[Maxima-discuss] Maxima front end: Scientific Workplace

[- <fr...@po...>]

Hello,

I would like to suggest using Scientific Word as an user interface for 
Maxima.

MacKichan Software distributed three program versions: Scientific Word, 
Scientific Notebook, and Scientific Workplace until 2021 (see 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_WorkPlace).
With Scientific Word, LateX can be written as WYSIWYG 
(https://www.hallogram.com/scientificword/).
With Scientific Workplace, LateX can be written as WYSIWYG AND 
calculated simultaneously via an interface to MuPad and Maple 
(https://www.hallogram.com/scientificworkplace/index/).
With Scientific Notebook, text can be written as WYSIWYG AND calculated 
simultaneously via an interface to MuPad or Maple, but the document 
cannot be saved in LateX format (https://www.hallogram.com/scientificnote/).

I have worked as an engineer with Scientific Workplace and Scientific 
Notebook for almost 30 years. I have also worked with Derive, 
Mathematica, Maple, and MathCAD. In my opinion, Scientific Notebook and 
Scientific Workplace are the best programs for engineers to perform 
calculations and document them neatly at the same time: easy writing 
like in Word, in-line calculations, use of units, and attractive layout. 
You don't need to know the syntax for MuPad and Maple. Most commands are 
available by the menu and short-cuts. Appending to this email are some 
screenshots of Scientific Notebook 4.1. The manual for Scientific 
Notebook / Scientific Workplace can be found here: 
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/mackichan-com-ftp/pub/download/version60/doingmath-60.pdf.
Scientific Workplace is superior to Scientific Notebook for scientific 
publications because it can save files in LateX format. In my opinion, 
these programs are the perfect user interface for computer algebra 
systems. Unfortunately, Scientific Notebook and Scientific Workplace are 
no longer being developed.

Scientific Word was released as open source on Github 
(https://github.com/ScientificWord/sciword, 
https://mackichan.com/techtalk/v60/FreeSW.htm).

I asked MacKichan whether Scientific Notebook or Scientific Workplace 
could be released as source code so that it would be possible to create 
an interface to Maxima.

MacKichan replied that the open source project Scientific Word 6 can be 
found on GitHub and includes basically the code for Scientific WorkPlace 
with the MuPad components and some of the MuPad-specific glue code 
removed. MacKichan says, it is feasible to replace it with another 
computer algebra system. (MacKichan thinks that the SageMath project 
would be the easiest, but unfortunately there has been little activity 
in that project.)

I myself cannot program. But if any of you could reprogram the interface 
in Scientific Word 6 from Maple/MuPad to Maxima, we would have the best 
user interface for a computer algebra system, and it would be open 
source too.

That would be truly valuable work that would benefit many people, 
especially students, engineers, and scientists.

Please consider whether you would like to implement this.

Best regards

frifor