The official Math-o-mir v1.9 can now be downloaded from the homepage. I decided to increase the version from 1.84 to 1.9 because this version includes several major changes since the last non-beta version. In any case, the list of news is here…
News regarding keyboard handling:
- If you press a letter key and hold it down for about 0.3 seconds, the letter will turn into uppercase. This works for most keys – the long key hold generates a shifted character. This way, for example, instead of using Alt+Shift+R to place an uppercase ‘R’ letter into an exponent, you can use Alt+R (for 0.3 seconds).
- You can adjust Math-o-mir to use the CapsLock key to toggle between math typing and text typing modes. If you want to use this option check: ‘Options->Keyboard->Use CapsLock to toggle typing mode’. Note that if you decide to use the CapsLock to toggle the typing mode, you can still use Shift+CapsLock to activate/deactivate the CapsLock function.
- Keystrokes ‘i.’ and ‘j.’ will now typecast ‘i’ and ‘j’ letters into italic-serif font, intended to depict imaginary units. If you need to generate ‘i( )’ and ‘j( )’ functions instead, you should use ‘\i’ and ‘\j’ commands. I believe that imaginary units are typed more often that ‘i( )’ and ‘j( )’ functions and this is why I decided to use the handy ‘i.’ and ‘j.’ keystrokes to generate imaginary units.
- Greek symbols are still generated by timed double-strokes, but now the timeout time is much longer. You can double-stroke fairly slowly and still obtain Greek symbols.
- If an exponent box is empty and you hit the Enter key to exit the exponent box, the box will be deleted.
- The symbolic calculator cannot be activated by the “= =” sequence any more. Instead, you must now use the “??” sequence. This is because the double-equal sequence is now used for another purpose.
- The ‘= =’ sequence now behaves similar as the ‘++’ or ‘- -‘ sequence. It will exit a box (parentheses, fractions, functions…) and will place the equal sign outside it. If the double-equal sequence is used at the outmost equation level, then it will wrap the line. The line will be wrapped in a smart way: if the former line contains an equal sign, the new equal sign in the next line will be aligned with it (try typing: ‘m=1+2==3’ to see the effect).
- The tab spacer character now has adjustable length. You can adjust its length using the mouse – click at its arrow tip and drag to the desired length.
- When you hit the Alt+Enter key to wrap a math line, the lines are now left-aligned by default (until now lines were center-aligned).
- When you type into index, or when the General Variable mode is selected, the third hit to the same letter will revert the character from Greek back to Latin. I agree, this is somewhat non-intuitive and some other way to revert Greek characters to Latin characters would be nice.
News regarding hand-drawing:
- The colorbox is completely redesigned and is now permanently visible (except when the typing mode is active). Three additional options are added to the colorbox: node edit, crosshair cursor and select-last-drawn-object.
- By a long right-mouse-click (hold down the right mouse button for about 0.5 seconds until a pale blue box appears, then release the button) you can display the handy hand-drawing toolbox – the same one that shows when you hit the F4 key.
- It is possible to draw section lines and curly braces even if the typing mode is not active.
- The way to edit drawing nodes is now different. You can turn on the ‘node edit’ icon in the colorbox and then you will be able to edit nodes for any drawing item you mouse-touch.
- If you hold down the shift key while you are using the ‘section line’ tool, the tool will draw very thin horizontal and vertical lines – useful to draw helper/guide lines.
- When a drawing tool is selected, the pencil-shaped mouse pointer will show a spot at its tip of the size and color that matches to the currently selected line thickness and line color.
- It is now possible to move/stretch/rotate selections while the hand-drawing mode is active (until now you had to exit into the editing mode). You can, for example, draw something, click ALT+Spacebar to select it, and then while still in the drawing mode you can move/stretch/rotate the selected drawing.
- The crosshair cursor is implemented. You can turn it on by enabling an icon in the colorbox, or by holding down the Ctrl key.
- It is possible to use the spacing-feature even in the hand-drawing mode. Point your mouse pointer very close to the left border of the document window and wait until the vertical ruler appears. Then you can click-and-drag on the ruler.
Other news:
- The ‘oneshot’ formatting mode is removed. However, the ‘oneshot’ feature can still be used because it is now possible to flag any of the ‘uniform’ formatting as ‘single-shot’ (if you do so, that uniform formatting will have an upside-down arrow displayed). In addition, uniform modes can now have various colors.
- Two new math symbols are added: the ‘because’ symbol (three dots in a triangle formation) and the ‘per mille’ symbol. To type the ‘per mille’ symbol, hit the ‘%’ key twice.
- Two new commands are implemented: ‘\because’ to generate the ‘because’ symbol, and ‘\angle’ to generate the angle symbol (the angle symbol is also changed a bit).
- The ‘very large’ toolbox/toolbar size option is added to support high-resolution monitors.
- The new section ‘Mouse’ is added into the ‘Options’ menu. Here you can define your preferences about mouse-wheel usage (zoom/scroll selection, right-button + wheel usage, scrolling speed…)
- It is possible to hold down the right mouse button while you are turning the mouse wheel in order to toggle the mouse wheel functionality (from scroll to zoom or vice versa). The scroll function is now default function for the mouse wheel for all new users (it was zoom until now).
- Font sizes (small, large, very large) are now a bit different. Sorry if this will cause problems to you when editing old documents.
- You can now define the default zoom level by choosing from ‘Options->Font Size & Zoom’. The zoom level will be adjusted to the default zoom level any time you click at the ‘1:1’ icon from the toolbar.
- It is now easier to type formulas directly into the function plotter window because you can now mouse-click anywhere on the formula to change the cursor position.
- A left-mouse click anywhere outside the context menu box will close the context menu. Until now it was only closed when you right-clicked.
- The “wide keyboard cursor” option is removed. Also, the “parentheses height” options are removed. The ‘/T/’ option is removed from the toolbox and does not exist any more.
I also upgraded the User manual.
Math-o-mir blog 