ImproveMathEquationEditor/IRCMeetings/June2010/2nd July2010

This page is the IRC log of the 2nd July 2010 IRC meeting ( #education.openoffice.org ) with students for Google SoC 2010.

Back to July 2010

[18:00] Spiso: I suggest to start now

[18:00] Spiso: the log will be available ahyway

[18:00]  well, I have to make the diffs anyway, but you could read the new seciton

[18:00]  section

[18:00] Spiso: I read the diffs on the wiki

[18:01] Spiso: all the cases you exposed

[18:01] * jopsen (~jopsen@188.228.21.24) has joined #education.openoffice.org

[18:01]  jopsen: hi

[18:02] Spiso: ericb2: hi, (I'm back... - returned from summer camp 8 min. ago)

[18:02] jopsen: hi. Welcome back :)

[18:02] ericb2: have you started the meeting ?

[18:03] jopsen: no, but we'll do soon

[18:03] ericb2: okay... :)

[18:04] The meeting will be short : just a point from both of you

[18:04] next week, I'll be online the whole week, and I'd like to see you *more* online

[18:04]  ericb2: do you not have much time

[18:05] Spiso: I can be there tonight

[18:05] Spiso: as I said, next week I'll attend LSM (Bordeaux, France) and I'll be online (I hope so)

[18:06]  ericb2: that's good

[18:06] Spiso: we can work together tonigh

[18:06] ericb2: great... I plan on being online the whole week too...

[18:06] tonight

[18:07] * ericb2 will be short :

[18:07] July 12:

[18:07] 19:00 UTC

[18:07] Mentors and students can begin submitting mid-term evaluations.

[18:07]  News from cws: mingwport31: created

[18:08]  ericb2: So what would you like to hear from me at the meeting

[18:08] Spiso: a point about your work in progress : I tested your patch, and I see something encouraging, but not correct so far

[18:10]  ericb2: I'm just sending you another one

[18:10]  ericb2: it might fix it

[18:10] Spiso: ok, I'll test it tonight

[18:11] Spiso: don't hesitate to ping me. Not sure I'll be there (my family exists too ;) but if I'm in front of my machine, I'll help you.

[18:12]  can you not try it out now?, if you can't don't bother, but it's not complicated

[18:12] Spiso: after the meeting

[18:12]  ericb2: the problem with the error is that I don't have it in my build, so I can't really see what happens

[18:12]  ericb2: for me as soon as I make a first change in the equation it is aligned

[18:13] Spiso:  have no idea then

[18:13]  ericb2: but evidently for you it's aligned just when you do second change in the formula (eg make first wait till it's applied and make second)

[18:14]  jopsen: could I try and send you a diff? whether it works well for you?

[18:14] Spiso: good idea

[18:14] Spiso: feel free to do so... I'll take a look at it...

[18:15] Spiso: but please, do describe the expected behaviour...

[18:15] Spiso: (so I know what to look for)

[18:16]  jopsen: sure, I'm just pasting it together

[18:16] Spiso: I got your patch and I'll test it

[18:17] Spiso: on Linux, because I can build in 50 minutes

[18:18]  ericb2: you build it every time from scratch?

[18:19] * tux_addict has quit (Ping timeout: 240 seconds)

[18:20] <Spiso> jopsen: well, basically what it should do is align the equation so that the baseline in the formula is in the same hight as baseline of the text arround (try adding something that has it, like character or equation sign)

[18:20] Spiso: i7 920 / 6GB of RAM -> 50 minutes

[18:20] Spiso: and I got a build ready, will be even faster

[18:20] <Spiso> ericb2: when I just rebuild small change it takes 1 min or so

[18:21] Spiso: I'm talking about a full build

[18:21] <Spiso> ericb2: well, then it's pretty impressive

[18:21] Spiso: from clean sources

[18:21] Spiso: I forgot : SSD hard disk

[18:21] helps a lot

[18:22] <Spiso> ericb2: alright, what point should I talk about?

[18:22] Spiso: I'm not sure to understand the possible cases it will not work

[18:22] Spiso: and I'd like to provide a build to a friend of mine, who is prof of mathematics, and will surely test deeply the possibilities

[18:24] <Spiso> basically what is the major problem is that there is no way how to say whether an equation is align right, if you don't have a baseline

[18:24] <Spiso> for instance some matrices or fractions don't have it

[18:25] <Spiso> and the thing is, 'how do you decide that this is right and this is wrong if there is no objective way to measure it'

[18:26] Spiso:  I know MS Office works better for alignment. What about do just the same ?

[18:26] <Spiso> for equations where there are some characters in the first line node, then you clearly want these to be aligned with text, and it should work as it is now

[18:26] <Spiso> ericb2: for the fractions and stuff?

[18:27] Spiso: the point is to fix as much of alignment issues

[18:27] <Spiso> ericb2: I will have a look this evening, not sure whether you can see anything if you can't see the code

[18:27] Spiso: in my mind, I think we should think as follow :

[18:27] <Spiso> ericb2: yea, and it should work as it is now

[18:28] Spiso: so our first step will be to verify it's ok. And I'll test your patch

[18:28] Spiso: but we need a clear description of the possibilities, and what needs more love

[18:29] to continue, I had in mind to calculate a value ( real, integer, the best type we can) adjusted eveytime the equation is modified, and following clear rules (written in a specs)

[18:30] <Spiso> ericb2: it does

[18:30] Spiso: because the users will be divided in two parts:  the one who agree the issue is fixed, and the other. and have clear rules, we follow, is essential

[18:30] Spiso: so, that's OK for me

[18:31] <Spiso> ericb2: the rules are retrieving baseline from Sm and applying it for aligning so that the baselines match

[18:31] <Spiso> ericb2: I think we should continue once you try the patch

[18:31] Spiso: did you start comparing with MS Office, for the same equation / formula ?

[18:31] <Spiso> ericb2: because you seem doubtful about the solution

[18:32] <Spiso> ericb2: no, I'll do now

[18:32] Spiso: no no, I followed your progress and I'm sure you understood the beast. But I'm pragmatic

[18:32] Spiso: and the result counts :)

[18:33] <Spiso> ericb2: well, hopefully it will work for you also after some adjustments

[18:33] Spiso: I propose to test after the meeting, on another machine

[18:34] jopsen: can you tell us more where you are with your code ?

[18:34] Last weekend I worked on the |--> char in OpenSymbols. I drew it in inkscape and imported in to fontforge. The hard part was to make the symbols pretty and symmetric... I've compared it to LaTeX to see if it was pretty enough... Patch will be out soon :)

[18:34] Since then I've pretty much been gone...

[18:34] (gone away on summer camp).

[18:35] <Spiso> jopsen: are you reimplementing the parse.cxx?

[18:35] Spiso: no...

[18:35] jopsen: ok. next week, I'll explain you other issues to fix with the math, waiting you progress with your cursor implementation

[18:36] Spiso: you told about a possible issue in the math. can you explain more ?

[18:36] Spiso: I think I read that on the wiki, or maybe somewhere else ...

[18:36] <Spiso> jopsen: the baseline thing?

[18:36] <Spiso> ericb2: or which one?

[18:37] Spiso: was an error you hit ..

[18:37] <Spiso> ericb2: well, I hit more errors :)

[18:37] <Spiso> ericb2: no one of them serious though

[18:37] Spiso: ok

[18:38] <Spiso> ericb2: the worst one was that in LineNode when arranging it, it's given a baseline although it shouldn't have one

[18:38] Spiso: does it cause problems ?

[18:38] <Spiso> ericb2: and I was investigating it for a long time and found out why it works although the error is there

[18:38] <Spiso> ericb2: no, it doesn't amazingly enough

[18:39] Spiso: if there is an error, I invite yo to fix it

[18:39] <Spiso> ericb2: but the result of the formula will be the same

[18:40] <Spiso> ericb2: just there won't be the chaos that I had to deal with

[18:40] Spiso: please fix that

[18:40] <Spiso> ok

[18:40] <Spiso> ericb2: no problem

[18:40] Spiso: if the invariants are documented and respected it's easier to maintain... :)

[18:40] Spiso: I'd suggest you to proceed as follow :

[18:41] provide a fix (code)

[18:41] we verify all this is a valid issue

[18:41] then you file an issue

[18:41] <Spiso> jopsen: did you manage to try the patch? or will you be able today? (I understand that it must be hard after the camp)

[18:41] and you attach a patch

[18:41] <Spiso> ericb2: ok, I'll do

[18:42] Spiso: great, thanks :)

[18:42] Spiso: I'll probably need to sleep to night... but I'll look at it first thing in the morning...

[18:42] <Spiso> jopsen: thanks

[18:42] <Spiso> ericb2: should I make a new site for it?

[18:43] <Spiso> ericb2: the one we have by now is already second in the "largest sites"

[18:43] Spiso: you mean create a wiki page, or ?

[18:43] <Spiso> ericb2: yes

[18:44] <Spiso> ericb2: it has 61 kB and the system might not like it

[18:44] <Spiso> ericb2: although I don't see a reason for that

[18:44] Spiso: there is the need to describe the issue, and if this is easy to understand, an adapted description on the issuezilla, will probably be enough

[18:45] Spiso: else, create a subpage on the wiki

[18:45] Spiso: as draft

[18:45] Spiso: you page is greatly appreciated, don't worry about the size

[18:45] <Spiso> ericb2: i'll do it on the wiki, if you don't have a preference for issuezilla

[18:45] Spiso: this can be adapted, improved

[18:46] Spiso: ok. Nevertheless, if you provide a fix, you'll have to file an issue on IssueZilla

[18:46] Spiso: and I'll explain you how to proceed

[18:46] <Spiso> ericb2: ok, thanks

[18:46] thanks to you for your work :)

[18:47] jopsen: I think you are tired.

[18:48] jopsen: and I'll stress you more next week. Waiting if you need to sleep, you can ;)

[18:48] Other questions ?

[18:49] ericb2: yes, having 8, 5-6 grade girls for a week does that to you... :)

[18:49] next meeting ?

[18:50] I'd suggest two meetings for the next week : one little to make a point about the code, and one as "summary"  for the mid term

[18:50] sounds good...

[18:50] is it possible to have one tusday during the day, and one on saturday ?

[18:51] <Spiso> anytime

[18:51] <Spiso> ericb2: just say what time suits you

[18:52] okay, by me... but I might have a beer to drink to saturday night... so before 17:00 CEST saturday...

[18:52] Spiso: I'll be online all the day, andI just expect to have a working connexion

[18:52] <Spiso> ericb2: ok, I'll be too

[18:52] Spiso: OpenOffice.org Education Project has a stand with goodies and some other things, so we'll decide online

[18:52] Spiso: jopsen : like Debian -> when ready :-)