Getting started

live-math · a keyboard-first maths whiteboard for lessons and tutoring

Write the formulas in the editor with AsciiMath, a short syntax that is quick to type; students see them typeset as you write, in a window you share or on their own phone with a link. It is for explaining and pointing things out, not for solving: besides formulas, short lines draw plots, complex roots, the unit circle, sign charts and areas. If you prefer a pen on a tablet, use the tablet: here the keyboard is the pen.

1. What you need

A computer with a recent browser: Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari. With Chrome and Edge the sheets can live in a folder on the computer; with Firefox and Safari they stay in the browser's memory. If you are an authorised teacher you can also keep them in the cloud and find them on any computer and browser. Students, instead, can watch from any browser, even from a phone, without an account.

2. The first start

Open the editor, math.simeonevilardo.com/editor, and choose where to keep the sheets:

• Chrome, Edge: a folder on the computer, with “Choose the sheets' folder”. Each sheet is a .math text file, which stays on your computer. On the following times the editor reopens the same folder (at most Chrome asks for a click on “Reopen”) and the last sheet.
• Firefox, Safari: the browser's memory, with “Start”. Beware: clearing the site's data, or using private browsing, loses the sheets. Keep a backup with Ctrl+K, “Download all sheets” (a .zip file); the editor reminds you after a week. With “Import sheets or backups” you bring them into another browser.
• The cloud, if you are an authorised teacher: “Log in and use the cloud” (section 3).

3. The sheets in the cloud

• Log in with “Log in and use the cloud” (or with Ctrl+K), with Google or with a code by email: it is the same login as the live. After logging in you find the same sheets on any computer and browser.
• The computer's sheets and the cloud's sheets live in a single list (Ctrl+P), with each one's place next to it; in the bar at the bottom a cloud sheet has “(cloud)” after the name. A new sheet (Alt+N) goes in the same place as the open one.
• Ctrl+K, “Move to the cloud” and “Move to the computer” (or “to this browser”) move the open sheet; “Move all sheets to the cloud” moves them all.
• If you edit the same sheet from two computers, the editor notices and asks you which version to keep.
• Without a network the open sheet keeps working: the bar says “not saved: cloud unreachable” and saving resumes by itself when the network comes back.
• The server does not make backups. For important sheets keep a copy: “Download all the cloud's sheets”, “Move to the computer” or the exports (Alt+E).
• Better not to write students' personal data in the sheets.
• On a shared computer, at the end use Ctrl+K, “Log out”: the cloud's sheets disappear from that browser.

4. Writing

• Each line is a formula: lim_(x->0) sin x / x = 1.
• # Title, " text, ! result in a box, % note private (nobody sees it), plot: sin x for a plot.
• sign: (x-1)(x+2)/(x-3) >= 0 draws the sign table, with one row per factor and the solutions; system: x^2 - 1 > 0; x < 3 the table of a system of inequalities.
• In plots, tangent(x^2, 1) adds the tangent line, derivative(sin x) the derivative, area(x^2, 0, 2) the area with its integral.
• F1 shows all the syntax and the snippets (a word, then Tab); Ctrl+K opens the list of commands.

5. Sharing the screen

Alt+V opens the viewer in a new tab, which works with any video-call or streaming software. On one computer you keep two tabs, the editor and the viewer (best with two screens: you share one, you write on the other). With Chrome and Edge share that tab (not the whole screen). Firefox and Safari share only windows or the whole screen: drag the viewer's tab out, into a window of its own, and share that window. While you write, the viewer updates by itself; with Alt+= and Alt+- you change the size, with Alt+T you switch from paper to blackboard.

If a shortcut with Alt opens a browser menu, add Shift: Alt+Shift+V does the same as Alt+V. On the Mac Cmd is the same as Ctrl.

6. The live: students from their own device

The live is the better way to share: sharper than a shared screen, students scroll on their own, and every live is recorded.

• Press Alt+L. The first time a window opens for the login: log in with Google or with a code by email. The code comes from a Cloudflare sender: if you cannot find it, look in the spam.
• The link for students is copied by itself. It is always the same, on any computer you log in from: you just send it to the students once.
• The bar at the bottom shows “live” with a green dot and how many people are watching.

7. Pointing on the sheet

On the viewer (or on the side preview, Ctrl+\) the mouse becomes a pointer that everyone sees. By dragging you draw (circles, underlines), with Shift you highlight a box; Esc erases the drawings.

The line between the editor and the side preview can be dragged to give more space to one or the other; a double click brings it back to the middle.

8. The curtain: the solution one step at a time

Prepare the exercise with the solution already written. During the lesson put the cursor on the last line you want to show and press Alt+S: viewers see the sheet only up to there. In the editor a dashed “curtain” line separates what is seen from what is hidden, and the hidden lines are lighter.

• Alt+R reveals the next line: the steps of a chain appear one at a time.
• You can move the cursor and read the hidden part: nothing is revealed until you press Alt+R. What you write above the curtain is seen right away, what you write below stays hidden.
• When you have revealed everything, what you add at the bottom is seen as you write it.
• Alt+S again removes the curtain (it asks for confirmation if there are still hidden lines). Even if the editor reloads, the curtain stays where it was.
• Exports and published sheets always contain the whole sheet.

9. Moving a plot's window

With the cursor on a plot: line press Alt+G: the arrows move the visible part of the plane, Shift+arrows widen it on that side, + and - zoom, 0 goes back to the automatic window; Esc ends. Students see the plot move, and a single Ctrl+Z undoes everything.

10. At the end

• Alt+L stops the live: viewers receive nothing more, and those still connected keep seeing the last version. The recording of the lesson stays among your lessons.
• Alt+E exports the sheet as PDF or HTML, to send to students.
• Every live records itself (in the bar at the bottom “rec” appears): with Ctrl+K, “Lessons and published sheets”, you find the lesson and copy its link. Students rewatch it while it is being written, step by step, without an account; long pauses are shortened and the arrows jump from one step to the next. A lesson in which the sheet did not change is not kept.
• Ctrl+K, “Publish the sheet” makes a frozen copy of it, with a link to send: later changes do not touch it.
• From the same list you can delete a lesson or withdraw a published sheet: the link stops working for everyone. Whoever has the link can open them: send it only to those who should see them.
• If you close the editor without stopping the live, when you reopen it the live restarts by itself and whoever has the link sees what you write. To work privately, stop it with Alt+L.

11. Live and cloud are by invitation

Editor, viewer and exports work for everyone; live and the sheets in the cloud only for authorised teachers. To be added, or if the login fails, write to [email protected] with the email address you will use.

How the data is handled: privacy.