

iPad onscreen keyboard designed for LaTeX [video] - steeleduncan
https://www.texpadapp.com/blog/ios-v1.6.3-teaser

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celerity
This is simply a great example of using the wrong tool for the job. No matter
how "smooth" an iOS LaTeX tool is, it's still much less efficient than any
computer. People are trying to force things into the iPad, which I understand,
but I sincerely think that a radical change is needed to make it more than a
consumption device.

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julienchastang
I don't know if I agree with the notion that the iPad is good solely for
content consumption. If you ever have to write in a foreign language, you will
note that it is _much_ easier to write on the iPad thanks to terrific
internationalization support in the form of language specific auto-correct and
virtual keyboards that do things normal keyboards can't (like pressing on a
key for a second and getting several accented characters). I have always
wanted to write an APL interpreter for iPad because dealing with the APL
glyphs on the iPad keyboard would theoretically workout nicely. I have not
tried texpad, but their use of customizable virtual keyboards certainly looks
promising.

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dragonwriter
> If you ever have to write in a foreign language, you will note that it is
> much easier to write on the iPad thanks to terrific internationalization
> support in the form of language specific auto-correct and virtual keyboards
> that do things normal keyboards can't (like pressing on a key for a second
> and getting several accented characters).

Language-specific autocorrect is common in desktop software that has
autocorrect at all (e.g., wordprocessors) and, similarly, good access to
international characters through methods faster than press-and-hold is pretty
common in lots of desktop software.

Press-and-hold is a slow, clumsy approach that's only tolerable with a virtual
keyboard because virtual keyboards are already so slow and clumsy that its not
a big _marginal_ cost.

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scott_karana
Press and hold is slow, but the visual feedback is immensely useful.

I find myself using the Character Map (or Keyboard Viewer) all the time,
because the keystrokes required aren't intuitive, and aren't labelled on my
physical keyboard.

So for some users, press-and-hold on "e" to get é is far more efficient than
having to open up a separate application entirely.

For that matter, I really like OS X's approach where you can use _either_
input method.

Likewise, you can always switch to the specific language's keyboard on iOS,
and press and hold is similarly obviated.

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dragonwriter
> I find myself using the Character Map (or Keyboard Viewer) all the time,
> because the keystrokes required aren't intuitive, and aren't labelled on my
> physical keyboard.

I don't know, I've always found the Word keystrokes intuitive (in fact that I
was able to discover most of the ones I needed for French and Spanish by
learning one and generalizing from there), and my main frustration in that
regard is that they aren't standardized for text input in Windows.

As for labelled -- if I have to _look_ at my keyboard to type, that's too much
of an efficiency killer to start with.

> Likewise, you can always switch to the specific language's keyboard on iOS,
> and press and hold is similarly obviated.

Except that its generally _not_ ; even with the Spanish keyboard, you still
need press-and-hold to get to the vowel accents.

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newhouseb
This is great - I don't write much LaTeX anymore, but I'm excited by where
this leads. Apple has long used customized keyboards (i.e. a custom keyboard
for URLs) and Microsoft is starting to introduce customized hardware Surface
input covers as well. It's pretty evident that if you want high-fidelity
productivity on a touch screen, you need to adapt your keyboard/input methods
to be much more contextual than a general purpose QWERTY keyboard.

The real challenge here is designing OS input APIs that don't by default
segment you into all-or-nothing, "use 100% of our keyboard" or "emulate 100%
of the text input." Emulating 100% of the text input is fine for ASCII, but
there's a bajillion ways to input other languages and you typically simply
can't compete with the breadth an OS provides. Windows has some abstractions
around presenting word candidates for languages like Chinese that you can
render custom, but iOS (and to my knowledge OS X) is pretty miserable in this
respect.

Hopefully this is just the beginning!

~~~
coob
I think the emulating/use native problem for the keyboard is a really tricky
design problem to solve. Currently the 'Apple recommended' way is to use an
inputAccessoryView which is essentially a bar above the native keyboard. There
could be a more elegant solution. However, as you say, the broad spectrum of
inputs for different locales makes this a tricky issue.

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baldfat
When will iOS stop using the most ineffective keyboard in touch screen
keyboards??

Every time I have to type in my Wifi password on someone's iOS device I cry.
Not knowing if the letter is capital or lower-case is a killer and the symbol
division of two screens is mind blowing; + and = is on page two!

I can't hold down on a letter to select numbers or symbols is also crazy. Not
being able to slide also is crazy.

TL&DR Apple's iOS on screen keyboard is the worst!

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beobab
This app looks very nice. It actually makes me want to get started in learning
LaTeX. The autocomplete is a very nice feature, and the cursor manipulation is
genius. I can't emphasise how much I'd love to have the default apple keyboard
have cursor controls.

And one day I might actually get started learning it. Right after all the
other things on my list...

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danialtz
It looks great! of course if I want to type actually in LaTex. I find it much
easier to work in an environment like LyX, which you don't have to think LaTeX
and focus on big picture, and if necessary get down to TeX level.
Nevertheless, the navigation/selection idea looks really handy.

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JelteF
If you ever need easy LaTeX generation for data generated or changed in
Python. You should try out
[https://github.com/JelteF/PyLaTeX](https://github.com/JelteF/PyLaTeX). It
supports tables, plots and matrices. All with sane defaults.

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thearn4
Could be great for note taking. Once upon a time, I used to be able to think
about math in terms of LaTeX expressions pretty fluidly. It's been awhile
since I've really had to use TeX heavily though.

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amimetic
Their Mac App is great: I've used perhaps a dozen LaTeX editors on many
platforms and it is probably my favourite. Nice autocomplete, great preview
pane, good navigation between files and a very clean interface.

If you are on Windows there is a slightly obscure one called InLage that is
excellent (basically Visual Studio for LaTeX).

With this new keyboard I may have to try their iPad app.

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omaranto
At 0:28 when "\oplus" is inserted into the file, the key actually pressed is a
filled circle. If the key you have to press doesn't look like the symbol
you're trying to insert, that means you have to learn yet a new name for the
symbol...

~~~
steeleduncan
Thanks, I just checked the app, but that is a compression artefact. In the raw
video it is clear, but not in that version.

We will use a more compressible symbol next time around.

~~~
omaranto
Oh, that makes sense. I should have figured that was it.

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quackerhacker
That is amazingly clean! I've been using Textastic, but this looks worth a
try!

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phloxicon
Amazing and exactly what I've been looking for. Any plans for an android port?

~~~
steeleduncan
Not in the next few months, but yes, we should start work on windows/android
versions of Texpad sometime this year. We want to perfect the OSX/iOS versions
versions first, abstract the common editing codebase, etc. etc. then tackle
some new platforms

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bjz_
Their OS X app is also quite good:
[https://www.texpadapp.com/osx](https://www.texpadapp.com/osx)

Much nicer than the open source competition, to be honest.

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king_magic
That looks beautiful. Really nice job on the custom keyboard.

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cefstat
The keyboard looks great in the video. Is version 1.6.3 already on the
AppStore? If not, (I only find v1.6.2) is there an ETA?

~~~
steeleduncan
Hopefully early next week. We are fixing bugs uncovered during the beta period
right now, and we hope to submit it to the App Store at the end of the week.

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snotskie
I actually use LaTeX on my phone quite often. I would use this if I weren't an
Android kind of guy.

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jeremysmyth
Really? Maybe I'm an old-skool kinda guy, but I can't fathom using a tablet or
phone to do LaTeX work. I do _lots_ of it, and I can't imagine doing it
without a keyboard and vim-latexsuite.

How do you get over all the shifts- and alts- on the Android keyboard to get \
and { and all the other stuff?

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jawaddeo
(Disclaimer: I'm one of the people behind Texpad.)

Keyboard is designed to address precisely these kind of issues. I'd recommend
watching the video.

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sebastianavina
I'm just guessing, but i can't see any way any custom app could be more
efficient than a well tuned emacs.

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jroes
I'm interested in seeing the same approach taken for programming.

