Show HN: SugarTeX – readable LaTeX language extension and transcompiler to LaTeX

SugarTeX is a more readable LaTeX language extension and transcompiler to LaTeX. Designed to be used instead of $formula$ insertions to Markdown.

I use Markdown with Python code blocks for document programming via [Pandoctools](https://github.com/kiwi0fruit/pandoctools) (like R-Markdown).

Both Python and Markdown are very readable languages. Unfortunately LaTeX is not like this. So I wrote SugaTeX extension+transpiler that is highly readable. In order to achieve this it heavily uses Unicode so that SugarTeX install instructions even have recommended monospace font fallback chains.

[SugarTeX repo](https://github.com/kiwi0fruit/sugartex) with description.

Example of input to output conversion is at the end of [this PDF](https://github.com/kiwi0fruit/sugartex/blob/master/sugartex....).

> Designed to be used instead of $formula$ insertions to Markdown.

What's the downside of having $formula$ blocks in Markdown?

As far as I can deduce, you're trying to incorporate LateX into .md using the Markdown Philosophy of "you should write something that's readable as plain text, without compilation, also". Is that basically right? If so it should probably be right at the top, because it's hard to tell right now.

The idea makes sense, though I'm not sure if it's... better. Do you expect people to input " ⃗E" and "⨌" as text? Or ... what? Do you type the TeX and then have Atom autocomplete it into the Unicode symbols?

The juice is at the very end of the README, where you can see the unicode markup (ignore HN-mangled newlines):

ˎˎ ˱∇ × [ ⃗B] - 1∕c ∂[ ⃗E]∕∂t ˳= 4π∕c [ ⃗j] ¦# ∇ ⋅ [ ⃗E]\ ˳= 4πρ ¦ ∇ × [ ⃗E] + 1∕c ∂[ ⃗B]∕∂t ˳= [ ⃗0] ¦ ∇ ⋅ [ ⃗B]\ ˳= 0 ˲ ,ˎˎ{#eq:max}

where ˎ[ ⃗B], [ ⃗E], [ ⃗j]: ℝ⁴ → ℝ³ˎ – vector functions of the form

ˎ(t,x,y,z) ↦ [ ⃗f](t,x,y,z), [ ⃗f] = (f_˹x˺, f_˹y˺, f_˹z˺)ˎ.

renders to:

$$ \begin{aligned}∇ × {\mathbf{B}} - \frac{1}{c} \frac{∂{\mathbf{E}}}{∂t} &= \frac{4π}{c} {\mathbf{j}}\ ∇ ⋅ {\mathbf{E}}\ &= 4πρ \ ∇ × {\mathbf{E}} + \frac{1}{c} \frac{∂{\mathbf{B}}}{∂t} &= {\mathbf{0}} \ ∇ ⋅ {\mathbf{B}}\ &= 0 \end{aligned} ,$${#eq:max}

where ${\mathbf{B}},,{\mathbf{E}},,{\mathbf{j}}:,ℝ^{4} → ℝ^{3}$ -- vector functions of the form $(t,x,y,z) ↦ {\mathbf{f}}(t,x,y,z),,{\mathbf{f}} = (f_{\mathrm{x}}, f_{\mathrm{y}}, f_{\mathrm{z}})$.

It needs indeed...

I guess Unicode Math is a part of SugarTeX as every valid LaTeX is a valid SugarTeX (unless it has new SugarTeX meaning, otherwise it's a bug). Or maybe there's something I do not know about Unicode Math? I thought it simply replaces/treats some Unicode characters with LaTeX commands. So I used this feature and didn't bother replacing some Unicode.