h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think it is true that smileys, for instance , appear as intended in all skins, and in all browsers. Is this correct? If so, then may I make the following suggestion?

It is very difficult to produce good entries for the edited guide on maths topics. Many of the special symbols (including the rather ordinary − sign) are not correctly displayed to everyone. Would it be possible to produce some smiley-like graphics which would enable visually pleasing maths topics to be written more easily?

I would also suggest that these graphics be called symbols rather than smileys, so that the guidelines which forbid smileys in EG entries do not need revision. It would be nice too if these symbols could be used in conversation threads, exactly as smileys are now, to facilate PR of the entries the symbols are used in. Postings full of #xxxx style references to symbols are very difficult to read.

I would suggest the following symbols to begin with:-
a) a minus sign which is of similar size to '+', to help in left aligned tables as well as equations, and
b) a multiplication sign which is not an asterisk, but easily distinguishable from 'x' (whether in normal or italic form), and
c) a good mathematical pi symbol, and
d) a cap symbol for logical and, and
e) a cup symbol for logical or, and
f) more complicated, but good integral, summation and product symbols, perhaps each one requiring two or three pieces, arranged vertically.
h) further symbols as the need arises in entries.

Note (a pun I could not resist) that this idea might also be used to help entries of other types. It is not my field, but music entries spring to mind as possibly benefiting from such an approach.

Does anyone agree with this idea?

I agree that maths stuff should be easier to type - most definately!

Maths stuff should be easier. Full stop.

Sounds like a good idea to me, though.

Noggin

I think that's a very good idea. Do you think it ought to be suggested in the feedback forum though?

I asked the community first, to be able to make a suggestion with a bit more 'clout'. I was hoping for some more support on the non-maths idea as well, since the more widely useful the idea, the better the chance it might be taken up.

Any enhancements to the suggestion would also be welcome.

I think it should be possible to get a good inegral symbol without the need for it to be 3 seperate symbols. It would just require the GML parser to do a little bit of fiddleing with the HTML output to get a single image to appear vertically central with text on either side.

Um ... yes, maybe integral signs could be special in that way. But the gist of this idea was also that no technical changes were being asked for, the symbols should be easy to be implemented.

Also, to be really useful for maths, it would be very nice to be able to attach limits. With, so to speak, three levels in the symbol, I can quite easily see how to do the limits, without yet more technical features. That is part of my idea. For an idea of what really can be done with existing GML, see my entry 'Continued Fractions', that is A2147401. If I could, say, superscript something off the top of integral symbol, and subscript something off bottom of integral symbol, and put the integrand inline with the middle, then Voila!, just for the price of some symbol smileys.

The underlying idea is not for something which would need technical tricks, which with the current level of staffing just will not happen, but would just need some input from the CAs (Community Artists). I have suggested this might help music entries, but the idea could also also extend to entries which refer to foreign languages and scripts. For some examples of the latter, perhaps 'The Greek Alphabet' (A216073) or the more recent 'The Development of Our Alphabet' (A1299477) might have been assisted by this means. With just a few symbols like the line drawing symbols of the original IBM PC character set, diagrams of all sorts could also be produced.

That's the real idea - nothing new technically. Just some smileys called symbols, which are permitted in the Edited Guide.

Sounds like a good idea to me. There seem to be problems with the ENTITY type symbols, but this would work for any browser and any skin.

I'm not convinced that the integral sign would be straightforward if it were in three parts. It might be quite difficult to line up the three parts, because HTML browsers decide for themselves where to put line breaks and so on.

But I'd certainly approve of "Symbol" smileys for things like minus and multiply.