What's new in Lurch 0.8 Beta
Apr 4, 2014
- Typeset mathematics is now available throughout the application, for both meaningful and non-meaningful mathematics
- To insert meaningless typeset mathematics, press Ctrl+4 (or Command+4 on Mac) and enter any standard calculator-notation-style expression (e.g., (x-1)/y), or any LaTeX code enclosed in $ delimeters
- To insert meaningful typeset mathematics, press Ctrl+4 when inside an empty ME bubble, and use standard ME notation such as x-1=10/y)
- A new set of classroom-tested topics has been added to Lurch
- Based on the free, online textbook "forallx in Lurch," two new topics are available. See the "Choose Topic" menu for the new topics, and see the following URL for the textbook
New in Lurch 0.7992 Beta (May 9, 2013)
- Enhancements:
- Tweaking behavior of sub/superscript actions: Now pressing subscript when text is in superscript just returns it to normal. Also, pressing superscript when text is in subscript just returns it to normal.
- Lurch now optionally (on by default) makes an autosave of your file every 30 sec with the same filename in the same folder but with the extension .lurch~ instead. The autosave file is deleted whenever you save the original file and is not created if the document in the Lurch editor has not been edited since the last save.
New in Lurch 0.7991 Beta (Apr 11, 2013)
- Enhancements:
- Lurch documents can now be exported as a static HTML page, with embedded comments containing enough data so that the documents can be reloaded from those HTML pages, even if they are stored on the web.
- The File menu now contains "Open from webpage..." and "Save as webpage..." items which facilitate this easy import-export functionality.
- The value field of Property Bubbles now interprets string contents as all lower case, trimmed of whitespace, and with duplicate interword spaces reduced to one space. That is more forgiving, for example, when students type a reason but have an extra space at the beginning or end of the bubble - a common mistake.
- Added several new topics: Elementary Algebra, Inequalities, Relations, Elementary Algebra (basics), Number Theory (basics).
- Added many new rules, fixed bugs in old rules, changed dependencies, and reorganized the built-in Lurch libraries in the File>Choose Topic dialog.
- Moved the specification of the default topic to globaldefs.h
- Changed the default topic for fresh installations of Lurch to the Number Theory (basics) topic, since this has the most rules available (currently 197 rules).
- Added \sim as an infix operator.
- Added [x] equilvalence class notation to the parser.
- Removed the stylesheet for subscripts and superscripts. Added undocumented hotkeys, ALT+UP/DN to toggle super and subscript formatting. Lurch does not interpret such formatting as meaningful, so these hotkeys are there for formatting text only, not for typing meaningful expressions with super or subscripts.
- Bug fixes:
- Less-than expressions now show the correct bubble tag.
- Unicode characters now correctly converted between unescapeXML() and escapeXML().
New in Lurch 0.799 Beta (Mar 21, 2013)
- Enhancements:
- Lurch rules can now have multiple block starters in them (variable declarations and assumptions) and the conclusion is assumed to discharge all blocks at once.
- Significant extension and reorganization of built-in math topics, including these particulars:
- Started a new abstract algebra ruleset, not yet finished
- Categorized topics into Definitions, Basics, and Theorems
- After installing this version of Lurch, the app will now notify you on launch if a newer version becomes available
- Bug fixes:
- Improved confusing validation message for replacement restrictions
- Fixed significant (though subtle) logic error in universal introduction rule
- Tab stop sizes did not zoom with the rest of the document; now they do, making it so that font size changes do not mess up tabbed columns
- Document margins did not zoom with the rest of the document; now they do, making it so that numbered lists no longer fall off the left edge
- Fixed bug in finite set rule in set theory library
New in Lurch 0.798 Beta (Mar 6, 2013)
- Enhancements:
- Tags above Meaningful Expression bubbles now report the main operator of the expression. For instance, the expression 3*2+5 no longer has a tag saying only "expression," but now "+ expression," to let the user know that the main operator is the addition operator.
- New keyboard shortcuts for expanding and collapsing Meaningful Expressions: Alt+[ is collapse and Alt+] is expand. As with all shortcuts, these are customizable from the Help menu.)
- Bug fixes:
- Properties were able to modify Meaningful Expressions even if a Context was in between them. This was not according to our specification, and thus was a bug. It is fixed in this release.
New in Lurch 0.797 Beta (Mar 4, 2013)
- Enhancements:
- Parser now understands not only statements of the form "X is a Y" but also "X is a Y of Z" such as "H is a subgroup of G".
- Selecting an option from the format menu when there is no text selected allows you to then begin typing in that format.
- A first draft of a number theory library was added, but futher drafts expect to improve it significantly.
- Some minor reorganization of rules and styles in various libraries, as well as removing old libraries.
- United context menu and bubble menu into one, for simplicity.
- Added \sum, \prod, \bigcup, and \bigcap operators to the math language as quantifiers, because they bind variables.
- Bug fixes:
- The current parser sometimes takes ages and ages to determine that an expression is unparseable. This can hang the whole app. This version cuts parsing off after 2 seconds of an attempt; this is a kludgey fix until we get a better parser, but it prevents the app from hanging.
New in Lurch 0.796 Beta (Feb 27, 2013)
- Enhancements:
- New "red comment pen" style for teachers grading student documents
- Zoom way in/way out menu items (with keyboard shortcuts) for use when
- showing documents on an overhead projector, or frequently opening
- files from users with lower resolutions
- Lists now default to numbered lists instead of bullets, for line-numbered
- proofs; also added and improved other list-related tools/actions
- Topic dialog now lets you import the topic's definitions into your
- current document, rather than create a whole new one
- Making default document on first Lurch launch be the one with the most
- definitions and rules (Famous Sets of Numbers)
- Lurch remembers size/position of rule list dialog
- Bug fixes:
- Copy and paste could introduce "duplicate IDs" into a document silently,
- making Lurch refuse to open the document later
- Wrong dependencies for Famous Sets of Numbers and its ruleset corrected
- Some Meaningful Expressions in expanded form were unable to collapse
- due to a bug in how text representations of MEs were computed
New in Lurch 0.795 Beta (Feb 15, 2013)
- Enhancements:
- Warns before changing default font to one without unicode math symbols
- Blank document opened in new Lurch installation now includes a stylesheet
- Removed unused fonts, to shrink size and complexity of distribution a bit
- Bug fixes:
- Small typo and format fixes
- In validation:
- Removed rarely occurring infinite loop
- Made subproof/declaration blocks respect contexts
- Fixed confusing feedback message when a condition failed
- Two successive numbered lists misread one item's number
New in Lurch 0.79 Beta (Feb 5, 2013)
- Enhancements:
- Significantly easier to read detailed validation feedback
- Adding an alternate set of validation icons, useful for the colorblind
- Several minor user interface enhancements
- Smaller binary, from removing unneeded components
- Significant reorganization and extension of existing set of math topics, including reinstating
- Divisibility topic removed from previous release with a different algebra smart rule, one that doesn't cause crashes
- Half-equations now validate as expected, making equation chains possible
- Bug fixes:
- Corrected drawing of bubbles at the end of a line of text
- Corrected placement of boundaries of deeply-nested bubbles
- Copy and paste now preserves list (and other paragraph) formatting
- No more blank buttons on the task bar on Windows XP
New in Lurch 0.78 Beta (Jan 22, 2013)
- Bug fixes, including (but not limited to):
- Improvements to the math expression parser
- Bug fix in the validation engine
- Problems with search paths are fixed silently on launch
- Compilation bug on some Linux systems removed
- Linux install script updated again, including bug fix that
- installed in the wrong folder
- Some documents with errors in 0.76 have been corrected
- Removed built-in computer algebra system and related library,
- until upstream bugs in it can be fixed
- User interface improvements, including (but not limited to):
- Ugly, limited fonts on Windows corrected
- Math symbol palettes better organized
- "Open by Title" dialog is better organized
- User cannot choose "no topic" because this caused confusion
- Fixed premise renumbering bug in numbered lists
- More math topics added, including nearly an entire intro to proof course,
- and a significant reorganization of the topics dialog
- Tutorial improvements based on user feedback
- Updated installers to clean out old Lurch files before installing,
- and Windows installer now has silent (/S) option for both install
- and uninstall, easier for network administrators
New in Lurch 0.77 Beta (Jan 18, 2013)
- Bug fixes, including (but not limited to):
- Improvements to the math expression parser
- Bug fix in the validation engine
- Problems with search paths are fixed silently on launch
- Compilation bug on some Linux systems removed
- Linux install script updated
- Some documents with errors in 0.76 have been corrected
- User interface improvements, including (but not limited to):
- Ugly, limited fonts on Windows corrected
- Math symbol palettes better organized
- "Open by Title" dialog is better organized
- User cannot choose "no topic" because this caused confusion
- More math topics added, including nearly an entire intro to proof course
- Tutorial improvements based on user feedback
New in Lurch 0.76 Beta (Jan 8, 2013)
- Improvements in this point release (0.76) include these:
- Bug fixes, including (but not limited to):
- Improvements to the math expression parser
- Bug fix in the validation engine
- Problems with search paths are fixed silently on launch
- User interface improvements, including (but not limited to):
- Ugly, limited fonts on Windows corrected
- Math symbol palettes better organized
- "Open by Title" dialog is better organized
- User cannot choose "no topic" because this caused confusion
- More math topics added, including nearly an entire intro to proof course
- Tutorial improvements based on user feedback
New in Lurch 0.75 Beta (Jan 7, 2013)
- Solid, stable word processor as the foundation
- Do your proofs in any style you like; no rigid limitations
- Far less restrictive user interface
- Use of familiar, Equation-Editor-like bubbles to overlay meaning onto text
- This makes marking up your math for Lurch to check just as easy as marking text with bold or italic font
- Complete freedom to write new mathematical rules (indeed, entire math topics) with ease, no programming needed at all