good UX requires a GUI

[nuuSolutions]

I highly respect the effort to clean up the LaTeX mess.
Both TeX and Typst would, however, greatly benefit from a well designed GUI.
(GUI is apparently hard. There is LyX, but unfortunately it never got out of the hobby project phase)

[Enivex]

good UX requires a GUI

I don't agree with your premise

[Dherse]

Tools like Vivado and Quartus are proof that a GUI isn't necessarily better.

[nuuSolutions]

Quite the expected result so far.
If we find one person interested in a GUI I'm going for it - found my niche market then

[Dherse]

What do you mean niche market?

[maribox]

I would find something like marktext except for Typst amazing. This would enable one to have a document on the left side of your screen and a Typst document on the right, so you don't have to have two Monitors for taking notes while reading for example, as you currently need to have with Typst, because it's YAFIYGI and there's currently no WYSIWYG Typst editor afaik

[alerque]

There is nothing stopping 3rd party projects from doing this. In fact just such apps already exist. See for example typstudio. Also you don't have to have two monitors to have an editor window and PDF viewer open side by side. If you leave the compiler running in the background watching for file changes and use a PDF viewer that automatically updates the experience is pretty good and you get to use your favorite editor.

Some editors also have preview plugins available that render in a side by side pane already too.

[maribox]

Sorry, I meant a different pdf that I read on one side of the monitor and then can take notes on the other side of the monitor. That's only possible with a WYSIWYG editor, which typstudio isn't, right?

[UARTman]

As LyX has been highly helpful to me, allowing me to do a number of math assignments entirely in LaTeX (as opposed to solving it on paper and then painstakingly typesetting the results), I fell like there's at least some potential for work in this direction. Ironically, I think Typst's structure might lend itself to LyX-like workflow, what with blocks and stuff... I am seriously thinking of doing some hobby-level exploration in that direction, though I'm not likely to make it actually work.

[nuuSolutions]

Yeah, I use LyX in a similar way, but the experience could really be much better.
There also was Scientific Workplace, I wonder how much sales they had - not too much probably as they are out of business.
I also tried Mathematica some time ago, but there have been other quirks, maybe I'll try again

[Doublonmousse]

The issue is Lyx is you gain a much better way to fix errors (something that is less of an issue with typst as you can see changes as soon as you do them) but you end up with limitations when typing math (sometimes it's actually more flexible to type things than using it the gui, when you know the command but not the way to do it with the gui or when the gui way is actually impeding writing), and there are other weird things as far as the UX goes in lyx (having a separate type of file and sometimes weird looking tex files). Basically you get a GUI-like experience but you loose any way to tweak the tex code.

I do think some gui can be useful but you have to be careful with design. You could do a word-like interface for typst (for text editing and images, but to edit equations I don't see how you could do it without showing the related code) but I can't see it any other way than a separate preview mode. I feel it would be a much better UX to have it as an option, with the other workflow accessible as well at the same time. I don't think all of the things you can do with typst (the actual program-oriented things) can translate to a GUI interface or if this would even be desirable.

[basings]

do you mean something like WYSIWYG?

if not. what is wrong with typstudio or vscodium or pulsar? both have top notch UI

[davidleejy]

Tried typstudio a few weeks ago and couldn't get it to work directly out of the box. I don't blame the developers as the project is, as stated by them, a work in progress (WIP).

Currently am using VSCode with two extensions for Typst – Typst Preview and Typst LSP.

I am happy to share that this set-up:

1. Has "live compilation". Results of edits are shown in real-time in a separate VSCode tab that shares screen real estate with the tab showing the typ file I'm editing. (Thanks to Typst Preview)

2. Is able to let me jump to content in pdf file being previewed (see point 1) when the associated content is clicked in the tab showing the typ file. This jump also goes the "other way" – by clicking on content in the pdf preview, the tab showing the typ file scrolls to the related part. (Thanks to Typst Preview)

3. Automatically saves the resulting pdf file whenever the typ file being edited is saved. (Thanks to Typst LSP)

Problems:

Happy to report no major issues, and am pretty satisfied with the smoothness of this set-up thus far. ⛵️🌊🌊

One minor issue that occurs from time to time, and especially after sleeping the machine or leaving the machine idle, is the need to "re-engage" Typst Preview due to it having stopped watching the typ files that it's supposed to be watching. Luckily, resolving this is straightforward and quick. Ctrl + shift + P in VSCode to pop up the "omnibar" (sorry "omnibar" is likely not standard VSCode terminology), typing "preview" to surface the command "Typst Preview: Preview Current File", and finally pressing enter to execute it.

[nuuSolutions]

In an ideal UX case you would be able to write in markup AND edit in the output view

[HPDell]

I think what we need is something called "instant rendering" like Typora instead of a GUI editor.

[felidz]

I am a LyX user, too. I believe many who prefer markdown+script over GUI might have less experience of typing heavy mathematical formulas. I think the advantages and benefits of GUI would be recognized if they had to routinely type and edit something like this.

Even Obsidian (operating in a markdown+script way), which has a community plugin called LaTeX Suite—a major reason many prefer it over Logseq—suffers from less than ideal experiences. It often experiences flickering issues; for instance, when you click on a formula to edit it, it doesn’t always take you to the expected position, especially with longer formulas.

The math feature in GUI is the only feature I truly care about, since LyX has tripled my speed in typing math compared to other tools, which tend to have more friction. And I would advocate for the promotion of GUI based on this utility alone.

[davidleejy]

I'm on the same page with felidz about the possibility of a GUI being very helpful for users who have to edit complex mathematical content.

It would be very convenient to have the ability to click on a part of a rendered mathematical formula and have the editor's caret be transported to the Typst code responsible for it. For a start, even slightly inaccurately transporting the caret to the vicinity of the Typst code would be helpful.

[laurmaedje]

It would be very convenient to have the ability to click on a part of a rendered mathematical formula and have the editor's caret be transported to the Typst code responsible for it. For a start, even slightly inaccurately transporting the caret to the vicinity of the Typst code would be helpful.

That already exists in the web app, and I think in Typst LSP as well.

[felidz]

Perhaps a counterpart to a more robust version of https://cortexjs.io/mathlive/ could be a solution.

[bluebear94]

Plain text is okay for me, but one area where I might prefer GUIs is typesetting tables, especially ones with many columns (such as phoneme charts).