Software

This page lists some of the software that I’ve written or that I am using that I think might be useful to other people.

http://math.byu.edu/~grout/graphs/

This is a database of all 13,598 graphs with 8 or fewer vertices. I’m in the process of updating the database to include graphs with 9 or fewer vertices. I’m also in the process of writing a PyQT front end to the database.

http://math.byu.edu/~grout/software/dokuwiki/format-plugin

This is a plugin for the DokuWiki wiki (the software I used to create this website and that I’m using now in my classes). The plugin allows you to pass commands to external software and embed the resulting images in the wiki page. The nice thing about this is that you don’t have to create images with other programs and then upload them to the webserver. Additionally, the changes are tracked between pages (so, for instance, you can change a graph on a page and old versions of the page will still display the old version of the graph).

http://math.byu.edu/~grout/software/dokuwiki/newpagetemplate

This is a plugin for the DokuWiki wiki. The plugin allows you to specify a template and also replacement variables for the template for a new page creation. The motivation behind developing this plugin was a need for a way to present a student with a way to create a homework page from a predefined template. I made it possible to have variables in the template that could be replaced with values I pass the wiki.

Here is some software that I’m using on my webpages.

I use DokuWiki to create my website and my class websites. I picked DokuWiki because (not necessarily in order of importance):

• It has file-based storage (though I’m thinking that a sqlite database cache could possible speed things up).
• The code is clean and nicely structured (i.e., if I need to modify it or write a plugin, I’d enjoy working with the system on an internal level—so far, after two plugins, I still love how wonderful it was to program things in DokuWiki).
• The development community is vibrant (though it is small too).
• The syntax resembles Mediawiki, and a theme replicates how MediaWiki looks, so that students can transfer their wiki knowledge to Wikipedia.

I’m using jsMath to display mathematics on my course webpages. I chose jsMath because:

• It does not just render MathML—solutions that only render MathML are not very accessible yet (Firefox still doesn’t have the required fonts, while IE and Safari don’t deal with MathML at all without plugins).
• If TeX fonts are installed on the computer (a very easy process), then the output is good quality mathematics that scales with the text.
• It is a javascript solution that does not require any changes on the server.