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    • CommentRowNumber1.
    • CommentAuthortrent
    • CommentTimeJun 9th 2016

    the nlab (especially on long pages) is loading the math notation then sometimes after all the math notation finishes loading it all disappears (starting at the top, progressing to the bottom at about the same speed that it loaded).

    is anyone else having this problem or is it just me? (initially thought it was a problem on my end, but both my computer and phone are doing the same thing …. so I’m not sure).

    • CommentRowNumber2.
    • CommentAuthorDavidRoberts
    • CommentTimeJun 9th 2016

    That’s the MathJax reflow magic :-)

    • CommentRowNumber3.
    • CommentAuthortrent
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2016

    Is that soemthing that I have to fix on my end or is it a problem on the nlab side?

    • CommentRowNumber4.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2016
    • (edited Jun 10th 2016)

    Yeah, it’s most annoying. It’s 2016 and mankind is not able to properly display a few formulas on a webpage.

    The problem is that the software that the nLab runs on was built on the premise that in the future MathML will be the gold standard for encoding mathematics on what pages, but that reality is taking the opposite road. Currently the only browser that natively understands MathML is Firefox and its derivatives. All other browsers fall back on invoking MathJax. But MathJax fails to work properly when there is a nontrivial amount of math on a page.

    Notice that all the math that you see disappear will re-appear eventually. On long pages it takes minutes. Somehow MathJax is programmed in such a clever way that it first renders each formula consecutively, then it removes them all, thinks about it for a few minutes, and then decides to put them all back in after all.

    A while back I had tried to highlight this problem among people who are involved in such matters. With no avail.

    Hence what you should do is:

    1) In the short run: switch to using Firefox.

    2) In the long run: Somebody needs to fix this sad mess. If you know anyone possibly energetic about looking into this, contact him.

    • CommentRowNumber5.
    • CommentAuthortrent
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2016

    Thanks, will use Firefox for nlab browsing and ask category theory inclined computer programmer/scientist friends if they have any interest in this matter or know people who might.

    • CommentRowNumber6.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2016
    • (edited Jun 10th 2016)

    That reminds me: My understanding is that one option might be to make the nLab have “server side MathJax”. I suppose it means that the nLab server would MathJax-render a page once after each edit, then cache the result and serve it up on request without further rendering.

    I should say: if anyone feels like lending a hand with implementing this or anything else: please contact our sys-admin Adeel Khan for how to proceed. (Adeel, I gather, is presently plenty busy with other duties.)

    • CommentRowNumber7.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2016

    This also reminds me that I should ask:

    somehow I did’t manage to make my Firefox browser print nLab pages into a file, such as to produce a pdf. What do I need to do?

    • CommentRowNumber8.
    • CommentAuthorTim_Porter
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2016

    I have sent you a file that was produced from an n-Lab page via printing to pdf from Firefox (on a Macbook). Do you mean a set of instructions how to produce that?

    • CommentRowNumber9.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2016

    Okay, I looked around. Turns out on Windows one needs a plugin to tell Firefox how to print to pdf, and turns out that this plugin doesn’t work with the latest version anymore.

    Welcome to the middle ages. We have one single browser that correctly displays the nLab, and that single browser doesn’t know how to produce pdf-s.

    • CommentRowNumber10.
    • CommentAuthorMike Shulman
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2016

    Clearly the problem is that you are using Windows. (-:

    • CommentRowNumber11.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeJun 11th 2016
    • (edited Jun 11th 2016)

    Also Firefox on Linux has no pdf-output.

    • CommentRowNumber12.
    • CommentAuthorZhen Lin
    • CommentTimeJun 11th 2016
    • (edited Jun 11th 2016)

    It’s one of the print-to-file options.

    • CommentRowNumber13.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeJun 11th 2016

    On my system the print-to-file functionality just allows me to choose a printer driver and produces then a file with the print source code, not with a pdf.

    • CommentRowNumber14.
    • CommentAuthorMike Shulman
    • CommentTimeJun 11th 2016

    That’s weird; what kind of Linux are you using?