Style Editor: customizing the Editor

To change from one custom toolbar to another, switch to a standard toolbar and switch back to custom, choosing the new config file. Alternatively, choose the new config file, then close and reopen the MathFlow Editor.

To update a custom toolbar, you'll need to manually edit its toolbar configuration file (config file) first. Then either switch to a standard toolbar and switch back to custom, or close and reopen the MathFlow Editor.

You can choose what gets inserted when pressing the spacebar, modifying the default behavior. Your choices are to insert

The most convenient spacebar behavior depends on whether accurately encoding the underlying mathematical meaning of an expression is important in a particular context.

In many situations, the underlying mathematical meaning is not as important as the visual appearance of an expression. In these contexts, most users prefer the spacebar simply insert space characters, as on a typewriter. However, MathML rendering engines employ standard mathematical typesetting rules to automatically add space around operators and other constructs. Inserting additional space characters in markup generally produces worse-looking results unless there is a specific reason. Regardless, touch-typists often find themselves hitting the spacebar out of habit. As a result, users may want to turn the spacebar off entirely.

In contexts, the mathematical meaning of an expression is important, such as material intended for symbolic computation, automatic answer checking, etc. In these situations, extraneous space characters may cause trouble. Moreover, in these contexts, adding invisible "hint characters" to resolve ambiguous situations is important. The most common situation where ambiguity arises is determining whether adjacent constructs should be multiplied or whether they represent a function application (e.g., does m(x + y) mean "m times x plus y" or "m of x plus y"?). The convention in MathML is to resolve the ambiguity by marking the multiplications with an Invisible Times character. Thus, users creating semantically meaningful MathML generally prefer to have the space bar insert the Invisible Times character. The option to have the spacebar insert an Invisible Times character only after an operand is a convenient compromise allowing one to space normally within text tokens without modifying the overall editing behavior.

Check this box to make inserted parentheses and other "fence" characters not stretch by default. In MathML, fence characters marked as non-stretchy will remain their default size (i.e., not growing automatically to cover the height of other content within the same parent element). In order for fences to grow to the expected height in many contexts, the conscious insertion of additional expression groups to collect fences and surrounding content is required. While this is good practice and results in semantically meaningful markup, many users prefer to instead turn off automatic stretching for fences.

Single characters will be inserted in italic if this box is checked, and as upright text if not. Since single character identifiers are traditionally typeset in italics in mathematics, this option is primarily useful when entering chemical equations where single character identifiers are traditionally typeset in an upright style.

Uppercase Greek letters will be inserted as normal if checked (i.e., upright, not italicized) or italic if not checked.

Check this box to turn on automatic recognition of functions. When this option is not selected, you must manually control how characters are wrapped in MathML token elements. For more detail, see Recognize common functions in the next section.

Differential ⅆ will appear as a double struck character to differentiate it from a regular character d. This also affects the exponential ⅇ, imaginary ⅈ, and imaginary ⅉ.

This will wrap the chosen expression with an mstyle element, making the style sticky, as explained in the Working with math properties section. The working font style (i.e., the current default), can be quickly determined by looking at the drop-down list of font styles in the minitoolbar.

Alternatively, you can apply styles to characters and expressions from the Font Properties dialog. To apply a style, select the expression to be styled and open the Font Properties dialog from the Properties menu. Select a style from the drop-down list in the Logical Font section.

At the bottom of the Font Properties dialog are two checkboxes to determine whether the property settings will be sticky or not.