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nLab > nLab Technical Matters: Use of MathJax?

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    • CommentRowNumber1.
    • CommentAuthorronniegpd
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2012
    I have found that MathJax in say mathoverflow or math.stackexchange very convenient to use, as there is an immediate translation of the latex like format. This format is even suggested for classroom use, see

    http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/187265/mathjax-or-something-like-it-as-a-classroom-blackboard

    Is it possible for the ncatlab to move to this MathJax format?
    • CommentRowNumber2.
    • CommentAuthorTobyBartels
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2012

    Supposedly the Lab does use MathJax, but only as a fallback if MathML is unavailable. I for one like having the MathML with the actual characters in the HTML, when possible.

    But if ‘immediate translation’ is the idea, maybe what you really want is MathOverflow’s dual-window system, where you see a preview of your work while you are typing it? I don’t see why that should be any harder here, where we would compile iTeX input on the fly to MathML or MathJax as needed, in principle. But it might be too slow for our servers. And doing it on the Lab would require changing Instiki, possibly significantly.

    Andrew probably can say more.

    [Also: moved to Technical Matters category.]

    • CommentRowNumber3.
    • CommentAuthorAndrew Stacey
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2012

    With regard to “live preview”, the difference between iTeX and MathJaX is that iTeX does the conversion on the server but MathJaX on the browser. For “live preview”, the browser is obviously preferable because there’s no delay while stuff is sent over the network to the server. For absolutely any other purpose, the server is the better choice because then the conversion need only be done once (and then cached), it is done on a known system (there are a lot of browsers out there each with its different implementation of javascript), and only the results of the conversion need to be sent rather than the source together with the instructions on how to convert it.

    That said, you can get a preview, but not “live”. You have to click “Preview Post” on the nForum or save the page on the nLab. This is actually more like traditional TeX where you have to save your work and compile it before seeing what happens - leading to the traditional separation of “content and style” which seems so important to some (I was commenting on this on TeX-SX earlier today, in fact).

    The other place where MathJaX is used is in the rendering of the final product. There, we do use MathJaX but only if your browser can’t handle MathML. That’s because MathML is the right way to communicate mathematics over the web, but not all browsers consider mathematics worth implementing. So for broken browsers, we condescend to use MathJaX to convert the MathML into some mess of HTML and CSS.

    The suggestion in the link is a really, really, really bad idea. Too many people would spend their time getting their matrices just so and not enough time concentrating on the fact that they are standing in front of 200 people who want to hear about mathematics (well, let’s go for an idealistic situation - reality would be far worse). If you have to do something live write it by hand. I give my lectures using beamer but if I need to make any notes live, then I write them (okay, I write them on the screen with a graphics pen, but I still just write them).

    (Sorry, this is one of my bugbears. I’ll go back into my cave now and read up about schedules.)

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