Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Better mathematical typesetting on boards

Options
  • 24-11-2014 1:12pm
    #1
    dlouth15
    Registered Users Posts: 1,169 ✭✭✭


    I'm sure the programmers at boards.ie are tired of waiting around for something to do and management is tired of paying them to sit around doing nothing.

    I have good news. The wait is over!

    Currently mathematics on boards is done by enclosing Latex code between /COLOR]latex[COLOR="Black" ... /COLOR]/latex[COLOR="Black" tags. The Latex code is then sent to an external site, mathtran.org, where a gif is generated. The gif is then displayed in the browser where the /COLOR]latex[COLOR="Black" ... /COLOR]/latex[COLOR="Black" used to be.

    The problem is that gifs are not a great way to display mathematics. They are at a fixed resolution. Subscripts and very small text which sometimes occurs in formulae can come out fuzzy. For example, the subscript on the I below the line is hard to read in this example

    mathtran?tex=4\frac{F^2r^2t^2}{I_3}

    and it can be worse in more complex cases.

    mathtran.org only handles a limited range of Latex commands. You can't do things like matrices for example as far as I'm aware.

    Furthermore, there's no guarantee that mathtran.org will be around forever. What happens if they don't pay their web hosting fee?

    The solution is to switch to something like MathJax. This I believe is available as a plugin for bulletin board software. It renders Latex as well as MathML natively in the browser where the browser supports it, and as bitmapped graphics where it does not e.g old browsers. It also covers a much wider range of latex commands. Things like automatic numbering and referencing, macros and a number of other things are supported. This page gives examples of what can be done.

    http://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/test/examples.html

    I'm sure mathtran.org solution was very good when it was implemented in boards at the time, and certainly better than no mathematical rendering at all. But since then MathJax and other plugins have arrived which offer much better functionality.

    So in conclusion, I think what I'm proposing solves the problem of programmer idleness AND as a bonus provides finally decent mathematical rendering of equations on boards.ie which the users are crying out for.

    My only worry is that because most of the work has already been done by MathJax, the project will be over too quickly.
    Post edited by Shield on


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    Orim
    Registered Users Posts: 4,971 ✭✭✭Orim


    dlouth15 wrote: »
    I'm sure the programmers at boards.ie are tired of waiting around for something to do and management is tired of paying them to sit around doing nothing.

    I don't think that either of things are problems that Boards has.

    Can't see this happening as Boards is away from VB and I can't see them trying to fit in a plugin.


  • Options
    #3
    dlouth15
    Registered Users Posts: 1,169 ✭✭✭dlouth15


    Orim wrote: »
    Can't see this happening as Boards is away from VB and I can't see them trying to fit in a plugin.
    I hope you are not casting aspersions on their abilities here.


  • Options
    #4
    Dav
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,840 ✭✭✭Dav


    Well I'm not sure who's crying out for anything as you're the only person who's ever mentioned it... :)

    If it's a quick fix, it's far more likely to happen, but that's no guarantee. We are running off a very heavily modified VBulletin so adding a plug in may not be as straightforward as usual. I will stick it into the list though.


  • Options
    #5
    dlouth15
    Registered Users Posts: 1,169 ✭✭✭dlouth15


    Dav wrote: »
    Well I'm not sure who's crying out for anything as you're the only person who's ever mentioned it... :)
    I admit that the water charge protests are possibly bigger in number. But that should not detract from the importance of this job.

    In all seriousness though, many thanks Dav.


Advertisement