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Okay, this isn’t strictly nLab-related, but it’s close. I’m using an Instiki installation for a course that I’m teaching and just created a page with a proof. Since the students aren’t used to reading proofs, I’ve added a commentary. I wondered what people here thought of the layout (since we’ve talked about CSS and design from time to time). The page is at:
I like it!
I fixed a few typos (one of which was mathematically significant, although only in a right-hand explanation). Also (which is not quite the same thing) I added braces around every instance of an absolute value or norm, which helps iTeX help MathML with the spacing. And I added another proof explanation, since I thought that it might be helpful, although obviously I won’t feel bad if you take it back out.
I like that you have thereby explained to my how to code such fancy right-hand comments! :-)
Thanks, Toby.
I didn’t know about the grouping and absolute value/norms. I’d noticed that they didn’t look right, but now I know how to fix them.
I got a suggestion from someone (another mathematician, not a student) that the comments should be “click to reveal”, like the contents. After playing with CSS a little, I have an example:
http://mathsnotes.math.ntnu.no/mathsnotes/show/Sandbox
Quick poll (of anyone interested): which do you prefer? The click-to-reveal or the always-visible. Of course, various bits can be tweaked - maybe it’s overkill to have “hover to reveal, click to hold” on every comment.
I suppose that this depends on the course. I got the impression from these comments that this course is likely to be the first real proofs course of many of your students, that this is why you’re making all of these comments. If this is so, then I suggest to keep them visible.
With the hidden comments, it may be difficult to determine which comments and which steps go together. And when things pop up and pop down again as one is looking for the right comment for the step under examination it could get a little confusing. The whitespace in my opinion is good, and it makes people slow down and consider each step.
Okay, I’m convinced. I’ll leave the comments visible.
I’ve tweaked the CSS a bit to make it easier to input. Now there are just two classes .commentedProof
on the proof environment and .comment
for the comments themselves. (Note: these are not in the nLab CSS so don’t try them here.)
Toby, I noticed a small error in your addition! The function is only defined on , not . Having corrected that, I’m leaving the comment in - the general definition of continuous function is very new to the students, and I’ve glossed over the difference between “continuous” and “continuous at ” a little in lectures.
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