How to make Skim's backward search accurate for multiline equations - latex

I have been using Sublime 2/3 together with Skim for Latex for a long time, however, since I have a lot long derivations (equations which is half-page long), I found it is annoying when I use backward sync to jump back to tex file.
For example, I have a five-line align environment in Latex, and I want to correct one line of it. If I press command+shift+left mouse click on Mac for backward search, the cursor jumps to the end of align environment instead of the correct line.
I found my colleague uses TexStudio on Windows and the backward search works perfect, so I wonder if it is possible to improve the backward search for Sublime+Skim. I really like Sublime so I don't wanna switch to another Latex editor.

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How to label boxed text in markdown?

My question in short is: How can you create a boxed text with a label that can be referenced?
Background: I am generating LaTeX output from a Markdown document to be included in a larger LaTeX document. I would like to describe the steps of an algorithm as boxed text with a label that can be referenced. I know how to create a labeled figure and how to create boxed text, but I haven't been able to figure out how to combine the two, i.e. how to label the boxed text as if it was a figure, or how to include the text in a figure (other than converting it to an image, which I'd like to avoid).
An initial "solution": Just putting a the box and an empty figure next to each other (see below) kind of works, except that nothing ensures that the figure label won't float away from the box as I work on the document, since figures are floating objects while text boxes are part of the text, and the two are handled differently by LaTeX. Moreover, you may need to use LaTeX vertical space commands to make it look reasonably good, but it is hard to get it perfect. Is there a simple solution? Thanks!
P.S. I know that I could just switch to LaTeX and figure out a solution there, but here I am looking for a solution in Markdown, possibly making use of some embedded LaTeX commands.
You can see the algorithm in Figure \ref{methods:estimating}.
\fbox{\parbox{5in}{
1. Initialize $b_r=0$ for $r=1..R$ \\
2. For each item $i, i=1..U$, calculate ... \\
3. Re-estimate ... \\
4. Proceed to Step 2 until it converges.
}}
![Estimating ... \label{methods:estimating}]()
It is rendered like this:
You can use one of the packages for writing algorithms. See https://www.sharelatex.com/learn/algorithms.

Maxima for Android (and PC as well): How to reuse the result of a calculation

Let's say I enter this symbolic calculation in Maxima for Android:
integrate(sin(x)*x,x)
The answer is beautifully displayed thanks to MathJack (it is sin(x)-x*cos(x)). Ok, thanks. But now I would like to tap in that answer and have it in the command line, ready to be modified (for instance I may want to multiply it by some number and then use it in another calculation).
What I want is something similar to pressing the "ANS" key in some calculators, where the last result the machine yielded can be used as new input.
In Xcas Pad this is easy and straightforward (just touch on the result, that's all). How to do that in Maxima for Android? (The answer for the PC version of Maxima is also appreciated).
Remark: Copy-paste does not work in Android, because the answers are Latex-formatted or something similar.
You can tap the answer formula displayed with Mathjax in the main area. The maxima expression will be entered in the bottom command area, as you wanted.
Actually, the commands displayed in the main area are also tap-able. You can tap one of them and it is entered in the bottom command area.

Mathematica's spacing of symbol accents when typesetting mathematical formulas

Mathematica appears to have difficulty horizontally aligning accents (e.g. bars, hats, and tildes) when placed on top of certain mathematical symbols.
Here's a simple example:
Using the AdjustmentBox typesetting construct (or Alt-Left/Right arrow in the frontend), one can manually adjust the relative horizontal position of the hat and the symbol j to produce the more aesthetically pleasing:
There are two problems here:
1). It is inconvenient and time-consuming to make these manual adjustments when this should really be the job of the typesetting engine proper. Indeed, LaTeX is able to position accents correctly over all of the standard symbols (roman and greek letter forms) without the need to manually tweak their relative positioning.
2). The relative re-positioning of the symbols using AdjustmentBox is lost when exporting the Notebook to PDF for printing and re-distribution.
Question:
Does anyone have any suggestions for a more convenient way (preferably automatic) to improve the typeset quality of formulas in Mathematica notebooks that use accents, that preferably will also survive export of the notebook document to PDF format before printing?
You can select " ĵ " from the Windows character map and paste it in.
Style[ĵ, Italic, 24, Bold, FontFamily -> "Times"]
Also you can assign it to an input alias (borrowing from Andrew Moylan)
n = SelectedNotebook[];
SetOptions[n,
InputAliases ->
Append[Options[n, InputAliases][[1, 2]], "j^" -> "ĵ"]]
Typing Escj^Esc produces ĵ.
Well, I do not think that this is possible.
You may ask Wolfram Research to include unicode character 0135 , i.e., they should add \[JHat], like
\[IHat]. Then italics display nicely.

What is a vertical tab?

What was the original historical use of the vertical tab character (\v in the C language, ASCII 11)?
Did it ever have a key on a keyboard? How did someone generate it?
Is there any language or system still in use today where the vertical tab character does something interesting and useful?
Vertical tab was used to speed up printer vertical movement. Some printers used special tab belts with various tab spots. This helped align content on forms. VT to header space, fill in header, VT to body area, fill in lines, VT to form footer. Generally it was coded in the program as a character constant. From the keyboard, it would be CTRL-K.
I don't believe anyone would have a reason to use it any more. Most forms are generated in a printer control language like postscript.
#Talvi Wilson noted it used in python '\v'.
print("hello\vworld")
Output:
hello
world
The above output appears to result in the default vertical size being one line. I have tested with perl "\013" and the same output occurs. This could be used to do line feed without a carriage return on devices with convert linefeed to carriage-return + linefeed.
Microsoft Word uses VT as a line separator in order to distinguish it from the normal new line function, which is used as a paragraph separator.
In the medical industry, VT is used as the start of frame character in the MLLP/LLP/HLLP protocols that are used to frame HL-7 data, which has been a standard for medical exchange since the late 80s and is still in wide use.
It was used during the typewriter era to move down a page to the next vertical stop, typically spaced 6 lines apart (much the same way horizontal tabs move along a line by 8 characters).
In modern day settings, the vt is of very little, if any, significance.
The ASCII vertical tab (\x0B)is still used in some databases and file formats as a new line WITHIN a field. For example:
In the .mer file format to allow new lines within a data field,
FileMaker databases can use vertical tabs as a linefeed (see https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/59096).
I have found that the VT char is used in pptx text boxes at the end of each line shown in the box in oder to adjust the text to the size of the box.
It seems to be automatically generated by powerpoint (not introduced by the user) in order to move the text to the next line and fix the complete text block to the text box. In the example below, in the position of §:
"This is a text §
inside a text box"
A vertical tab was the opposite of a line feed i.e. it went upwards by one line. It had nothing to do with tab positions. If you want to prove this, try it on an RS232 terminal.
similar to R0byn's experience, i was experimenting with a Powerpoint slide presentation and dumped out the main body of text on the slide, finding that all the places where one would typically find carriage return (ASCII 13/0x0d/^M) or line feed/new line (ASCII 10/0x0a/^J) characters, it uses vertical tab (ASCII 11/0x0b/^K) instead, presumably for the exact reason that dan04 described above for Word: to serve as a "newline" while staying within the same paragraph. good question though as i totally thought this character would be as useless as a teletype terminal today.
I believe it's still being used, not sure exactly. There might be even a key combination of it.
As English is written Left to Right, Arabic Right to Left, there are languages in world that are also written top to bottom. In that case a vertical tab might be useful same as the horizontal tab is used for English text.
I tried searching, but couldn't find anything useful yet.

How to add changebar in latex?

In Latex, I've created a new command 'changedtext' to mark specifics parts in my document and make it appear blue:
\newcommand{\changedtext}[1]{\textcolor{blue}{#1} }
Is there any easy way to alter the command to have change bars appear next to the text in the resulting PDF?
If not possible, any other suggestion for a visual markup (other than change bars) that would be clear on a black & white printout would be useful as well.
Update: It might be of interest to readers of this question that some time ago I started using the latexdiff script to mark up changes between two versions. I use it in combination with SVN, which I think works great; if you split up your LaTeX files, you might want to look at this tex.stackexchange question though.
Use one of the changebar macro packages in your command.
One other way which would be very clear in B&W would be highlight (shows as gray background).
Use packages soul and color and define your highlight color:
\usepackage{soul}
\usepackage{color}
\definecolor{lightgray}{rgb}{.92,.92,.92}
\sethlcolor{lightgray}
Now you can use \hl{highlighted text} in text to highlight.
Some half-baked solution (not satisfactory) I just came up with myself, is the use of \marginpar to have some arbitrary indication in the margin, e.g.:
\newcommand{\changedtext}[1]{\textcolor{blue}{#1 \marginpar{r1}} }
will put the text 'r1' (from revision 1) in the margin.
However, when using this, the \changedtext command can not be used everywhere (e.g. in formulas, captions) because LateX will complain (in my case) about 'float(s) lost'.
Still,it might be useful to some people...

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