[Building Sakai] Sakai & MathJax

Fri Apr 15 03:14:29 PDT 2011

Hi all,

Thanks to all of you for your interest in MathJax. We are excited to hear that Sakai Open Aademic Environment has MathJax support, that is very cool. I'd welcome any feedback regarding your experiences with this!

Just a few comments on the issues that were discussed.

- Speed: We have recently released MathJax 1.1, which includes several performance improvements. Together with releasing version 1.1, we also started with a public CDN services which offers very fast download times to readers around the world. (Plus it makes it even easier to set up MathJax and ensures you are always using the latest version). More information about this release is available at http://www.mathjax.org/2011/03/15/news/mathjax-launches-cdn-service-with-1-1-release/

- Bypassing MathJax for pages without mathematics: MathJax can be configured to skip certain areas or content elements. Check out skipTags and ignoreClass on http://www.mathjax.org/docs/1.1/options/tex2jax.html for details and syntax. I guess that is not yet a full solution for your purposes, but it may help to write a routine that checks pages for math elements, marks these, and then only invokes MathJax on marked pages.

- Editor: We are not actively involved in a MathJax-based WYSIWYG editor, but there is definitely activity in this direction. I know that the OpenStudy OCW Scholar platform has a neat integrated calculator - see http://bit.ly/hYnLBe, and click on the "Equation button" in the form.

- Other technologies incorporating MathJax: With the CDN, using MathJax can be as simple as including a single line in your HTML header and include LaTeX or MathML. MathJax can of course also be further customized, and it has a rich API that can be used to integrate it more deeply into your platform, if desired. We have a list of "MathJax in Use" at http://www.mathjax.org/community/mathjax-in-use/ - it's not complete but does list some nice examples and integrations.

Hope this is useful, and thanks again for your interest. Let me know if you have any further questions or points for discussion. Also, please feel free to post technical questions to our User Group at http://groups.google.com/group/mathjax-users, which is also actively monitored by our developers.

Thanks again, cheers,

-Hylke

On Apr 14, 2011, at 5:08 PM, Nate Angell wrote:

> Thanks Nicolas! What about delivering the MathJax library itself? Is
> OAE compressing the JS or attempting to optimize all the libraries in
> any way to improve performance?
> 
> - Nate
> 
> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 8:05 AM, N. Matthijs
> <nicolaas.matthijs at caret.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Hi Nate,
>> 
>> As far as I know, we aren't really experiencing any performance issues
>> because of this. This makes sense to me, as I would expect the library
>> to just do a javascript regex on the page content, which should be really
>> fast.
>> 
>> We are also not processing every page completely, and are leaving it up
>> to individual widgets to specify which DOM elements they want to check
>> for LaTeX and MathML. Currently, I think the pages widget (WYSIWYG
>> editing) for user pages and pages inside of groups (currently heavily
>> changing) is the one area that has it activated by default.
>> 
>> Hope that helps,
>> Nicolaas
>> 
>>> Thanks for that note Lance! Do you know if OAE has addressed the issue
>>> of performance and not loading/processing every page (or in OAE's
>>> case, DOM element?) via MathJax, regardless if it has math to process
>>> or not?
>>> 
>>> - Nate
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 6:19 AM, Speelmon, Lance <lance at indiana.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>> FYI - recent builds of Sakai OAE include MathJax support; see:
>>>> https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/3AK/Math+Formula+Support
>>>> 
>>>> L
>>>> 
>>>> PS - Congrats on the Stack Exchange partnership announcement!
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Apr 13, 2011, at 8:17 PM, Nate Angell wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Hylke:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I see that you may have dropped off this thread you sparked off on the
>>>>> Sakai development list and I wanted to make sure you saw the ensuing
>>>>> discussion.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'd love to hear more about how other technologies have incorporated
>>>>> MathJax, and maybe addressed both the WYSIWYG editor question and the
>>>>> load issues as Matthew outlined below.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Guess about your location in the Netherlands, I'm copying a few folks
>>>>> from the Dutch Sakai community on this email as well, in case it would
>>>>> be fruitful to make connections there.
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> Nate Angell
>>>>> Sakai Product Manager
>>>>> rSmart
>>>>> http://www.rsmart.com
>>>>> ixmati = skype
>>>>> http://twitter.com/xolotl
>>>>> http://xolotl.org
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Matthew Jones <jonespm at umich.edu>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> Agreed, this was discussed but there were a few technical issues that
>>>>>> stopped us, from what I remember:
>>>>>> 1) We ideally don't want the 99%+ of the pages scanned for Latex that
>>>>>> probably won't have it for the 1% that do. We were thinking of some
>>>>>> way with
>>>>>> the CKEditor to have a plugin where a user could enter their Latex
>>>>>> math
>>>>>> equations, then it would put a span with a math class around it
>>>>>> (similar to
>>>>>> how jsMath pre-processed), so that the pre-processor could check the
>>>>>> page
>>>>>> for these classes and only target them rather than scanning all
>>>>>> documents. A
>>>>>> plugin would also make it more obvious to the user that math was
>>>>>> supported
>>>>>> and give them a place to entire it.
>>>>>> 2) We were unable to find a really good wysiwyg editor plugin editor
>>>>>> at the
>>>>>> time, forcing users to edit their math outside of the app or *know*
>>>>>> Latex.
>>>>>> The conversation about an editor kind of sidetracked the discussion on
>>>>>> rendering.
>>>>>> 3) In testing this out, or internal filter would corrupt some of the
>>>>>> latex
>>>>>> (by removing some of the code) and didn't allow the MathML by default.
>>>>>> So
>>>>>> some additional work was needed on that which we didn't have time to
>>>>>> finish
>>>>>> working on at the time.
>>>>>> MathJax definitely looked like a great project to me and certainly
>>>>>> would be
>>>>>> nice for someone to revisit.
>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 9:59 AM, Zhen Qian <zqian2004 at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hi, Hylke:
>>>>>>> Great to hear from you! The idea of integrate of Sakai with MathJax
>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>> definitely of great interest to Sakai community and has been
>>>>>>> discussed a
>>>>>>> couple of times. You can find the latest discussion on this following
>>>>>>> wiki
>>>>>>> page[1].
>>>>>>> Last time we tried is with MathJax v1.0. I believe there is a concern
>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>> the library loading time. I haven't tried the lastest v1.1 yet. I am
>>>>>>> glad to
>>>>>>> report any new findings afterwards.
>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>> - Zhen
>>>>>>> --------------------------------
>>>>>>> Zhen Qian
>>>>>>> Software Developer
>>>>>>> University of Michigan
>>>>>>> 734.647.6343
>>>>>>> ---------------------------------
>>>>>>> [1]
>>>>>>> https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/PED/Math+Editing+Ideas+for+Sakai
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 7:38 AM, Hylke Koers <hylkek at mathjax.org>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> My name is Hylke Koers and I work on MathJax (www.mathjax.org), a
>>>>>>>> new
>>>>>>>> open source web technology that displays mathematics on the web. I
>>>>>>>> am
>>>>>>>> reaching out to you because I believe that MathJax will be of
>>>>>>>> interest to
>>>>>>>> Sakai. I hope this mailing list is the appropriate venue.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> In a nutshell, MathJax is an open source JavaScript technology that
>>>>>>>> dynamically renders mathematical expressions on a webpage, smoothly
>>>>>>>> integrating it into the surrounding text on all levels of zoom and
>>>>>>>> across
>>>>>>>> viewing devices. MathJax is easy to use for both authors and
>>>>>>>> readers: it
>>>>>>>> supports LaTeX and MathML, works on all modern browsers (without
>>>>>>>> plug-ins),
>>>>>>>> tablets, and smartphones, and it can be used on any HTML page by
>>>>>>>> including a
>>>>>>>> single line of code in the HTML header linking to the public MathJax
>>>>>>>> CDN.
>>>>>>>> Besides math display, MathJax also lets users copy and paste math
>>>>>>>> into
>>>>>>>> calculation applications, and helps to make mathematics accessible
>>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>>> readers with print disabilities.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> MathJax is rapidly becoming the new standard for quality display
>>>>>>>> mathematics in HTML. Initiated by Design Science, the American
>>>>>>>> Mathematical
>>>>>>>> Society, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, it
>>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>>> already in use by leading publishers and platforms. Some places
>>>>>>>> where you
>>>>>>>> can see MathJax in action:
>>>>>>>> - Stack Exchange:
>>>>>>>> http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/22954/proving-that-xy-x-y-being-x-and-y-two-strings
>>>>>>>> - OpenStudy OCW Scholar, discussion platform for MIT OpenCourseWare:
>>>>>>>> http://bit.ly/hYnLBe
>>>>>>>> - Connexions: http://cnx.org/content/m36168/latest/
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Please feel free to contact me at hylkek at mathjax.org of you would
>>>>>>>> like to
>>>>>>>> hear more about our project; it would be a pleasure to follow up
>>>>>>>> with more
>>>>>>>> details.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Thanks, and best wishes,
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Hylke Koers
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>> 
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>> 
> 