Messaging client that renders maths?

Surely my friends and myself can’t be the only people who wish that a messaging client had support for rendering mathematical formula? Say we could enter (for example) TeX commands that were rendered on the other user’s screen, it would make it so much easier for the other person to understand what was being described than the current ascii formulae (which look like ==’<rho(ac)>=<rho(dc)>(1-i)’ or ‘1/m* = 1/h<bar>^2 * d^2E/dk^2′== - readable, but they get worse…).

Having said that, here are my thoughts on how I might try to implement it, if no one more competant than myself does it:

* If *I* have to write this program, if *I* want it ready before I graduate I’ll have to use “Python”:http://www.python.org/ - I know no other language (although I’m sure others are a lot more suitable).
* As I cannot find a self-contained Tex renderer, I would probably use itex2mml and then a MathML renderer (again, not found one, but I know that I could use a small browser window for the display, which would work with IE or Mozilla). I’m thinking of doing the coding in “Python”:http://www.python.org/, using “wxWindows”:http://www.wxwindows.org/, and the wxIE component (OK, windows only, but it will render MathML). No ideas how to update the display or anything like that.
* I envisage using Jabber for the communication

Other features that would be very useful:

* Basic drawing capabilities. Even if it’s just the equivalent of Paint’s Paintbrush, it would allow us to sketch graphs.
* A visual formula composer (like “Lyx”:http://www.lyx.org has, or EquationEditor for Microsoft Word) so we don’t have to remember all the commands.

_Disclaimer: this is a work in progress entry, things may change!_