Run-REDUCE

A Java GUI to run any CLI version of the REDUCE Computer Algebra System

Francis Wright, April 2020

This project is obsolete and archived.

It has been superseded by https://github.com/fjwright/Run-REDUCE.

For information about how to install and run Run-REDUCE please see the User Guide.

Run-REDUCE should run on any platform that supports Java 8 (or later), but I can only test it on Microsoft Windows and Ubuntu Linux. (Whilst Java is portable, filesystem structures and installation conventions are not!)

This version uses the Java Swing library, but at some future date I will probably switch to using JavaFX. Swing has the advantage that it is still a standard component of the latest Java SE SDK. I am developing using Java 13, but compiling for Java 8 to support running the jar file using all current JREs.

REDUCE itself is an open source project available from SourceForge. I'm releasing Run-REDUCE under the BSD 2-Clause License, mainly because it's the license used by REDUCE.

This project is set up for development using IntelliJ IDEA with Run-REDUCE as the top-level directory.

Release Notes

Version 0.4 user-visible updates

• Add a semicolon to the end of input if there is no terminator.
• Optional redfront-style font colouring to distinguish input and output in the IO display pane.
• Rename Preferences menu to View.
• Explicit support for Ubuntu Linux.
• A new item at the bottom of the REDUCE menu opens a dialogue box to configure REDUCE directories and commands. Using this should allow Run-REDUCE to run on any platform.

Version 0.5 user-visible updates

• Button to duplicate selected version added to REDUCEConfigDialog.
• Descenders in text are no longer cut off (on Windows) in REDUCEConfigDialog.
• Better handling of Load Packages... and Packages Root Dir.
• Disable the earlier and later input buttons as appropriate.
• Enable or disable menu items etc. according to whether REDUCE is running. Allow REDUCE to be restarted.
• Quit menu item renamed to Exit, and a new Stop REDUCE item added to the REDUCE menu.
• Correct REDUCEConfigDialog with a non-default look-and-feel.

Version 0.6 user-visible updates

• Keyboard shortcuts to send input to REDUCE and scroll the input list. Scrolling beyond the last input clears the input pane.
• Set the initial main application window size to 2/3 the linear dimension of the screen.
• Add a Packages button to the Input from Files... dialogue that switches to the REDUCE packages directory (mainly for my benefit during testing).
• Add a Clear I/O Display item to the REDUCE menu.
• Add a Bold Prompts checkbox to the View menu.
• Replace the Coloured I/O item in the View menu with an I/O Colouring sub-menu.
• Provide a full emulation of Redfront.
• Add a double-click handler for the Shut Output Files... and Load Packages... dialogues that makes them more consistent with the file chooser dialogue.
• Use a more solid font than the default for the I/O display pane.
• Provide easy access to the distributed documentation via the Help menu.
• Replace the Auto-run REDUCE? checkbox with a None option in the Auto-run REDUCE radio button group, and start the selected version of REDUCE immediately if REDUCE is not running.

Version 0.7 user-visible updates

• Detect a question prompt and don't auto-terminate the response.
• Holding Shift always suppresses auto-termination of input.
• Fix the activated status of the Output Here menu item.

Version 0.8 user-visible updates

• This is a beta test release for Version 1, which is essentially feature-complete.
• Better support for non-default look-and-feels.
• Easy access to the Run-REDUCE User Guide on GitHub.
• Optional split pane display that can run two independent invocations of REDUCE.
• Optional multiple tabs that can each run an independent invocation of REDUCE.

Pre-release user-visible updates

• None

To do for Version 2 (maybe)

• Switch from Swing to JavaFX.
• Use a map indexed by version instead of a list as the versions data structure.
• Keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Control-Tab, Control-Shift-Tab) for switching between split or tabbed pane components.
• Easy access to a local copy of the Run-REDUCE User Guide.
• Font and colour selectors.
• Context-sensitive help that accesses appropriate sections of the REDUCE manual.
• Detect more reliably whether REDUCE is running.
• Remember all user choices, including window configurations.
• Typeset output supporting copy and paste. Could parse off nat output, or use it together with TeX or MathML output.
• Merge input region into output region.
• Integrated plotting support, perhaps with plots in a new tab or in a vertically split window.
• A calculator-style interface option.
• Hybrid I/O colouring combining modal and redfront modes.