The MathAction Assistant is a new interactive toolbar that appears at the bottom of the edit and Add comments windows. It helps users edit text containing LaTeX, Axiom and Reduce commands. MathAction Assistant is especially intended for new users who may not be familiar with LaTeX, Axiom or Reduce commands.

You may insert many commands into the edit/comment windows without typing. Just point at the text or symbol in the toolbar that refers to the command you need and click the mouse. The text of the command will be inserted at the location of the cursor.

Click on the symbols in the top row of the toolbar to expand or shorten the list of commands.

In most browsers[1] you can build more complex commands by first selecting some text in the edit window, then clicking the the appropriate command in the toolbar. The text which you had previously highlighted will be inserted at the appropriate place in the command and the result will be pasted into the edit window. However some browsers[2] do not support this feature. In this case the commands are simply appended at the end.

MathAction Assistant is not intended as complete command editor for LaTeX, Axiom or Reduce. Only a carefully selected set of simple and basic commands are included in the menus. For information on these and other commands, the user is encouraged to search the web site (using the search box in the top right corner of the browser window) and the full documentation for either LaTeX, Axiom or Reduce.

Suggestions for improving MathAction Assistant would be greatly appreciated. Comments and questions from new users of Axiom and Reduce are especially encouraged. Your input will help us make the Assistant a more useful tool for everyone!

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[1] Known to work with Netscape/Mozilla, FireFox?, Microsoft Internet Explorer

[2] Konqueror 3.x and Safari do not support selection and insertion of text.