Re: [xwiki-users] Latex html in editor for math formulas?
Le 25 févr. 08 à 11:48, Sergiu Dumitriu a écrit : That is exactly one of the problems with MathTran: It is on a remote host. This means that: - it might not be usable in some strict intranets, where there's no or restricted access to the internet - If the MathTran server is down, then no images will appear - It increases the traffic to an external server If it were to be installed on a local server, then we're back to the other problem: heavy installation. This flexibility is sane I feel. be fully rich since this language is not specified) is LaTeX to MathML... the differences always byte TeX-experts. This is my sole reason to push a pure TeX approach such as MathTran (aside of the high-layout-quality). Still, it is TeX and not LaTeX, as I read in the Moodle page talking about MathTran. This is a drawback, as LaTeX users will be confused. I, for one, know only the LaTeX syntax. This difference is livable to all mathematicians I know of. A problem with non-TeX is that the result is not as good looking as a TeX one. Damn, those articles look good! Still, the wiki is not meant to be the complete article authoring product. It is just the place where the authors can collaborate on the article, and have a fair preview of how the document would look, then export it as a LaTeX document which can be processed by a real tex system. As reaction to your concerns, Jonathan Fine has posted a blog entry: http://jonathanfine.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/using-mathtran-in- blogs-and-wikis/ which describes well the embedding methods. I tend to believe that XWiki distributions (SPAWN distributions) should ship with the medium (proxied) method (maybe optionally activated) and with DVI processing for printing (again an option, depends on the TeX fonts). And another thing is that the STIX fonts are almost (!) ready. They are passed the beta preview stage, and will soon be final. Perhaps MathML and PNG-ed MathML equation will look better with those fonts. There's more than the fonts... there's the layout capabilities and this is where no system competes. And, sure, Stixfonts can do a lot but they have been soo late that trust is not really best... the beta was for several years ago! Should I rather stop the TeX approach (MathTran has limitations e.g. with the usage of self-defined macros) and push more the MathML one? It's basically about assessing the eternal need for real TeX. I'd say that the web is moving towards XML and XML languages. MathML belongs to the future. There are much more tools that support MathML than (La)TeX. Still, asking users to write MathML in the wiki content is too much. So, there should be support for LaTeX equations, but they should not be interpreted by a TeX engine (be it local or a remote service), instead they should be transformed into MathML (as good as possible, whenever there's a difference it can be addressed and fixed). This option has been difficult and haunting for many many many folks. Therefore I was more than happy to see the appearance of a TeX daemon in the form of MathTran. We can still shop for MathML-based solutions: - a browser-level editor (in GWT ideally(!)) - a feature-rich syntax-to-mathml-p converter - a rendering to picture and a rendering for print I'm just worried it takes mch longer. paul smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature ___ users mailing list users@xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
Re: [xwiki-users] Latex html in editor for math formulas?
Paul Libbrecht wrote: Le 21 févr. 08 à 05:07, Sergiu Dumitriu a écrit : We're currently using FOP to generate PDFs. FOP cannot use DVIs (at least not currently, with the available external resource plugins). It does support some EPS. Therefore I asked if drawing on some Graphics2D was doable as part of that (I suppose it could be piped along with Batik's Graphics object for example). We do have a dvi2svg tool already here. We'd still be minimal in terms of installation... the TeX fonts only and still not the TeX system. However, using the TeX system brings some problems: - there is a dependency on an external tool, as we cannot bundle a TeX system. No. That is the idea of using MathTran as a service... it's a remote service currently the macro just generates the appropriate img tags. All the PNG generation and TeX running is MathTran's. That is exactly one of the problems with MathTran: It is on a remote host. This means that: - it might not be usable in some strict intranets, where there's no or restricted access to the internet - If the MathTran server is down, then no images will appear - It increases the traffic to an external server If it were to be installed on a local server, then we're back to the other problem: heavy installation. For MathTran to do proper alignment it should be served from the server so caching is being considered. - TeX is pretty slow. Damm less than FOP ! (;-)) (some FOP instances used TeX btw) Indeed, one FOP run is slower than one TeX run. But unless you write/use a TeX daemon (like the MathTran one) then you will have to run TeX many times for one document, while you would still have one FOP run. If it is used only for generating the PDF export of a wiki document with few equations, then that is not a major issue, since exporting PDF is not something frequently done. But imagine using it for displaying a document with several equations (20), and how long it would take to make 20 shell commands to start TeX, generate the eps files, load those files from the disk, and send them to the client. No way this would work without a proper cache. That is why MathTran is a TeX daemon... it seems to be able to make at least hundreds expressions a second. Note... the i2geo server does no rendering... it's all at mathtran's server at the open-university-of-the-uk. Another way to generate nice graphics from LaTeX equations is by combining these tools: one that converts LaTeX to MathML, and one that converts MathML to something else. MathML is surely very good and the MathML tool-set is far richer (see MathML software section of w3.org/Math). I can attest this many times! What's not rich enough to the taste of many mathematicians (and cannot be fully rich since this language is not specified) is LaTeX to MathML... the differences always byte TeX-experts. This is my sole reason to push a pure TeX approach such as MathTran (aside of the high-layout-quality). Still, it is TeX and not LaTeX, as I read in the Moodle page talking about MathTran. This is a drawback, as LaTeX users will be confused. I, for one, know only the LaTeX syntax. A problem with non-TeX is that the result is not as good looking as a TeX one. Damn, those articles look good! Still, the wiki is not meant to be the complete article authoring product. It is just the place where the authors can collaborate on the article, and have a fair preview of how the document would look, then export it as a LaTeX document which can be processed by a real tex system. And another thing is that the STIX fonts are almost (!) ready. They are passed the beta preview stage, and will soon be final. Perhaps MathML and PNG-ed MathML equation will look better with those fonts. As I indicated at other places I wish math-input would be in three flavours: - TeX because there will always be folks asking it - some syntax (but which? Blahtex, which is known to cover the whole wikipedia? itex2mml? LaTeXMML?) which goes to MathML-presentation for supporting browsers (and pictures for others) - a content-oriented syntax that produces OpenMath or MathML-content (searchable, tooltippable, better-copy-and-pastable, ...). In all these situations the TeX fonts are very often needed to do a good quality rendering. Should I rather stop the TeX approach (MathTran has limitations e.g. with the usage of self-defined macros) and push more the MathML one? It's basically about assessing the eternal need for real TeX. I'd say that the web is moving towards XML and XML languages. MathML belongs to the future. There are much more tools that support MathML than (La)TeX. Still, asking users to write MathML in the wiki content is too much. So, there should be support for LaTeX equations, but they should not be interpreted by a TeX engine (be it local or a remote service), instead they should be transformed into MathML (as good as
Re: [xwiki-users] Latex html in editor for math formulas?
Le 21 févr. 08 à 05:07, Sergiu Dumitriu a écrit :
We're currently using FOP to generate PDFs. FOP cannot use DVIs (at
least not currently, with the available external resource plugins). It
does support some EPS.
Therefore I asked if drawing on some Graphics2D was doable as part of
that (I suppose it could be piped along with Batik's Graphics object
for example). We do have a dvi2svg tool already here.
We'd still be minimal in terms of installation... the TeX fonts only
and still not the TeX system.
However, using the TeX system brings some problems:
- there is a dependency on an external tool, as we cannot bundle a TeX
system.
No. That is the idea of using MathTran as a service... it's a remote
service currently the macro just generates the appropriate img
tags. All the PNG generation and TeX running is MathTran's.
For MathTran to do proper alignment it should be served from the
server so caching is being considered.
- TeX is pretty slow.
Damm less than FOP ! (;-)) (some FOP instances used TeX btw)
If it is used only for generating the PDF export of a wiki
document with few equations, then that is not a major issue, since
exporting PDF is not something frequently done. But imagine using
it for displaying a document with several equations (20), and how
long
it would take to make 20 shell commands to start TeX, generate the eps
files, load those files from the disk, and send them to the client. No
way this would work without a proper cache.
That is why MathTran is a TeX daemon... it seems to be able to make
at least hundreds expressions a second. Note... the i2geo server does
no rendering... it's all at mathtran's server at the open-university-
of-the-uk.
Another way to generate nice graphics from LaTeX equations is by
combining these tools: one that converts LaTeX to MathML, and one that
converts MathML to something else.
MathML is surely very good and the MathML tool-set is far richer (see
MathML software section of w3.org/Math). I can attest this many times!
What's not rich enough to the taste of many mathematicians (and
cannot be fully rich since this language is not specified) is LaTeX
to MathML... the differences always byte TeX-experts. This is my sole
reason to push a pure TeX approach such as MathTran (aside of the
high-layout-quality).
As I indicated at other places I wish math-input would be in three
flavours:
- TeX because there will always be folks asking it
- some syntax (but which? Blahtex, which is known to cover the whole
wikipedia? itex2mml? LaTeXMML?) which goes to MathML-presentation for
supporting browsers (and pictures for others)
- a content-oriented syntax that produces OpenMath or MathML-content
(searchable, tooltippable, better-copy-and-pastable, ...).
In all these situations the TeX fonts are very often needed to do a
good quality rendering.
Should I rather stop the TeX approach (MathTran has limitations e.g.
with the usage of self-defined macros) and push more the MathML one?
It's basically about assessing the eternal need for real TeX.
thoughts most welcome!
paul
The first tool is needed as LaTeX is not quite an open standard. There
is only one fully supported compiler, and it has limitations. On the
other hand, MathML is interesting even as a final equation format, as
some browsers have support for it, although with some problems. But
there are many tools that work with MathML, viewers, editors,
converters...
Two candidates I found during a small Google session:
http://math.etsu.edu/LaTeXMathML/LaTeXMathML.js - LaTeX = MathML
converter in JavaScript. The code should be converted to Java, so that
the whole process can be done in the native language for XWiki.
http://jeuclid.sourceforge.net/ - MathML multipurpose tool. among
others, it has a MathML = PNG converter, and a FOP plugin to directly
support MathML in the XML source, which are preserved in the generated
PDF. This means that we don't need to separately convert equations
into
something else and then include some images in the PDF, but we can use
one XML file that contains all the XHTML source and the MathML
equations.
These tools can be combined into a Radeox filter + macro. The filter
allows a fast syntax, like $$\sum(i)$$, while the macro allows some
customization, like
{latex:align=right|zoom=2|background=yellow}\sum(i){latex}
Another TeX=MML converter I found is BlahTeXML, but it is written
in C.
And the code is not so comprehensible, so porting it to java will be
harder. However, by comparing the size of blah and the js converter
above, I'd say that probably blah does a better job at the conversion.
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
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Re: [xwiki-users] Latex html in editor for math formulas?
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 5:07 AM, Sergiu Dumitriu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Paul Libbrecht wrote: ... http://math.etsu.edu/LaTeXMathML/LaTeXMathML.js - LaTeX = MathML converter in JavaScript. The code should be converted to Java, so that the whole process can be done in the native language for XWiki. Did someone test this as a starting point? (I've never used it) http://scenari-platform.org/svn/dev-core/trunk/Jav_EXT/com/scenari/ext/latex/ -- Axel Kramer WikiBlog: http://www.groovy-news.org/e/page/axelclk ___ users mailing list users@xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
Re: [xwiki-users] Latex html in editor for math formulas?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi folks, Will there be an additional button in the editor, to implement formulas? Or is there? Hi, You must be aware of this... http://i2geo.net/bin/Sandbox/Formulae There is at least a thread in xwiki-devs dealing with this issue. Look for MathTran there. http://www.nabble.com/forum/Search.jtp?forum=2564local=yquery=MathTran Hope this helps, Ricardo -- Ricardo Rodríguez Your EPEC Network ICT Team ___ users mailing list users@xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
Re: [xwiki-users] Latex html in editor for math formulas?
Oh thanks ricardo - that was quick I think the MathTran should be good for nowuntil maybe something in-editor is developed Do you have experience with MathTran and linking it to the page? Does it work good and project all LaTex formulae? That would be good to know, before i go out there and tell everybody i have a solution :-). Alan From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [Ricardo Rodriguez] Your EPEC Network ICT Team Sent: Wednesday, 20 February 2008 09:57 To: XWiki Users Subject: Re: [xwiki-users] Latex html in editor for math formulas? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi folks, Will there be an additional button in the editor, to implement formulas? Or is there? Hi, You must be aware of this... http://i2geo.net/bin/Sandbox/Formulae There is at least a thread in xwiki-devs dealing with this issue. Look for MathTran there. http://www.nabble.com/forum/Search.jtp?forum=2564local=yquery=MathTran Hope this helps, Ricardo -- Ricardo Rodríguez Your EPEC Network ICT Team This email message is intended only for the use of the named recipient. Information contained in this email message and its attachments may be privileged, confidential and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, please do not read, copy, use or disclose this communication to others. Also please notify the sender by replying to this message and then delete it from your system. ___ users mailing list users@xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
Re: [xwiki-users] Latex html in editor for math formulas?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi folks, Will there be an additional button in the editor, to implement formulas? Or is there? Or how can I use formulas, maybe you know a good latex html live editor. Since xwiki is more and more used by universities and labs….it would be nice to have something, if there already isnt? Thanx, alan You can also take a look at http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Design/SPAWN (volunteers needed) -- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/ ___ users mailing list users@xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
