Name and logo

[Nateowami]

I'm happy with Solve4x as a name, but I really can't come up with any good logo ideas. Almost every idea is a variation of Solve written smallish and 4x front-n-center. Very bland. If you have better ideas say on.

I'm considering two other options.

• Stick with Solve4x and have a sorta-mascot puppy named Epsilon (see my profile photo and you'll know I like puppies). This opens up a lot of possibilities, e.g., an I cans do maths? call-out with a puppy. You'll see I've already put Epsilon in the README. I've also thought a doghouse could be used for the website's home button, an ASCII dog for a link to the code on GitHub, etc. A bone would be perfect for a "donate" button, if donations are accepted.
• Go the full nine yards and dump the Solve4x name. Call it "Epsilon Algebra Solver" or something (hey, even Eclipse is actually Eclipse IDE). Just the name Epsilon won't be unique, but a variation of it (like the above, or something else entirely) would be fine.

Even with those ideas there's no great logo. I was thinking of using a paw print, possibly constructed from lower-case epsilon. Rachel came up with a way to draw a dog face with epsilon in it, by turning them sideways (similar to how Google does doodles). It worked much better than my idea to use them to make a paw print (--> fail).

Thoughts? Suggestions? I'm open to sticking to exactly what we already have, or something different altogether.

[JoshTheDerf]

I shall not assist you in this matter unless Epsilon is made a cat.

In all seriousness though, Changing the name to Epsilon Algebra Solver or something similar would probably be helpful in the long term. It's more descriptive and sounds more professional.

As for a logo, still no good ideas. Something simple and perhaps colorful. That said, colorful doggy-based mascots in programs is sooo 1995.

[Nateowami]

OK, then let's go with Epsilon Algebra Solver.

Graphical renderer is done on my end, but I haven't committed yet because after further investigation I'm not sure the font's license was what I originally thought it was (see KaTeX/KaTeX#339). If you know of a good math font I'd be interested.

I thought using MathJax's font would be straightforward, but their fonts folders (here and here) don't make much sense to me. Correction: upon looking closer they don't have font files in the repo (I just used the file finder to search for "font"). I'll have to look at their website again and see if I can find the fonts.

[JoshTheDerf]

@Nateowami Graphical renderer is done? Nice! That was fast! How'd you go about it?

As for fonts, nope. No clue.

[Nateowami]

Java 2D. It's actually not that hard to work with once you get used to it a bit. With comments & JavaDoc it's only 479 LOC.

Have a tagline to suggest? Currently it's "Solve4x - An algebra solver that shows its work."* But "Epsilon Algebra Solver - An algebra solver that shows its work" is a little redundant. It's not a big issue as on GitHub it will show the name of the project, so the tagline doesn't need to repeat the name. The GPL suggests "one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does," and sticking "algebra solver" in the name makes it a tad more difficult to write a non-redundant description.

Maybe just use "Epsilon Algebra Solver" in source files (and call it a description) and name the repo "Epsilon" and then reuse the tagline and it won't be redundant that way.

^{*OK, so that's name and tagline, but they usually go together. As mentioned, GitHub would be one example where the repo might just be named "Epsilon" and the tagline wouldn't need the full name.}

[JoshTheDerf]

@Nateowami No clue. Tribex - Not good with taglines. (TM)

[Nateowami]

Just FYI, at least some of the fonts MathJax is using came from Design Science, the same company that has its name on the fonts KaTeX is using. But their website is so terrible that any fonts or their license are a needle in a haystack of broken search and more. But I found some good fonts on the STIX fonts project. They would need to be converted to ttf, but I think they'll work. And they're definitely free/libre (SIL Open Font License Version 1.1). MathJax uses those too.