User talk:Tori

MediaWiki & Mathematics

Hi, I've seen the text on your user page and if I understand your problem correctly, you want to be able to use MediaWiki code/syntax within the <math>...</math> tags. I believe it would be possible to achieve this with the MathJax extensions (maybe with some little modifications). Please consider taking a look on it. —Matěj Grabovský 17:35, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. I try to set up the extensions but yet no achievements. The message is

Failed to parse (PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex, dvips, gs, and convert):

The mediawiki sees the filesystem different from that I see from the command line. I have compared these two filesystems; the preliminary results are very pessimistic:

1. There is no way to emulate the filesystem seen from mediawiki (I cannot test the commands from the command line). There is no way to check which of programs fails: latex, dvips, gs or convert. There is no way to check, wether the path for each of this command is indicated correctly or not.

2. It is vain to install Latex, dvips, gs and convert at the server: the distribution does not allow the user to indicate the destination; these programs are installed to the directory, unreachable for the mediawiki.

I do not know, is it an internal bug of mediawiki, or the internal bug of the macintosh filesystem, or just their incompatibility. Tori 18:36, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I load the MathJax and try to play it. Tori 19:08, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, setting up texvc and getting it work is really painful. I myself have tried it once on Windows, but support for utilities like latex and OCaml is not very good there, so I gave up. MathJax is great, because you don't have to deal with those server-side problems as the equations are rendered by JavaScript in the client's browser. —Matěj Grabovský 19:47, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to Matěj

Matěj, thank you for the hint; after several probes and errors, I set up the MathJax and the sample seems to runs well at http://130.153.147.71/MathJax/test/sample.html

The MathJax already looks much better than texvc. Even after a week of hard work, after to try a thousand of various versions of LocalSetting.php, the texvc could not display any formula. The MathJax already shows the bunch of beautiful samples.

This does not yet affect the wiki, the mediawiki still tries to run the same corrupted texvc. I read the MathJax.php but I do not understand the meaning of the sentences there; so, I return to the learning of the manuals. It seems, even with the MathJax, the setting up and the debugging of the support of math in the mediawiki requires some qualified programming. If I add the line below

require_once("$IP/extensions/MathJax/MathJax.php");

to the LocalSetting.php then the wiki does not load at all. Tori 11:44, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, en fin, I am successful with the MathJax, it seems to work. Thank you, Matěj; your advice helped a lot. Tori 15:03, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. —Matěj Grabovský 15:20, 12 March 2011 (UTC)