MathFlow Structure Editor

Most of the time, cursor movement in MathFlow Editor works as you would expect, and you don't need to think too hard about it. However, as the cursor moves through your equation, its shape changes to give you extra information about the equation structure. Spending a few minutes learning about the subtleties of cursor movement will have a big payoff in the long run.

MathFlow Editor tries to make cursor movement as natural and intuitive as possible. In general, the left, right, up and down arrows move the cursor to the next valid insertion point in the corresponding direction. Similarly, clicking the mouse anywhere in an equation moves the cursor to the closest valid location to the click.

Behind the scenes, the MathFlow Editor is negotiating a potentially complicated nested structure of MathML templates. Moving the cursor to the right on the screen can involve jumping in and out of MathML structures behind the scenes.

The cursor may occasionally not move exactly as you would expect on account of the nesting of the MathML structure. In these cases, the cursor movement is giving you additional information about the structure of your equation.

To help you follow where the cursor is in the MathML structure of the equation, the MathFlow Editor gives two visual cues. The cursor position is represented by a blinking red vertical bar. However, note that there is a faint gray rectangle as well. This gray rectangle is outlining the equation template containing the cursor location and is the first cue about the MathML structure near the cursor.

To illustrate, consider stepping through the following equation with the right arrow.

As the cursor moves to the right, note that when it moves into the fraction, the gray rectangle shifts to the fraction, instead of the entire equation.

The second visual cue about the location of the cursor in the nested MathML template structure is the MathML Ancestry panel. As you move the cursor, you can see the nesting of MathML templates, with the innermost template or symbol that the cursor is on at the far right of the Ancestry panel, and the outermost ‹math› template on the left.

In more complicated situations, one might have several nested rows, where the right edges all align. When this happens, hitting the right arrow will move the cursor from an inner template to an outer template in the nesting. Although you will see the gray rectangle outlining the parent template and MathML Ancestry panel change, the actual cursor position stays the same.

By spending a few minutes playing with cursor movement and nested templates, you will rapidly get the hang of navigating around in a structured MathML equation.

When you insert a new template into an equation, small squares indicate the empty slots, or template blanks, where data should be inserted. The cursor will automatically jump to the first template blank. If you want to fill in the template blank later, it must be before you click OK to insert the equation into the document but if you do, you can move the cursor out of the template without entering characters. Just reposition the cursor into the template and fill it in before you close the Editor.

You can verify the cursor is on the template blank by looking at the MathML Ancestry.

MathML Ancestry <math> : <mrow> : <template>

This is an important aid in avoiding a common confusion: when a template blank appears at the end of an <mrow> or other template, it can be difficult to tell whether the cursor is actually on the template, or on the <mrow>, operator, or other template:

Right: 

 Wrong: 

Thus it is a good habit to check the Ancestry to make sure the cursor is really on the template. The gray rectangle will confirm what you see in the Ancestry.

When you mouse over one of the MathML templates labels in the Ancestry, it will become highlighted in red. Clicking a label in the Ancestry selects the corresponding part of the equation in the editor window.

By double-clicking an Ancestry label, you can highlight the corresponding area of the current equation and simultaneously open the default Properties panel for that selection. Each kind of MathML template has a default Properties panel, depending on what MathML properties it supports. Changes to a Properties panel only affect the current selection. Sometimes a selection applies to several Properties. When this occurs, only the default panel is opened by double-clicking.

This menu contains the actions for exporting to and importing data from the system clipboard, as well as undoing actions, selecting content, and performing a find & replace.

The Source view editor acts as a standard text editor, therefore selection, cut/copy, and paste operations only utilize text data and add no special formatting.

The clipboard can be used in two ways. First, the clipboard is useful for cutting and pasting within the Editor. Second, the clipboard is useful for pasting data into other applications. Equation data targeted for other applications in general requires additional formatting. For example, some XML applications may require a namespace prefix for MathML markup.

There are several commands in the Edit menu. Details follow, including shortcut keys:

Undo ( Ctrl+Z )

This command reverses the last cut, paste, or text editing operation. You can undo the last 100 operations.

Redo ( Ctrl+Y )

This command reapplies the last cut, paste, or text editing operation that was undone. You can redo operations up to the point of the first undo.

Cut ( Ctrl+X )

This deletes the selected MathML or text from the editor, and places it in the system clipboard (so it can be pasted into other applications).

Copy ( Ctrl+C )

This copies the selected MathML or text from the editor, and places it in the system clipboard (so it can be pasted into other applications) without removing the selection from the current equation.

Paste ( Ctrl+V )

This command pastes the contents of the system clipboard into the editor window at the current cursor location. Only text content will be accepted.

If the MathML on the clipboard was placed there by the MathFlow Editor, it can always be pasted back into the Editor regardless of how it is formatted. Although Source view will allow any text to be placed into the editor, the data/equation must be in valid MathML format, and it MUST be enclosed by ‹math› tags. It will not paste clipboard data as MathML unless it begins and ends with ‹math› tags. It is recommended to use the Validate command after a paste to check for any MathML errors (see the next section, Source menu, for details). Also, the editor will ignore any data on the clipboard before the opening math tag, and after the ending math tag.

Select All ( Ctrl+A )

This selects the entire MathML source currently in the editor.

Find/Replace ( Ctrl+F )

This option operates just like most any text editor Find & Replace feature. The command will find instances of the specified text in the selection or entire document and if needed, replace any or all instances with specified text.

This menu contains the actions for formatting and validating the MathML source; it is only available in Source view.

There are two commands in the Source menu:

Source view is designed with some clear visual cues to assist in viewing and editing the structure. To this end, the Editor uses four colors to differentiate the major components: