It seems to be a fairly common convention to write certain 'meta' functions in postfix form like
f[x] // Simplify
to keep the the mathematical content at the front separate from the various directives. However converting expressions to StandardForm or InputForm converts everything to prefix. Is there a way to get StandardForm to use this convention or alternatively is there a form like StandardForm, but that uses this convention. I find myself often switching betweenStandardForm and InputForm while editing since I prefer to just edit textually using InputForm and then convert to StandardForm for display, but this makes it impossible to use the above convention.
Reading the documentation I came across Format which seems one possible way to do this, but the following does not work:
Format[Simplify[x_], StandardForm] := Postfix[Simplify[x_]]
Apparently Simplify gets evaluated out before this rule is set up. I tried using Hold and Unevaluated to fix this without luck. This approach would also have the downside of having to define this rule for every function separately and I also do not yet know how I would set up such rules as a default for all my notebooks. So maybe there is a better way.
Postfixis a typesetting function and not the same as//in functionality $\endgroup$SetDelayed::write: "Tag Simplify in MakeBoxes[Simplify[expr_],StandardForm] is Protected"in my notebook. $\endgroup$Unprotectbut better not. $\endgroup$Simplifyto always appear in postfix position. I do not care that much if the actual expression gets rearranged or if it is just rendered that way, which is what I understandFormatrules do. $\endgroup$InputFormgets formatted. FurthermoreInputFormworks on expressions rather than boxes, so that making a solution based on whether you typed postfix vs prefix seems to be impossible, as the information of whether you typed prefix or postfix is lost when the boxes get converted byMakeExpression. $\endgroup$