Amaya is an HTML editor. Its most important feature is that it can create and edit documents written in MathML, a language for creating mathematical content on the Web. MathML is a subset of XML, a very exciting generalization of HTML which will be used by the next generation of Web browsers.
The home page is http://www.w3.org
See the fairly extensive manual.
Say you want to create a link to a URL u, using the hypertext link h. (The latter is what the user sees and clicks on, typically highlighted in blue.) Type h first, then highlight it by dragging the mouse from the start to the end of h. Then click the mouse on Links, then on Create or Change Link. Then click anywhere in the document screen. A URL window will pop up; type the URL u in it.
To "activate" a link, i.e. follow it to its destination, you need to double-click on it, rather than a single click as in an ordinary browser. The reason for this is that Amaya is mainly an editor, not a browser, so for editing purposes one uses a single click to move the mouse pointer within the document screen.
Note: If double-clicking on links fails to activate them, then click on Special, then Preferences, then General. Click on Double Click Activates Link; it should be white (meaning on), not gray (meaning off).
Sometimes we wish to have one part of an HTML document link to another part of the same document (using the NAME attribute). We call the latter part a "target." To create a target t and link to it from a hypertext link h, do the following.
Use the mouse to highlight text at t. Then click on Links, then Create Target.
Then highlight h using the mouse. Then
click on Links, then on Link to Previous Target.
To get preformatted text (using the HTML PRE attribute), displayed just the way you type it (e.g. no line breaks), choose Types and Preformatted. (After typing such text, choose Types and then Paragraph to return to ordinary mode.)
These are quite easy. Just highlight the text by dragging the mouse, then click on the desired heading icon (H1, H2, H3) or click on Types then Headings.and Preformatted for more levels.
Click on Types, then Lists, then the desired type.
To make a new paragraph within a list element, hit Enter once. To make a new list element, hit Enter twice. To leave list mode, hit Enter three times.
This is straightforward, using the Insert Image icon, except you must keep in mind that Amaya insists that you fill in the Alternate Text entry in the pop-up window. This is what users of nongraphical browsers (e.g. lynx) will see in place of an image. If you type zzzz, say, lynx users will see zzzz where an image would be.
Go to Types, then Tables. If you click on Tables again, Amaya will ask you to give the number of rows and columns, and then draw the table for you. You can then fill in the entries.
Move the cursor in the usual way by clicking the mouse or using the scroll bar. Also, if you have links to targets within the same document, the Previous Document and Next Document icons can produce quick cursor movement too.
Delete text either using the Delete key or dragging the mouse and clicking on Edit then Cut. Cut and paste works in the usual way.
Note the Undo and Redo operations under Edit.
Note that if you type immediately next to a special element, Amaya may
think you are extending that element, rather than typing independent text. If
for example you type right next to a blue-highlighted link, then what you type
now will show up in blue too, meaning you are extending that link, which you
may not want.
Occasionally you may wish to fine-tune your document by placing HTML code into
it "by hand." To do this, select Views then Show Source. Then insert the
code into the source window, and select File then Save in the source window;
the change will now be reflected in the main window.
MathML, for expressing mathematical concepts, is written in XML, an exciting, fast-growing "programmable" extension to the HTML Web language. It can be viewed in standard browsers such as Netscape and Internet Explorer via plug-ins, such as one available from IBM. (It was reported in early April 2000 that the next version of Netscape will allow direct reading of XML.) The Amaya browser not only allows you to read MathML, but also allows you to edit it.
To edit MathML in Amaya, first select the x/y icon (which we will refer to below as the Math icon). Here are a couple of examples:
Example 1:
Suppose we want to display c2. We would select the Math
icon, then
the Exponentiation icon (large box at base, smaller box
at upper right). We would type c in the lower, larger box, and then
click on the higher, smaller box and then type 2 in it.
Example 2:
To display the summation from i=1 to infinity of xi, we would first select the Math icon, then the icon showing two small boxes to the right, and above and below, a big one (which we will call the Sum/Integral icon below). We would click on the large box, select the Greek Letter icon in the Math window, and then the summation symbol. We would click on the small box below, and then type "i=0". We would click on the small box above, and then select the infinity symbol from the Greek-letter window. We would then click to the right of the expression we have so far, and select the icon in the Math window consisting of a large box on the left and a small box on the lower right. We would then type x in the large box and i in the small one.
To set up an integral, we would go through the same procedure, choosing the integral sign from the Greek Letter window, instead of the summation sign.
Note: With some X11 window servers, there seems to be a bug which will arise with integral signs and limits of integration. To work around this, type out the entire integral, including limits and the integrand, but first using a summation symbol instead of an integral symbol. Then move the mouse cursor to the summation symbol, delete it using the Delete key, and then insert the integral symbol. For example, suppose we want to type the integral of 2x dx from 0 to 1. We would first type it out as the "sum" of 2x dx from 0 to 1 (which is nonsense but only temporary) and then go back to the summation symbol, use the Delete key to delete it, and then insert the integral symbol.
Example 3:
To draw a matrix, we would first select the Parentheses icon from the Math window, then select the Matrix icon (3x3 array of little squares) from that window. A Matrix window will pop up, asking us to state the number of rows and columns. We state these numbers, and then fill in the matrix elements.
The fonts in math mode are rather small. You may wish to take advantage of zoom mode.
Important: Make sure you click on the x/y icon before entering any math symbols, even if the Greek Letter window is already open. This is especially important if you are entering math in the middle of text.
Note that Amaya also offers keyboard shortcuts for various math constructs. For example, ctrl-m ctrl-v will give you the main-item-plus-subscript box. To see a list of these, hit Types then Math.
Selecting Views then Zoom In or Zoom Out is quite useful, especially if you are working with small fonts.
Select Style, then Character Style.
Some people have reported bugs in version 3.0. For Linux, you can get version 2.4, which is more stable, at http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/amaya.html.
Some non-Linux X11 windows servers may have problems.
Amaya was initially developed on Unix. A Windows port does exist, but it appears to be buggy. I do not recommend using the Windows version at this time. But if you want to try anyway, here is a workaround for one of the problems, with the Greek Letter window. A workaround is to fill in an ASCII string at the desired position first and then go to the source file (click on Views in Amaya) and replace the ASCII string by the MathML code for the symbol you want (e.g. "∫" for the integral sign, "∑" for the summation symbol, "∞" for infinity, "λ" for the Greek letter lambda, etc).