Use xwidget + Guppy (or Mathquill) as a latex equation input widget

[ragloo]

First of all, many many thanks for your wonderful package !

Do you think it could be possible to use xwidget + Guppy (or Mathquill) as a latex equation input widget for equations editing, "not just" rendering ... ?

https://guppy.js.org
http://mathquill.com

A possible workflow could be:

• wen the cursor is inside a latex math expression, the user can open an xwidget input widget where Guppy or Matquill is running and display the equation inside it. The Latex code source should be modified according to modifications of the equation inside the input widget.

• when not in a latex source code equation open the xwidget input widget to create one and copy the source code inside emacs as the equation is typed inside the input widget.

Do you think it could it be feasible with the base of emacs-webkit-katex-render
?

Many thanks for your feedback :)

[fuxialexander]

Thanks for your interesting idea. Guppy seems to use Katex as the rendering backend. I think I can have a try.

[fbob]

Whaoo it could be amazing for the community !
Anyway many thanks for your kind feedback :+1

[fuxialexander]

After investigating Emacs xwidget under Linux, I found it very limiting and hardly useable. The xwidget flicker a lot when typing in the minibuffer (required by xwidget-...-insert-string). I'm not sure whether the above-mentioned proposal would work at all under Linux. Should be fine under Mac os though.

[fbob]

Then the Mac OS community will be more than happy :)
This is already amazing !

Perhaps a dev with good Linux xwidget experience may help the development for this specific OS or the next xwidget release will make things easier.
Release it even if it's not perfect and let's see where it goes.
And congrats for this first step 👍

[fuxialexander]

@fbob Thanks for the warm words. After communicating with the author of EAF (https://github.com/manateelazycat/emacs-application-framework), for Linux potentially we could potentially use that instead of xwidget. This requires more work on the EAF side so that it can integrate with emacs childframe, which hopefull would happen during Sept or Oct this year. I guess I will defer the Linux part until EAF is ready.

[fbob]

Excellent idea (EAF is also an excellent project), I'm very very excited to see something coming out. 👍
And no doubt that it will be immensely useful for the community.
Many thanks for your kind feedback :)

[fbob]

Did you have any feedbacks from the EAF side ?
Thanks :)

[ymarco]

I would also very much like to use webkit-katex-render through eaf, currently I cannot use it at all under linux because of flicker issues with webkit.