being open. There are two things
that
> puzzle me:
>
> 1) version 1.6 of aim/Latex (the latest version) gives me lots of Maple to
> Latex errors even though it works for Ken.
>
> 2) I now rolled back to aim/Latex version 1.3 which is the one where Neil
> had taken out most of the old stuff that predated Maple 8. This had fixed
> the bug for Neil, but it does not fix it for me.
>
> Gustav

I think I fixed this now and just committed a change.  The LaTeX errors you
got from version 1.6 was due to some Maple 9 specific code (which is why I
didn't notice the errors in version 1.6). Let me know if we are done
oscillating. :)

KEN

[Aimmath-developers] confusion about "missing parentheses" bug

[Gustav W D. <gw...@yo...>]

I am very confused about the "missing parenteses" bug which has oscillated
forth and back between being fixed and being open. There are two things that
puzzle me:

1) version 1.6 of aim/Latex (the latest version) gives me lots of Maple to
Latex errors even though it works for Ken.

2) I now rolled back to aim/Latex version 1.3 which is the one where Neil
had taken out most of the old stuff that predated Maple 8. This had fixed
the bug for Neil, but it does not fix it for me.

Gustav

[Aimmath-developers] [ aimmath-Bugs-803750 ] No value for "PartLabel" supplied following Results link

[SourceForge.net <no...@so...>]

Bugs item #803750, was opened at 2003-09-10 14:03
Message generated for change (Tracker Item Submitted) made by Item Submitter
You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=803750&group_id=44411

Category: Admin Interface
Group: None
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: No value for "PartLabel" supplied following Results link

Initial Comment:
When I follow the "Results" links next to a question on 

the quiz admin page, I get the error message: 



Error, (in aim/admin/GetParameter) No value 

for "PartLabel" supplied 



Note, this is only for the "Results" for the individual 

question, the "Results" link for the whole quiz at the top 

of the page is working fine.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Aimmath-developers] [ aimmath-Bugs-797257 ] missing parenthesis around complex numbers

[SourceForge.net <no...@so...>]

Bugs item #797257, was opened at 2003-08-29 12:51
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by gustav_delius
You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=797257&group_id=44411

Category: None
Group: None
>Status: Open
Resolution: Fixed
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: missing parenthesis around complex numbers

Initial Comment:
The following toy example illustrates the problem:



t> Type in $@(I-1)*(a-b)@$.

a> (I-1)*(a-b)

end>



The parenthesis around (I-1) are not printed in AiM's 

output.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

>Comment By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Date: 2003-09-10 11:02

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=737246

The bug is still there.



Also: it would be very useful to put some comments into 

aim/Latex.mpl to explain what is being done.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Ken Monks (monks)
Date: 2003-09-10 02:44

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=766386

I originally restored some of the routines that Neil said were 

no longer needed in order to fix bug #798642 "ln formats in 

italics".  Unfortunately this must have reintroduced this 

parentheses bug. I have posted a new version of 

aim/LaTeX.mpl that should fix both bugs simultaneously. Let 

me know if it causes any other problems.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Date: 2003-09-09 22:11

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=737246

This bug has reappeared, even though Neil had already fixed 

it. This must have to do with the code that Ken added to 

aim/Latex.mpl.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Neil Strickland (npstrick)
Date: 2003-08-30 21:18

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=430681

aim/LaTeX.mpl used to override various of Maple's latex'ing

functions, because they did not work properly with TtH when

I first started using it.  Unfortunately, I did not record details

of what I changed or why.  The Maple 8 versions of these

functions are better, so I just removed most of the overrides.

This cured the bug reported by Gustav, but may have 

(re)introduced some other problems.



----------------------------------------------------------------------

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https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=797257&group_id=44411

[Aimmath-developers] Summary of new features and changes

[Gustav W D. <gu...@ma...>]

Probably the best way to compile such a document is if everyone who has made
changes writes his part of the document and emails it to me, I will then put
it all together.

The idea is to produce a document that will tell an AiM 2.1 user what to
look out for in the new version. It is not supposed to be a developer's
document, we already know what has changed. It is supposed to be an end-user
document.

Gustav

[Aimmath-developers] summary of new features and changes

[Gustav W D. <gu...@ma...>]

I get the impression that the new AiM is quite stable. There is however
still one thing missing before we can ask others to test it: a summary of
changes and new features. I had meant to write such a document but haven't.
I am also not good at writing things, it takes me far too long. Can someone
else do it?

Gustav

[Aimmath-developers] [ aimmath-Bugs-797257 ] missing parenthesis around complex numbers

[SourceForge.net <no...@so...>]

Bugs item #797257, was opened at 2003-08-29 08:51
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by monks
You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=797257&group_id=44411

Category: None
Group: None
Status: Closed
Resolution: Fixed
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: missing parenthesis around complex numbers

Initial Comment:
The following toy example illustrates the problem:



t> Type in $@(I-1)*(a-b)@$.

a> (I-1)*(a-b)

end>



The parenthesis around (I-1) are not printed in AiM's 

output.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

>Comment By: Ken Monks (monks)
Date: 2003-09-09 22:44

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=766386

I originally restored some of the routines that Neil said were 

no longer needed in order to fix bug #798642 "ln formats in 

italics".  Unfortunately this must have reintroduced this 

parentheses bug. I have posted a new version of 

aim/LaTeX.mpl that should fix both bugs simultaneously. Let 

me know if it causes any other problems.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Date: 2003-09-09 18:11

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=737246

This bug has reappeared, even though Neil had already fixed 

it. This must have to do with the code that Ken added to 

aim/Latex.mpl.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Neil Strickland (npstrick)
Date: 2003-08-30 17:18

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=430681

aim/LaTeX.mpl used to override various of Maple's latex'ing

functions, because they did not work properly with TtH when

I first started using it.  Unfortunately, I did not record details

of what I changed or why.  The Maple 8 versions of these

functions are better, so I just removed most of the overrides.

This cured the bug reported by Gustav, but may have 

(re)introduced some other problems.



----------------------------------------------------------------------

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https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=797257&group_id=44411

[Aimmath-developers] [ aimmath-Bugs-797257 ] missing parenthesis around complex numbers

[SourceForge.net <no...@so...>]

Bugs item #797257, was opened at 2003-08-29 12:51
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by gustav_delius
You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=797257&group_id=44411

Category: None
Group: None
Status: Closed
Resolution: Fixed
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: missing parenthesis around complex numbers

Initial Comment:
The following toy example illustrates the problem:



t> Type in $@(I-1)*(a-b)@$.

a> (I-1)*(a-b)

end>



The parenthesis around (I-1) are not printed in AiM's 

output.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

>Comment By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Date: 2003-09-09 22:11

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=737246

This bug has reappeared, even though Neil had already fixed 

it. This must have to do with the code that Ken added to 

aim/Latex.mpl.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Neil Strickland (npstrick)
Date: 2003-08-30 21:18

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=430681

aim/LaTeX.mpl used to override various of Maple's latex'ing

functions, because they did not work properly with TtH when

I first started using it.  Unfortunately, I did not record details

of what I changed or why.  The Maple 8 versions of these

functions are better, so I just removed most of the overrides.

This cured the bug reported by Gustav, but may have 

(re)introduced some other problems.



----------------------------------------------------------------------

You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=797257&group_id=44411

RE: [Aimmath-developers] AuthoringGuide

[Ken M. <mo...@pt...>]

Hi Greg and Gustav,

Let me reply to both of your messages regarding the AuthoringGuide.pdf file
at the same time.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: aim...@li...
> [mailto:aim...@li...]On Behalf Of Greg
> Gamble
> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 11:54 AM
> To: AIM developers
> Subject: Re: [Aimmath-developers] AuthoringGuide
>
>
> On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, Gustav W Delius wrote:
> > Ken,
> >
> > I really like your Authoring Guide. It would be very nice if we could
have
> > the contents of syntax.html included in that document as a first
chapter.

I had considered them to be two separate documents, with syntax.html and the
autogenerated package docs documenting the exact syntax for the AiM question
files, and the AuthoringGuide being a author's guide explaining how the
various syntax and built-in packages can be used to author questions, i.e.
syntax.html and the autogenerated docs are rigor, whereas AuthoringGuide is
exposition, tutorial, and quick reference.  However, if we want to combine
both into a single User's Manual, that might not be a bad idea.

> > Are you already working on that? Or do you want someone else to do that
(no,
> > I am not volunteering :-)).

As I said in my posting to this list of Sep 1, 2003:

----------------------
 -----Original Message-----
 From: aim...@li...
 On Behalf Of Ken Monks
 Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 3:11 AM
 To: Aim Developers
 Subject: [Aimmath-developers] authoring tools and other mods
 :
 :
 6. AuthoringGuide.pdf (in the docs directory)

 This is a temporary rough draft of what I hope will eventually become a
 question authoring guide.  Currently it only contains a brief tutorial on
 using the Inert package, but I hope to add sections about the Random
package
 and the Rand command, and the SET, Decimal, and Number packages.  Perhaps
 others will want to eventually add sections about the Int, Diff, Trig, etc
 packages... i.e. anything that is primarily a question authoring tool.  I
 think this would be a big help for new question authors.  I often find
 myself writing a particular utility, only to find out later that it already
 exists somewhere in the AiM code.  This would be a more direct way to learn
 what tools are available.
----------------------

So far I have finished the sections in the Inert package and the Rand
command.  The next priority is the SET package (with Decimal and Number to
follow).  After that I intend to convert it to whatever format people want,
and post it more permanently.  If I convert it to html (see further
discussion below) then we could make a link to syntax.html at the top of the
document as a "first chapter", but if we also want LaTeX or pdf versions,
then we might want to add the contents of syntax.html to the Authoring Guide
as you suggest.

> I assume you are using tex to produce the pdf?

Well not exactly.  I'm using Scientific Workplace, which is a WYSIWYG front
end for LaTeX (it's really nice, IMO!).  The pdf file was produced by
printing the WYSIWYG version directly from the editor to Acrobat Distiller.
The file is saved as LaTeX, but I didn't compile the LaTeX to print it.  If
I do compile the LaTeX, I will loose all of the colors and fonts that you
see in the pdf, and it will look like a plain LaTeX document.  While I do
have a style file that makes the fonts and colors, it is a SWP style file,
not a LaTeX style file. SWP can also export the document to HTML and will do
a decent job of keeping the fonts and colors.  However, the downside is that
it produces a zillion image files for all of the included mathematics and as
usual the conversion isn't formatted quite as well.

But the bottom line is that we can have it in pretty much whatever format we
like eventually.

> > Would you share your style file?

Sure, if anyone else is using Scientific Workplace. :)  I'll also be glad to
post the html and LaTeX source as soon as I'm done.

> Dear all,
>
> While it's nice to have documentation in other formats, I think it's
> important to have a `standard' format, which up until now has been
> HTML, most of which is autogenerated by AIM via Maple. So, I'd like to
> see the Authoring Guide in HTML format.

I apologize if I wasn't clear about my intention with AuthoringGuide.pdf.
The key phrase to notice in my Sep 1, 2003 posting above is "This is a
temporary rough draft".  It was not my intent to leave the document
permanently in pdf format. As I said in the Sep 1 message "Perhaps others
will want to eventually add sections about the Int, Diff, Trig, etc
packages... i.e. anything that is primarily a question authoring tool.", and
this certainly can't be done to a pdf file.

No, what happened is that I found myself up against the beta release
deadline and am writing up documentation as fast as my little fingers can
type. It is *much* easier for me to type it in SWP than in HTML because of
the all of the mathematics I needed to include.  SWP can export to html when
I'm finished, and saves the document in LaTeX, so I knew I wasn't locking us
into any particular format by typing it in SWP, just making my life easier
while trying to finish all of that documentation ASAP.

> Also, I'd like to see the documentation for Rand with all the other
documentation.

The documentation for Rand, and Inert and all of the other minor packages I
uploaded is indeed also autogenerated and included with all of the other
documentation, in addition to being discussed in Authoring Guide.  However,
I think asking someone to learn about the Inert package by reading the
autogenerated documentation is like asking them to learn calculus by giving
them the axioms for the real numbers.  Similarly, while the autogenerated
docs for Rand() give the exact syntax, they don't explain how the recursive
nature of it can be used to define more complicated random structures, as
illustrated in the Authoring Guide. I think if you read the AuthoringGuide
and compare it with the autogenerated docs you will see what I mean.

Also, in general, I think we need an Authoring Guide.  There is SO much
autogenerated documentation, that I don't think we could expect a new AiM
author to read all of it and to realize which parts of the documentation
deal with authoring tools and which are documenting the internals of AiM.
For example, the Int, Diff, Trig, SET, Decimal, Number, Functions, and Inert
packages all deal with things that a question author might find useful for
writing questions, while most of the other packages would never be used.
Even within the packages I just mentioned there are some routines that are
internal utilities, and lots of documentation about the fields and methods
defining the classes that the question author does not need to be concerned
with.  So I think we definitly need a document that a question author can
read in order to learn about all of the built-in tools for question
authoring, and to see examples of how they can be used, all in one place
rather than them having to read through the entire autogenerated
documentation system to find out what is available, and trying to figure out
on their own how it all works.

> It doesn't hurt to have other formats available as well, but rather than
produce
> a whole lot of different pieces of documentation in a hodge-podge way,
> it should be consistent ... to do this means accepting one format as
> a base format, inventing some rules about style (largely done already
> by Neil when he created the auto-documentating tools for AIM), and
> creating tools to convert from the base format to the other formats.
> The base format could be HTML or it could be LaTeX or even XML.

It can easily be converted to HTML and easily posted as LaTeX.  I'm still
typing more documentation, but when I'm done I'll gladly post it in HTML,
LaTeX, SWP, and pdf. :)

> IMHO, if we are to go down this road, I'd like it to be LaTeX,
> which would mean defining the style and tailoring a LaTeX-to-HTML
> tool to give output that matches the existing AIM auto-documentation.
> Perhaps, Neil already has such a tool that he used to generate
> syntax.html etc.??

Sorry if I made you think there was any "road" we were going down.  The only
road I'm headed down is the "hurry up and type up all this stuff any way
possible and worry about the permanent version later" road. :)  However,
since the topic came up, I would say that it might not hurt to have a nice
AiM User's Manual that includes the Authoring Guide and the contents of
syntax.html in LaTeX and pdf in addition to the available html docs.

KEN

Re: [Aimmath-developers] AuthoringGuide

[Greg G. <gr...@ma...>]

On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, Gustav W Delius wrote:
> Ken,
> 
> I really like your Authoring Guide. It would be very nice if we could have
> the contents of syntax.html included in that document as a first chapter.
> Are you already working on that? Or do you want someone else to do that (no,
> I am not volunteering :-)). I assume you are using tex to produce the pdf?
> Would you share your style file?

Dear all,

While it's nice to have documentation in other formats, I think it's 
important to have a `standard' format, which up until now has been
HTML, most of which is autogenerated by AIM via Maple. So, I'd like to
see the Authoring Guide in HTML format. Also, I'd like to see the 
documentation for Rand with all the other documentation. It doesn't
hurt to have other formats available as well, but rather than produce
a whole lot of different pieces of documentation in a hodge-podge way,
it should be consistent ... to do this means accepting one format as
a base format, inventing some rules about style (largely done already
by Neil when he created the auto-documentating tools for AIM), and 
creating tools to convert from the base format to the other formats.
The base format could be HTML or it could be LaTeX or even XML.

IMHO, if we are to go down this road, I'd like it to be LaTeX,
which would mean defining the style and tailoring a LaTeX-to-HTML
tool to give output that matches the existing AIM auto-documentation.
Perhaps, Neil already has such a tool that he used to generate 
syntax.html etc.??

  Regards,
  Greg

[Aimmath-developers] beta release

[Gustav W D. <de...@ma...>]

I have zipped up our current version and uploaded it to
http://aimmath.sourceforge.net/aim.zip. When you get a chance, please check
that it actually works. I have also produced
http://aimmath.sourceforge.net/aim.tar.gz, which is actually substantially
smaller (1.2 rather than 1.9 MB). I think we should change the installation
instructions and refer to this version rather than the zip version.

I have also tagged the current version as AiM3_0_beta1. I have not yet made
a new branch. This can really wait until one of you wants to commit new
features. Bug fixes you can simply continue to commit to the HEAD branch.
Before you commit new features however, ask me to branch off the stable 3.0
release, or do it yourself.

Gustav

[Aimmath-developers] AuthoringGuide

[Gustav W D. <gu...@ma...>]

Ken,

I really like your Authoring Guide. It would be very nice if we could have
the contents of syntax.html included in that document as a first chapter.
Are you already working on that? Or do you want someone else to do that (no,
I am not volunteering :-)). I assume you are using tex to produce the pdf?
Would you share your style file?

Gustav

[Aimmath-developers] [ aimmath-Bugs-796266 ] sporadic prompt field error

[SourceForge.net <no...@so...>]

Bugs item #796266, was opened at 2003-08-27 20:54
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by npstrick
You can respond by visiting: 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=439479&aid=796266&group_id=44411

Category: Marking
Group: None
>Status: Closed
>Resolution: Fixed
Priority: 8
Submitted By: Gustav W Delius (gustav_delius)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: sporadic prompt field error

Initial Comment:
I occasionally get the following error when trying quizzes:



There was an internal error while initializing this 

question: 

Error in Class/IndexFunction: Type error in assignment: 

field Prompt in class `aim/TextQuestion/Version` should 

have type string 



The funny thing about it is that it is not reproducible. 

Pressing "New version" a couple of time usually makes 

the error go away. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

>Comment By: Neil Strickland (npstrick)
Date: 2003-09-06 13:08

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=430681

As no one has reported any recurrence of this problem, I will 

assume that it has really been cured.



----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment By: Neil Strickland (npstrick)
Date: 2003-08-30 21:24

Message:
Logged In: YES 
user_id=430681

There was a small problem (now fixed) with the aim/LaTeX

package, which I conjecture was the root cause of the 

bug reported by Gustav.  I therefore hope that it will not

recur, but please report immediately if it does.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

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