A basic proof of concept Joe and * made is floating online.
Currently only addition is supported. We're still thinking up the gestures for dealing with products and divisors.
Joe has also gotten Safari Mobile compatible event recognition going over here: touchmath.dyndns.org/movement_test.html . On the todo list is abstracting our javascript events for supporting loads of different html5 capable browsers and devices.
To use the interface, input an infix expression. It gets converted into an expression tree. And as you manipulate symbols in the infix equation, the underlying expression tree readjusts to match what you're doing. If the tree doesn't like what you're doing, syntactically or algebraically, it will resist the change. Otherwise it will give you the go ahead.
Once products are together, we'll add in exponents, then combine the blocky shapes into a more aesthetic form.
One thing to note at the moment is that the algebraic expression manipulations are not very formally defined. This is something we're saving for a second iteration through this stage. As an end of semester goal we're looking to fully support +,-,/,*,^, and parentheses. These are pretty trivial, and should not require a highly formal approach.
As we prepare for adding in calculus and other cool math, the semantics become more complex. It'd be great to create some grammars that can take care of all these things
Some dangling thoughts and questions for our readers:
1) Currently, we're not using any libraries. Are any out there recommended? Should we use prototype.js? JQuery? What about building a desktop app with node.js?
2) There doesn't seem to be a mouseUp event in Safari's mobile touch...whaat
3) Any good papers on computer aided interactive algebra?
Thanks,
Alex & Joe
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