I used to use Mathematica or MatLab to export image files of equations or matrices, and embed those images into my papers. I would already have those equations loaded into the software as part of the research, so it really wasn't any extra work, and ensured they were copied over as they were actually used. Why is so much time spent trying to get complex math rendering added to text editors, especially when math resea…
Accessibility. Your nice images are someone blind's nightmare when the most important parts of a stem web page or pdf are actually just an empty alt tag.
If you are at all concerned with performance and can sacrifice a couple features (fewer supported text formatting options & mathematical elements, less legacy support for some browsers). Katex is a great alternative. https://katex.org/
Last time I compared Katex to MathJax, I was also very pleased by Katex's synchronous rendering support, as compared to mathjax. In CoCalc.com I made it use Katex, but if there is an error it falls back to MathJax.
> In CoCalc.com I made it use Katex, but if there is an error it falls back to MathJax.
What % of Katex's rendering attempts fail over to MathJax?
I use MathJax for rendering equations on https://ultimateelectronicsbook.com/ and it's worked very well from a rendering quality perspective. I looked at Katex for performance, but it didn't support all of the LaTeX formatting that I use. You can scroll through https://ultimateelectronicsbook.com/systems-of-equations/ for a particularly formatting-heavy example with lots of matrix equations and augmented matrices, wo…
I used to use Mathematica or MatLab to export image files of equations or matrices, and embed those images into my papers. I would already have those equations loaded into the software as part of the research, so it really wasn't any extra work, and ensured they were copied over as they were actually used. Why is so much time spent trying to get complex math rendering added to text editors, especially when math resea…
Accessibility. Your nice images are someone blind's nightmare when the most important parts of a stem web page or pdf are actually just an empty alt tag.
I really hate to engage further on this as no one seems receptive, but, believe me... accessibility was a must as NSF grants through the university were involved. LaTex and illegible raw ASCII were also embedded in the PDF.
There were other diagrams and charts and graphs, but at some point, no text editor could process and render everything natively, or be fully accessible to every disability.
Last time I compared Katex to MathJax, I was also very pleased by Katex's synchronous rendering support, as compared to mathjax. In CoCalc.com I made it use Katex, but if there is an error it falls back to MathJax.
> In CoCalc.com I made it use Katex, but if there is an error it falls back to MathJax. What % of Katex's rendering attempts fail over to MathJax?
I don't track that, but based on last time when I broke the fallback... it is important to have the fallback. There are cases where MathJax can handle input that is technically not valid in modern latex, and the katex devs explicitly decide not to support that input. My users don't care and have lots of content that works in mathjax only, so I have to support it (since Jupyter compatibility is important, and Jupyter uses mathjax).
Accessibility. Your nice images are someone blind's nightmare when the most important parts of a stem web page or pdf are actually just an empty alt tag.
I really hate to engage further on this as no one seems receptive, but, believe me... accessibility was a must as NSF grants through the university were involved. LaTex and illegible raw ASCII were also embedded in the PDF. There were other diagrams and charts and graphs, but at some point, no text editor could process and render everything natively, or be fully accessible to every disability.
That's why standards. Partial implementations are always a best attempt at something and having it in a uniform way makes it easier for everyone.
NSF grands are only part of the picture. Knowledge is dispersed among arxive.org papers, pdf textbooks and random blog articles with each of them doing different thing and very often this thing is just slap an image of the formula and go on.
I found the documentation hard to follow to get server rendering to work, so here’s an example of MathJax integrated with marked [1], and an example of it in action [2] (scroll down).
I really hate to engage further on this as no one seems receptive, but, believe me... accessibility was a must as NSF grants through the university were involved. LaTex and illegible raw ASCII were also embedded in the PDF. There were other diagrams and charts and graphs, but at some point, no text editor could process and render everything natively, or be fully accessible to every disability.
That's why standards. Partial implementations are always a best attempt at something and having it in a uniform way makes it easier for everyone. NSF grands are only part of the picture. Knowledge is dispersed among arxive.org papers, pdf textbooks and random blog articles with each of them doing different thing and very often this thing is just slap an image of the formula and go on.
How do you standardize new mathematical expressions that haven't been invented/discovered yet? How do you deal with fundamental disagreements surrounding those standards? Politics and Capitalism creep in everywhere, and pretending that a "uniform way" will present itself is childish.
That's why standards. Partial implementations are always a best attempt at something and having it in a uniform way makes it easier for everyone. NSF grands are only part of the picture. Knowledge is dispersed among arxive.org papers, pdf textbooks and random blog articles with each of them doing different thing and very often this thing is just slap an image of the formula and go on.
How do you standardize new mathematical expressions that haven't been invented/discovered yet? How do you deal with fundamental disagreements surrounding those standards? Politics and Capitalism creep in everywhere, and pretending that a "uniform way" will present itself is childish.
I think that you are missing the point. A standard must not dictate which symbols should be used, if it is a straight arrow, curved arrow, or a dotted one. Its purpose is to allow all kinds of symbols, positioning and denoting of relationships so that all symbols, relationships and positioning could be reproduced from the consumer of the data, be it a browser or a screen reader.
How do you standardize new mathematical expressions that haven't been invented/discovered yet? How do you deal with fundamental disagreements surrounding those standards? Politics and Capitalism creep in everywhere, and pretending that a "uniform way" will present itself is childish.
I think that you are missing the point. A standard must not dictate which symbols should be used, if it is a straight arrow, curved arrow, or a dotted one. Its purpose is to allow all kinds of symbols, positioning and denoting of relationships so that all symbols, relationships and positioning could be reproduced from the consumer of the data, be it a browser or a screen reader.
I think that you are missing the point. The set of all kinds of symbols is more expressive than you are prepared to codify.