New math rendering engine

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by retina

I see the tex stuff perfectly fine.

Anyone using default browser settings will - do you only allow site-specific JS, or allow-for-all?

Mike, I agree with Mr. Cuber that anything that mangles existing posts is a *really* bad idea - and this would not be the first time, either. People put actual time and effort into such formatted posting, throwing them under the bus "because new and shiny!" sends a terrible message about the extent to which their contributions are valued. It's not like the existing TeX support is terribly difficult. You're basically throwing away many thousands of already-made user keystrokes and probably hundreds of hours of preview/format/edit time in order to save some modest number of not-yet-made keystrokes.

I only recently started spending the extra effort to Texify some math-heavy posts - this proposal isn't incentivizing me to continue in that regard.

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I only recently started spending the extra effort to Texify some math-heavy posts - this proposal isn't incentivizing me to continue in that regard.

from what I've found it's mostly things like ( and I'll tex the dollar signs to make sure they show up) y US(x US,z) which turn into y US$(x US$,z) where y and x are values and z is a year in the economics sections and code ( that can sometimes use dollar signs) that isn't in code tags I think.

[retina]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

do you only allow site-specific JS, or allow-for-all?

I don't allow JS for anything. I have completely disabled it. Even if I wanted to run it I can't, unless I go temporarily insane and decide to install a new browser.

[Xyzzy]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Mike, I agree with Mr. Cuber that anything that mangles existing posts is a *really* bad idea - and this would not be the first time, either. People put actual time and effort into such formatted posting, throwing them under the bus "because new and shiny!" sends a terrible message about the extent to which their contributions are valued. It's not like the existing TeX support is terribly difficult. You're basically throwing away many thousands of already-made user keystrokes and probably hundreds of hours of preview/format/edit time in order to save some modest number of not-yet-made keystrokes.

We have spent quite a bit of time examining old posts to make sure that what we are doing works out in the end. Nobody is being thrown under a bus with this change. We have modified some posts today that needed a backslash in front of the dollar sign. No formatting was munged and no meaning was altered. We read every post made on the forum so if someone experiences difficulty posting we will certainly assist them.

The only fly in the ointment is those who do not use JavaScript. We understand that some people like things to be a certain way. We don't have Flash installed on any of our computers. We probably miss out on some cool stuff, but we made that decision knowing that we might miss something. We are not sure how many users do not enable JavaScript, but we expect it is very few. (And we do care about them!)

The benefits to the new math rendering system far outweigh the drawbacks. Plus, it costs us nothing to keep the old system around for those who choose to use it. Since this is primarily a mathematics forum, it makes sense to prioritize mathematical writing above all else. The ability to type math statements out quickly and efficiently (using \$ for the inline delimiter) is worth the small inconvenience it causes when using the dollar sign in other ways. It isn't all about saving keystrokes. It is about the flow of work. We hope the new streamlined method encourages everyone to use it more. We are even learning how to use it now that it is less cumbersome!

In the past we have made some forum decisions that were not-so-popular. Over time, we have drifted to posting polls or requesting feedback for new features and stuff. We are very hesitant to make changes because it is impossible to please everybody all of the time. The time and date stamp for posts is a good example. The other day we updated some (unrelated) options in the control panel and accidentally reset the time and date stamp to the "enhanced" flavor. Within a short time there were comments about it. We decided to let the option stick for a day or so to see how much feedback there would be. Unsurprisingly, the feedback was intensely negative, so we trudged back into the control panel and flipped the necessary switches. (There are a lot of switches!)

Overall, we think that this forum provides a pretty decent place for people to congregate and discuss things. From the beginning we have tried to keep things as lean and simple as possible. The message (content) is what makes this forum such a fantastic place. Our fundamental mission is to deliver that content with as little distraction as possible. No ads. No overbearing social media plugins. No signatures. Minimal avatars. Any decision that the user can make we have enabled. If we haven't enabled it and it is there it is because we do not know about it or we do not understand it. If there was a way to provide custom time and date stamps for each user we would love to offer that option.

We all know that the forum allows us to partake in some silliness. Without feedback from the users and the mods we are certain we would run this place into the ground. We like to think we have found a level of silliness that is acceptable to most people. Certain things tweak certain people certain ways but that is expected since all of us are different. If we have learned anything over the lifespan of this forum it is to think about things from other people's point of view. We are honored that we are even allowed to hang out here, because in real life this forum would be like a giant university lecture room full of scientists and students, and we would be the guy emptying the trash and polishing the floor.

As usual, we are rambling!

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by retina

I don't allow JS for anything. I have completely disabled it. Even if I wanted to run it I can't, unless I go temporarily insane and decide to install a new browser.

Well, you must be using some kind of magic I don't possess, because for me using FF it definitely requires JS for the 2 sites I mentioned to be enabled. I can even see the 2-step process as the page loads - first the plaintext, then a split-second afterward it gets reformatted.

Mike, another potential problem, which may be browser-specific, but which I see, repeatably: After about 10 seconds the rendered math converts to horizontal lines, as illustrated below in the before and after screenshots. I'm using an older version (22.0) of FF on this here Mac, don't feel like upgrading because all versions after that have the 'image display' checkbox removed from the user options menu. (There's a 3rd-party plugin now to again restore control over that bandwidth-hoggishness (not loading images is a big speedup in a slow shared-WiFi setting), but why should I install extra crap just to regain control over a feature Mozilla should never have removed from User Options to begin with?)

Does anyone else experience this 'flatlining' behavior?

[retina]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Well, you must be using some kind of magic I don't possess, because for me using FF it definitely requires JS for the 2 sites I mentioned to be enabled. I can even see the 2-step process as the page loads - first the plaintext, then a split-second afterward it gets reformatted.

The stuff in the tex tags doesn't need JS. They are images.

ramshanker's post: http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthr...776#post417776

Gives me this image: http://www.mersenneforum.org/cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi?x%20=%20{-b%20\pm%20\sqrt{b^2-4ac}%20\over%202a}

[Xyzzy]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I'm using an older version (22.0) of FF on this here Mac, don't feel like upgrading because all versions after that have the 'image display' checkbox removed from the user options menu. (There's a 3rd-party plugin now to again restore control over that bandwidth-hoggishness (not loading images is a big speedup in a slow shared-WiFi setting), but why should I install extra crap just to regain control over a feature Mozilla should never have removed from User Options to begin with?)

If the option is in "about:config" is that acceptable?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/981640

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Does anyone else experience this 'flatlining' behavior?

Here is their open-issue page: https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax/issues

Here is a set of test pages using the forum server to source the JavaScript files:

http://mersenneforum.org/MathJax/test/examples.html

(The last link in that page shows a log of what is going on.)

[Xyzzy]

We have loaded the JavaScript files onto the forum server so now everything is loaded from one source. We don't think we have broken anything but if we have please let us know.

[henryzz]

I can understand not wanting a lot of JS even the majority. I think that it is a common enough tool that rather than turning it off it is much better to use something like noscript. The sites that bug me are the ones that reference JS from loads of different sites and those in turn reference more.

[Xyzzy]

Originally Posted by henryzz

I can understand not wanting a lot of JS even the majority. I think that it is a common enough tool that rather than turning it off it is much better to use something like noscript. The sites that bug me are the ones that reference JS from loads of different sites and those in turn reference more.

This is a fun site: http://www.lingscars.com/

[science_man_88]

I've mostly been looking at the soapbox to see what's messed up but I know from wikipedia it can also mess up programming so is there anything I should look for that's not on wikipedia that might find results that are messed up ?