DEVELOPMENT.md

Development

The project has the following targets:

• MathSymbolsInput: the core input method, installed in /Library/Input Methods
• MathSymbolsInputPreferences: a GUI app for the "Preferences..." menu, installed in /Applications
• activate: a command-line tool to enable and select the input method after an install or upgrade

These are configured to build into the build/ directory. The preferences app can be run normally from Xcode during development. The others require a bit more work to test.

Testing the input method

To update the input method with your local debug build, first switch to a different input method, run ./install.sh, and switch back. To view NSLog output, open Console.app and search for "Math Symbols Input".

Testing the installer

Run ./package to create a release build and package it into a .pkg file for the macOS installer. Run open MathSymbolsInput.pkg to perform an install.

Reference documentation

• Carbon header file: https://github.com/phracker/MacOSX-SDKs/blob/master/MacOSX10.6.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/Headers/TextInputSources.h
• Apple tech note on input methods: http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2005/tn2128.html
• InputMethodKit documentation: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/inputmethodkit
• Cocoa text editing overview: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/TextFonts/Conceptual/CocoaTextArchitecture/TextEditing/TextEditing.html

Text format

The text format is a line-oriented UTF-8 text file, with lines ending in either \r\n or \n. Each line is either:

• Empty
• A comment line, beginning with #
• A command and a replacement, separated by a single space.

Commands:

• must start with \
• cannot contain space, \r, or \n characters
• are at most 1000 Unicode code points long.

Replacements:

• cannot contain \r or \n characters (but they can contain space characters)
• are at most 1000 Unicode code points long.