Latex Revision

1 Description

We should make an evaluation of the current solutions in ILIAS for displaying Latex and formulas.

DZenker suggested MathJax:
I implemented MathJax in our ILIAS installation which was easy, since it's only necessary to change some lines of source code and the URL to the MathJax main script. The only problem was that in preview the ILIAS version string is transfered to the MathJax main script which makes it inoperable, so I had to make a work-around. But it's worth the trouble, since the MathJax rendering of LaTex and MathML is much better than that of the old jsMath since it uses TEX webfonts, it works with all browsers I have tested and no further option settings from the user are necessary. Thus, I recommend to integrate MathJax into the next ILIAS release.

MathQuill could be another option for editing, or even editing + presenation. (Alex, 26 Nov. 2011).

2 Status

3 Additional Information

4 Discussion

JF 5 Jul 2011: We highly appreciate the idea to improve the latex support. We also should improve the way the different solutions are used/activated. Klaus Vorkauf suggested that author decide which solution should be used with a learning module / test, ..., not users. We should continue this discussion, and ideas are appreciated. In general it would also be good, if we could keep the number of third party tools that we depend on small.

Alex 26 Nov 2011: I added MathQuill to the list.

Stefan Koospal 11 Jan 2012: We should go in the direction MathML. MathJax supports TeX and MathML. The formeleditor should produce TeX and MathML.

Alex 20 Mar 2012: The SIG Mathe+ILIAS recommended to replace all existing Latex rendering implementations by MathJax.

JF 16 Apr 2012: We appreciate this improvement and schedule it for 4.3.

5 Implementation

Please note that MathJax is not automatically activated, even if you have used jsMath before. This is due to the fact that either a local installation is necessary or an external installation (e.g. the one supported by the MathJax project) is accessed, which may be not allowed at your institution.

The implementation replaces the former jsMath implementation, without the possibility for users to activate/deactivate the feature individually. Since Javascript-support became a general requirement for ILIAS, we can skip this one.
 
Here's how the settings look in the administration: