Re: [Filter Effects][css3-transforms] Using MathML for formulas

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 2:08 AM, Aryeh Gregor <ayg@aryeh.name> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 2:51 AM, Rik Cabanier <cabanier@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Does it matter if it's code that only the author understands? It's
> obviously
> > working well enough for Wikipedia to create formulas and they have much
> more
> > complex math than us.
> > It seems that we would have to do quite a bit of work ourselves
> (including
> > learning LaTex) instead of just using texvc.
>
> I think you're misunderstanding what texvc does -- it basically does
> nothing but parse the input, make sure it looks like valid LaTeX with
> all commands on its internal whitelist, wraps it in some boilerplate,
> and then shells out to latex.  Pretty much any valid texvc input is
> already valid LaTeX, give or take some macros that texvc recognizes
> and missing boilerplate that it adds.  Everything you're entering into
> Wikipedia's <math> tags *is* LaTeX.  So there's not much gained by not
> just using LaTeX.  The effort of trying to get texvc set up in a
> non-MediaWiki environment would likely be more than just learning how
> to add the extra boilerplate LaTeX will want.
>
> Also, if all you want is a few PNGs, you can just enter the code in
> Wikipedia, preview, and save the PNG.  That's the easiest way.
>

I was actually planning on doing that :-)
It would be a bit cleaner if I could just use the markup and the w3c server
would do the magic.


>
> (Former MediaWiki developer here, BTW.  :) )
>