People,
I don't know about you guys, but as an engineering student I use a lot Latex to produce documents (articles, presentation, reports, etc...). However seems that a good app to latex edition is lacking in the android world. The hard time to deal with a latex document is having a high number of files and sub-files, and need to be compiled in order to get the final result, a pdf ou dvi file.
Testing alternatives, I found that the compile part is easy, since, as done in the iOS, the best alternative to the 1GB program needed is a remote compilation in a server. Some schools have it, some web applications already use it, and even verbetex (the only LaTex app, besides its limitations) use this approach. For instance I leave you a great project, but a little bit stoped this days..
http://dev.latexlab.org/
The main limitations all the apps and web-service present is file manipulation and text editing. Neither can be good in both, wich is essential. The project I showed could be great if, besides google doc integration (allowing cooperation), I could easily manage the file as its possible in http://www.scribtex.com/. However, the best integration in file manager would be using dropbox, where easily one can add files from desktop, or web browser, editing in normal Latex tools, or in the fly in our tablet or webservice.
Besides a webservice seams a good alternative in desktop, android browser is still not so easy to use. So a dedicated interface, wich allows multiples tabs, to edit multiple files, syntax highlighting, files manipulation with integration and sincronization with dropbox, and some other text edition addons with the possible to online compilation in a remote server would be a very nice app for our android, and mostly for TF since it have a dock.
I don't have for now programming knowledge to promote this type of project. Figuring current available apps using dropbox, remote servers, and text manipulation, I assume necessary tools are available, so I let year a challenge to the brilliant guys in XDA, offering me to test, and when finished to buy it (if it would be a generic code editor for differente languages, allow dropbox and ftp integration, for sure that 10 bucks or more would be a good price for start).
Hope some one respond to my call!
I can think of another use for Latex..........
SORRY! HAD TO SAY IT!!!
I also happen to be a student who regularly use LaTeX for academic purposes. In my opinion, the best solution that exists now on the Transformer is using Vim for editing the tex files, and using sftp to upload it to a server and then ssh to compile it. The later parts can be put into one shell script, and can be executed within vim each time you want to compile the file that you are editing.
As to the editor itself, vim is exactly what I use on my regular laptop for LaTeX editing. I can hardly think of any editor better suited for the job (though some might suggest emacs, but that is another story). Someone has compiled vim for android and you can find it by googling "vim android". I have tried it myself and found it quite usable with the dock. You can even use the excellent vim-latex plugin to help you simplify the editing of latex files.
Vim is too hardcore for me I have it already setup, but not all latex guys like to do it in the terminal
Related
I have a request for an Android developer. I use Zotero for references, and would like to read my journals on my nook color.
Zotero uses an sqlite database to store all the information within zotero. Additionally it attaches pdf's and other documents to the citations in individual directories defined by a unique hashtag for each entry.
I am thinking about copying the entire reference directory, including all the pdf's and sqlite database from my computer to sdcard. Once there we could parse through the database, find articles with search based on the author name, publication year, and journal title. The file path location can be parsed directly from the database information and if integrated properly, should allow you to open the pdf with quick office or any other app just by clicking on it.
I would be able to willing to pay $10-20 for this kind of functionality depending on how difficult it would be to set up. Currently, I am setting up syncs with Evernote and Dropbox, but it just isn't the same.
Someone has already made clients for linux and windows which does basically what I mentioned previously, however it is designed in python. I know python, and would be able to integrate that with android if android-scripting had more advanced functionality, but I don't know java at all.
The linux / windows python based client : http://www.cogsci.nl/gnotero
Am also pretty interested in this. Seems odd to do it in python though, considering that zotero itself is written in java. But you can run python on android, you know. Check out http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/
Hello, I recently got the Transformer Prime and am soon looking to get the dock. I am a Computer Engineering major and was surprised how many apps there are that allow me to use my tablet instead of my computer except for VERY specialized applications.
For example, I can program C/C++, run and compile, but cannot do anything with file manipulation as I do not know where the compiled file(.out?) is stored. I can also run MATLAB code on my tablet, even scripts. With all of these niche applications filled there is really only one thing missing before I can truly feel comfortable leaving my laptop at home most of the time: A decent word processor! By decent I mean supporting semi-advanced features such as page breaks, tables, drawings, and most of all, EQUATIONS. I cannot for the life of me find an app that allows the viewing (let alone editing) of .doc or .odt files with equations in them. In the place of the equations are nothing, not even an ugly attempt, NOTHING.
Does anyone know a solution to this? I am *Almost* hoping for microsoft to release a version of their Office Suite for android, unless someone else can do it sooner!
I'd like to share a very easy way to rapidly create reasonably sophisticated android phone apps using a simple technique I've been working on. The short version: I'm importing complete HTML websites into an open source android IDE and compiling them into .apk's. The resulting apps look good and perform well.
Here's the basic technique:
1: Download and install the free MoSync SDK.
2:Open up your HTML editor and create a multipage website, scaled to phone screen dimensions. Feel free to include phone numbers, links and so on. compile and save it somewhere.
3: Go to the MoSync project folder you're working with, and replace the contents of the "LocalFiles" folder with the copied contents of your compiled website. Be sure to copy all the folders and files from your site over. Once you have done this, either reopen or refresh the conents of the folder in MoSync.
4. Connect your phone ( you can also run in emulation ) and locate it within MoSync, then compile and send the app over. It will install and launch.
... that's really about it. The only thing I've seen so far is that the over apk size can't be larger than 5MB's or so without the phone refusing to launch the app. Your mileage may vary, but this technique is great for folks like me that have solid HTML experience but are somewhat new to Android development and would like to create something simple but functional while they aquire the new Android skills. Hope this was helpful!
hi
I work fork a distribution center for hardware parts and have been task with making our excel price database avalible to my 70 year boss on his kindle fire.
my original plan was to use dropbox , sync up the work pc with his tablet and in his tablet make the the document avalible threw adobe reader or open office probably as a read only document (since he doesnt know much about excel)
but i found that he generally disliked the use of spreadsheets on the tablet and am wondering if theres a way to create a more user friendly database for his tablet.
any help will be great and am willing to root the device if needed
xsessive said:
but i found that he generally disliked the use of spreadsheets on the tablet and am wondering if theres a way to create a more user friendly database for his tablet.
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How about a html export from excel, so you have a simple webpage? Then there is no need to have spreadsheet files and so on. Depending on the size of the original spreadsheet it might get a bit big to scroll though.
For those interested...
I've put the native Windows RT binaries for Apache 2.0 on GitHub:
https://github.com/bfosterjr/windowsrtdev/blob/master/apps/Apache/2.0.65/bin/apache_2.0.65_arm.7z
Don't even bother asking me how to configure it. There are hundreds of wiki pages, documents, books, etc dedicated to Apache configuration.
Its probably missing some features (SSL comes to mind), but its a working web server for people to tinker with on the tablet. If someone can give me a _compelling reason_ for wanting a full blown Apache web server on a Windows RT tablet, I'm happy to spend more time on this and make it more fully featured.
Cheers!
bfosterjr said:
If someone can give me a _compelling reason_ for wanting a full blown Apache web server on a Windows RT tablet, I'm happy to spend more time on this and make it more fully featured.
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I'm not sure about use-cases either, but still, this is seriously cool!
Reasons for maintaining a full-blown (at least partial, without HTTPS fancy stuff, but the essentials like mod_rewrite etc.) WAMP (so MySQL and PHP too) stack on Windows RT would be:
1. There would be a platform for developing and testing websites on a Windows RT tablet, much to the delight of potential web developers. We already have Notepad++ as a decent code editor.
2. Porting MySQL (+ libmysql) would be useful for other applications as a library itself, and then PHP is a (overly) popular scripting language which can also be used to develop console applications (php-cli is compiled along with PHP. along with the Apache extension for mod_php). There probably won't be many native Windows RT applications developed for it (the only library for PHP to develop really useful native GUI apps is Php-Gtk, but GTK+ isn't ported and the PHP-GTK project itself is very.. silent), but it is handy if quick stuff needs to be coded. Porting PHP is pretty much close to the reasons for porting Python, plus it can be used on a local web stack too.
3. When a MAMP stack was ported to iOS I remember someone made a working music player (PHPPod) with it, so it still might be useful if the resources are there. I'll personally think of some ideas for "apps" that can be run in the browser with the WAMP stack on Windows RT and try to code them if this is ported.