Last modified: 2013-09-10 14:24:17 UTC

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Bug 25645 - Improve decision when to render a formula as HTML
Improve decision when to render a formula as HTML
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Product: MediaWiki extensions
Classification: Unclassified
Math (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Normal enhancement with 4 votes (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
:
Depends on:
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2010-10-25 12:31 UTC by Phillip Berndt
Modified: 2013-09-10 14:24 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


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Description Phillip Berndt 2010-10-25 12:31:50 UTC
PNG rendering tends to produce quite unreadable text as the fonts (especially font sizes) of text and formulas don't match.

Unfortunately enforcing PNG- or HTML-rendering does not help: The setting "HTML if very simple or else PNG" does render some pretty simple formulas (like $D_f \subseteq \R$) as images while "HTML if possible or else PNG" produces HTML for some formulas which clearly look better when rendered as an image, like $X_1(u,v) = X_u(u,v) = \tfrac{\partial X}{\partial u}(u,v) = DX_{(u,v)}(e_1)$

I suggest implementing one of the following:
* Implement a better mechanism to decide if a formula can be rendered as HTML. IMO sub-/superscript is quite readable in HTML-View, while multiline formulas (Fractions, Cases, Text above equal signs, ..) look better as PNGs
* Use HTML for scriptstyle math per default unless it contains fractions
* Add an attribute to the <math> tag so that authors can decide how to display the formula: "text" math is rendered as HTML while "display" formulas are rendered as PNGs in displaystyle and inserted into a separate line, slightly indented (As if one wrote "\n:<math>..</math>" in WP)

The latter would also improve semantics, which (I guess) would allow for simpler integration of math rendering with the PDF-Extension.

The problem lately led to multiple discussions in German WP regarding whether to use TeX for inline math at all, so I'd appreciate a quick (technical) solution :-)
Comment 1 Frédéric Wang 2013-09-10 14:24:17 UTC
I think the "HTML if very simple or else PNG" option is no longer available, so this bug can be closed.

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