## Forum archive 2000-2006

### John Jones - Seeking suggestions on new matrix command

by Arnold Pizer -
Number of replies: 0
 Seeking suggestions on new matrix command topic started 11/6/2002; 4:55:24 AMlast post 11/8/2002; 7:41:13 AM
 John Jones - Seeking suggestions on new matrix command  11/6/2002; 4:55:24 AM (reads: 1269, responses: 4) Hi, Problems where the answer involves entering answers into a matrix are done so that they have to be viewed in tth mode. Being a fan of image type modes myself, and knowing that lots of our students will have mozilla which initially does not display tth mode correctly, I am making a command to adjust its display based on the mode. It will look like \{ showmat( [[1,'$$sin(x^3)$$',3],[ans_rule(5), 2,ans_rule(5)]]) \} where it will take an optional argument like align=>'crlc' to indicate horizontal alignments of columns. My questions to the list are: Are there other features people would like to see? Can you think of a better name than showmat? Does this sound generally useful? John <| Post or View Comments |>

 Michael Gage - Re: Seeking suggestions on new matrix command  11/6/2002; 3:38:39 PM (reads: 1473, responses: 0) Hi John, Will this work with fractions too? Is the plan to use HTML tables to align the matrix and then insert pngs or HTML elements in each cell, or do you have something else in mind? -- Mike <| Post or View Comments |>

 John Jones - Re: Seeking suggestions on new matrix command  11/7/2002; 5:54:48 AM (reads: 1475, responses: 0) Hi Mike, The idea is to have it expand differently depending on the mode, and in image modes, it builds a html table and stuffs the entries into the corresponding places. If the entry has math in it, WW will make images for the individual bits. If the entry has an answer blank in it, that works too. As to fractions, it then works for fractions put inside the matrix. If you meant a fraction whose numerator and denominator were matricies, then I expect that will not work without special coding on the part of the problem writer. John <| Post or View Comments |>

 John Jones - Re: Seeking suggestions on new matrix command  11/8/2002; 7:41:13 AM (reads: 1473, responses: 0) Hi Mike, I misunderstood your question about fractions. The answer is yes, one could easily make an analogous function showfrac(['$$e^{x^4+2}$$', ans_rule(7) ]) which is analogous to the LaTeX \frac command, but which makes tth-like output in most modes. Is this something people have wanted? You mentioned how this is like a limited tth output. Absolutely. I started by thinking "why make the student change viewing modes when the macros could automatically switch to tth when needed". Then I thought about font display problems with tth which you mention -- especially since they seem to be getting worse over time (because of Mozilla). As you said, I would not expect to make a full battery of robust typesetting structures like this, but a few for times when you want to put an answer rule into a typeset structure could help. John <| Post or View Comments |>