After reading several messages in the Smath Forum I have started to look for a streamlined solution over the net and I have developed the following workflow that I guess is optimized to solve the previous task.
Prior of going ahead just an highlight of some limitations that force to operate in particular ways to enter a sequence of characters.
First of all, in Smath we enter in subscript mode with "." but we CAN'T exit in any way from this mode so it is impossible in the variable (1) to type in sequence the subscript 4 and then a closed square bracket or something else ,so in this case the subscript 4 MUST be done using another way through a Unicode sequence.
The program that has helped me to solve this issue ( and many others ) is Easy Unicode Paster , herewith the link to the downloading page:
the advantage of this program/solution over other ones are the following:
1-There is no need to remember or of going over the Internet to find a page with the unicode character that is required ( to copy & paste it where needed and this method of C&P works just once and not for a sequence however ) or to find the code and use it in other utilities/programs to create the character to paste.
2-In the program the Characters are grouped by blocks that make easier to find what is required.
3-To enter something in a position on the canvas is enough to click on the character visualized in a block , no need to copy and paste anything or to remember codes; what you need is visually shown.
4-It works everywhere in Smath and in the Writer Region ( in this last case there is no more need to use special Ctrl sequences to enter special Characters ) so there is an uniform way to operate in any environment.
Herewith I have listed some of the Unicode Subsets mostly used for Chemistry/Chemical Eng. (or however of more general interest ) to show how they come up in the drop down selection list in the Easy Unicode Paster utility program:
-Arrows ( to type → and ⇄ or ⇆ in a Chemical reaction )
-Combining Diacritical Marks ( to type a velocity ẋ,acceleration ẍ,vector x̅ or a versor x̂
-Latin- 1 Supplement ( mainly to select the 1,2 and 3 Superscript and avoid to use the Alt+sequences for the same purpose)
-Mathematical Operators
-Mathematical Operators A
-Mathematical Operators B
-Superscripts and Subscripts A (⁴⁺⁻ and ₁₂₃₄ the most used ones)
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