Bidirectional ASCII to Unicode translation of math symbols
Below you can see how it looks in a proportional font
.
Above I'm testing a simple way to access Unicode math characters in a html textarea, based on (part of) the ASCIIMath syntax. How well this works depends on if (and what) unicode fonts you have installed (I'm using the STIX beta fonts with Firefox 3, but it should work in other browsers as well).
The main aim is to have a standard and more readable way for students to enter math expressions in textboxes. If you find this interesting, please let me know if and how well it works.
Can be copied and pasted into any unicode-aware editor or wordprocessor.
This approach is very easy to implement in other languages, on a server, or offline.
The ASCII tokens are easy to memorize and not too anglocentric.
Unicode fonts are becoming widely available (and I hope the STIX fonts will be released in the coming decade:-)
The disadvantages are:
It is still a linear math format, but e.g. for discrete math it is quite acceptable.
People who know (La)TeX are familiar with a different linear math coding.
Feel free to add your own observations. I haven't tested this much on other browsers, so it will be interesting to hear how badly it fails (jipsen chapman edu).