Symbolic

About Symbolic Android App

Symbolic is just another GUI for the immense powerful Reduce computer algebra system which is open source software created by many programmers during several decades. You may find lots of examples and tutorials about Reduce in the internet.

This app is based on code provided by Ahmad M. Akra and Prof. Arthur C. Norman (Codemist Ltd. JLisp, precompiled Reduce engine and most of the Latex formatting feature) who published the app AndroidReduce and made available the corresponding source code via sourceforge.net (great, many thanks!).

You may choose between single line and multiline input. In single line mode you may omit closing parentheses and/or the semicolon, but in multiline mode you have to take care of matching parentheses by yourself and explicitly type in a semicolon for telling Reduce that the expression is complete. Multiline mode is convenient for breaking down more complex expressions into several lines and always applies to reading script files. Processing starts when tapping the Go button (if visible) or the Done or Next button of the soft keyboard.

In Settings you find some options to modify the look of the output (preferred width, font size, text or latex).

You may process Reduce scripts stored in files (*.red or *.txt) with ease. Just enter a filename in the input field and tap menu-entry Read to execute it. Or save your precious work by tapping Save. When saving, the tex formatted output fields go to png-files with increasing numbers added to the original file name. But this only works for output fields not too big. Plain text outputs go to a text-file along with the corresponding input expressions. This may be useful for later processing the results in Latex or similar text processing tools.

If you do not know the exact filename containing your desired script just leave the input field empty (e.g. tap Clr button) and tap menu-entry Read to reveal a file selector box showing the files in the actually chosen directory.
Choosing a file only copies the filename to the input text field. Don\'t forget to tap Read again (or the Go button, if visible) to actually start processing the script file because you still have the option to add "in " before the filename to let Reduce process the whole file at once (what is mostly faster).

Tapping Clr or Go or Done during reading a script file will terminate processing the file. But the definitions realized so far stay valid in Reduce till you Reset Reduce.

The directory to read from or to save to may be defined via Settings. This global directory is also valid for in and out statements of Reduce itself. But nested input files do need complete pathnames along with "in" or "out" or "shut".

You may also modify some cosmetic features like background and text colors and the availability of the Clear and Go button which may support an efficient workflow. The settings get saved once you finish Settings with OK and are available next time you start the program.\n\n

So, happy calculating!

Please report bugs, questions and comments to Dieter Egger ([email protected]).