LaTeX update: Read this before posting!

alexander · 07-04-2007

Ok, so today i have finished installing a new latex system, one just like on scienceforums.net, so there are changes.

First of all credits:
Latex people for making this beauty happen
Dave at xyloid.org for his vblatex package
The makers of mhchem package
Tormod for being the most unappreciated person who created and manages this chaos every day, also for being a great man and a father

Tormod's family for being the people who appreciate what he does more then anyone else in the world (or at least i hope they do)
Mercedes Bebzene for being annoying

Jay-qu for being supportive
Buffy for being really cool
Irish for being the coolest
Users of Hypography for using Hypography
Linus Torvalds
Richard Stallaman for defining open-source and freedom
The open-source community
Steve Jobs
The guy that took the picture that i use as my background
My friends and family (especially here at Hypography)
Aspectradio for providing the music when i wanted to smash something because something didn't work
Microsoft for pissing me off so much and making me switch to open-source
AT&T for being a horrible internet provider, as well as for spying on me for the NSA (don't know what I'd do without you guys)
His majesty, the constitutional monarch of The Kingdom of Norway; Harald V
Her majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland; Queen Elisabeth II
The Supreme Pontiff of the Vatican City
(excuse me if i have left anyone out, just don't have enough time)

Ok so what is new with this setup?

Well it uses latex rendering engine itself to convert the tex code to png images, its slower, but it yields better results, produces a better quality pictures and supports plugins (also has better fonts and is more configurable)

Note: the old rendering engine is still up and running, i want people to use the new one though, it is better trust me!

Old Vs. New:

First of all the new version does waaay better arrays, take a look at this code

Code:

left[
  begin{array}{ c c }
     1 & 2 \
     3 & 4
  end{array} right]

perfectly legitimate array code, but in our old package it renders as
Old:
$ \left[ \begin{array}{ c c } 1 & 2 \\ 3 & 4 \end{array} \right] $

while the new one does a better job and renders it as such:
New:
$\left[ \begin{array}{ c c } 1 & 2 \\ 3 & 4 \end{array} \right]$

here is an example of how much cleaner the rendering is in this version:
old:
$\frac{\frac{1}{x}+\frac{1}{y}}{y-z}$
new:
$\frac{\frac{1}{x}+\frac{1}{y}}{y-z}$
old:
$\Delta =\sum_{i=1}^N w_i (x_i - \bar{x})^2$
new:
$\Delta =\sum_{i=1}^N w_i (x_i - \bar{x})^2$

in addition to the new render engine, a new mode is now available for displaying chemical equations

lets try to display a simple chemical formula (not a chemist, merely a hypothetical formula):

Code:

frac{1}{2}^{277}_{90}Th^+

$\frac{1}{2}^{277}_{90}Th^+$

looks clumsy and hard to understand, does the job, but kinda hard to write

now the new method

Code:

1/2^{277}_{90}Th+

${1/2^{277}_{90}Th+}$

does this not look better?

or another one H2O2

H_{2}O_{2}

$H_{2}O_{2}$

vs

H2O2

${H2O2}$

Also, if you are typing a response, instead of taking the whole function and having to rewrite it from scratch (in a reverse engineering fashion), you can click the image and voila, it shows you exactly what the person typed in, correct it and repost it! (saves lots of time)

ok, so now how do you use this new rendering engine, and as you guessed latex tags stay for the old engine (at least until i make sure that everything written for the old engine will render in the new one:
there are 3 new tags:

[math][/math] - renders mathematical equations
[imath][/imath]- renders inline math
[ce]{}[/ce] - renders chemical equations

notes, for ce, you need a set of curly brackets, otherwise the equation will be taken as math or something like that...

more about all that later, please post any problems you may find here or pm me directly about them

also feel free to try the new engine out here, its sort of still in testing (there are some minor differences between mimetex and this package)

there is a 400 character limit on the math, 200 on imath and 200 on ce, if that becomes an issue i can alsways increase the limit, but as i said, any comments or problems you may find, please post here or PM me so they get solved...

enjoy

Play around with it a little, see what you can make of it yourself

oh so i dont forget this is really cool, an online wyswig latex editor:
LaTeX Equation Editor

its not a bad thing to play around with and the code it produces should be compliant with our engine

More references:
Latex Math Symbols

Southtown · 07-04-2007

Dude the red link lines have got to go.

But the 'click me for source' feature is frickin awesome!

And yeah also renders way better.

Tormod · 07-05-2007

Well done, Alex.

sanctus · 07-05-2007

Wow, but what is imath (or inline math)? Doubt very much, it is the same as in C++...

Mercedes Benzene · 07-05-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Southtown

Dude the red link lines have got to go.

Why? They don't seem that bad to me.

Anyway, thanks so much Alexander! This should make things a whole lot easier.

Ohh. PS: No one actually told me I was being annoying. Or that I was being acknowledged, for that matter. So I should be immune from all such accusations.

alexander · 07-07-2007

lol Mercedes, i was just joking around you know, just like when i ackgnowledged the king of Norway, i mean come on right?

besides you were talking about pming tormod a while back, and T told me you pmed him a few times, and he wanted me to try this to satisfy your (as well as other people's) needs and wishes, so in turn, you are the one responsible for this

anyways, you guys think i should make it so when someone uses "latex" tags it will in fine print say that the method is depricated and should not be used, or should i try to convert everything to the new rendering engine, so in turn latex will = math

and sanctus, inline math = mathematical material to be typeset inline

btw working on alignment now

sanctus · 07-08-2007

Sorry, I still don't get it...

Qfwfq · 07-09-2007

math is

imath is $imath$ in the same line

sanctus · 07-10-2007

Ok, thanks Qfwfq, I finally got it

Buffy · 07-10-2007

I'm going to agree with South here: while the utility of the red links is there (for those of you who haven't noticed, you can roll over them and see the latex code), but they're *really* annoying to look at. Even getting the color to change to blue or something less obtrusive would be a big help...

My eyes hurt,
Buffy

LaTeX update: Read this before posting!

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