Last modified: 2011-10-05 22:49:20 UTC
This is a feature request rather than a bug report. Wikipedia's limited version of [[TeX]] is immensely useful in mathematics articles. In particular one can type any and all of the 24 letters of the standard Greek alphabet: : : <math> \alpha\beta\gamma\delta\epsilon\zeta\eta\theta\iota\kappa\lambda\mu\nu\xi\omicron\pi\rho\sigma\tau\upsilon\varphi\chi\psi\omega. \, </math> : However, one cannot (as far as I can tell so far) type the lower-case [[stigma (letter)|stigma]] or [[koppa (letter)|koppa]]. These were used in ancient [[Greek numerals]], and in Wikipedia articles that need to mention ancient Greek arithmetic, they would be useful. For examlpe, the 2nd-century trigonometric table on page 48 of [http://www.wilbourhall.org/pdfs/HeibergAlmagestComplete.pdf this pdf file] uses both stigma and koppa. I think these can be found in some [[LaTex]] packages. I would like to see them available for use in Wikipedia articles. Can someone here help with that?
As an aside, stigma characters can be typed normally (outside of math tags) using Ϛ and ϛ (similar codes exist for Koppa).
But mixing things in math tags with things not in math tags usually results in visually horrifying mismatches in size, alignment, etc.
I will work on this, though there is a small issue regarding \digamma, the package that defines these symbols is called "teubner", but as noted on page 97 of the comprehensive symbols list: http://ctan.math.utah.edu/ctan/tex-archive/info/symbols/comprehensive/symbols-letter.pdf this package will redefine \digamma, which is already defined the amssymb. The package teubner always wins out, despite the loading order of the ams pacakge. There are two ways to handle this that occur to me. The easiest is to allow the replacement, causing the occasional font mismatch for the symbol \digamma, the second option would be to explicitly error and not create a png. But I am open to suggestions/ideas.
Thank you, Nicholas. If this can be made to work in a visually appealing way, I will use it to further edit [[Ptolemy's table of chords]].
Revision r87298 adds the requested characters, as well as a few other archaic greek letters. There doesn't seem to be an issue with \digamma. The characters defined are textmode symbols. Presumably the comprehensive symbol list is warning that in text mode \digamma will no longer render the same way. But with the current implementation, <math>\digamma\koppa</math> will generate the latex code $$\digamma \mbox{\koppa}$$, and \digamma still uses the amssymb defintion. Of course, it will not be possible use this feature to update [[Ptolomey's table of chords]] immediately. First the wikimedia system admins will need to update the install of texvc.
@Nicholas: When would that update happen?
@Michael. To be honest I am not sure. That requires someone with shell access to recompile the updated software. I am a bit new to mediawiki hacking and don't yet understand their release cycle, and I understand even less how wikimedia chooses which versions of mediawiki to use. I think the next step might be to open a new bug with Product wikimedia asking them to update the version of Texvc.
Reapplied with test cases on r97014. Updates should go out with the MediaWiki 1.18 deployment this month (September 2011).
I look forward to this deployment. I'll use it in some excerpts from Ptolemy's table of chords, in the article on that topic. I'll be surprised if there aren't lots of other articles it can be used in.
Did the MediaWiki 1.18 deployment in September fail to happen? At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Michael_Hardy/scratchwork , near the top of the page, you see attempts to use \koppa, \coppa, and \stigma. They don't work.
(In reply to comment #11) > Did the MediaWiki 1.18 deployment in September fail to happen? At > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Michael_Hardy/scratchwork , near the top of > the page, you see attempts to use \koppa, \coppa, and \stigma. They don't > work. 1.18 is now deployed to some wikis, but not to enwiki yet. See http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/16/mediawiki118iscomin/ for the full schedule.
I looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Michael_Hardy/scratchwork several hours ago and was delighted to see this now working. But NOW it NO LONGER WORKS. Does anyone know what's going on?
This morning it worked on firefox on my home computer. The it DID NOT WORK on internet explorer on a machine at Bush Library at Hamline University. A few minutes ago it again worked on firefox on my home computer. NOW it's not working on firefox on my home computer but IS working on internet explorer on my home computer. I plan to use these heavily in an article if they're ever working reliably, but that has to wait until they're working reliably. Is there some realistic chance that that will happen some day?
It doesn't work on firefox the Linux machine I'm using at the University of Minnesota. It has worked on a few browsers, but apparently not on most.
(In reply to comment #13) > I looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Michael_Hardy/scratchwork several > hours ago and was delighted to see this now working. > > But NOW it NO LONGER WORKS. > > Does anyone know what's going on? Works for me (both logged in and logged out) If you're not logged in from the browsers where it doesn't work, my immediate guess would be something stuck in squid cache (in which case an edit should purge old caches) This should not be browser/OS dependant in anyway, most likely some of the different browsers you're trying are just getting a cached version (or at least that would be my initial guess. Given it appears to be working for me, I don't really know)
I now suspect that what's happening is that it's working when I _am_ logged in and not when I'm not logged in. That suggests the problem might be with MathJax.
Sorry---I had that backwards: It's working when I'm __not__ logged in, but not when I _am_ logged in.
(In reply to comment #18) > Sorry---I had that backwards: It's working when I'm __not__ logged in, but not > when I _am_ logged in. While mathjax is something neither maintained nor supported by us (MediaWiki developers) (We're not opposed to it, we just don't really have anything to do with it). Thus the issue should probably be taken up with the mathjax folks.
"While mathjax is something neither maintained nor supported by us (MediaWiki developers)" This prompts the question of when _that_ will change. Does anybody know anything?
It turns out the problem _was_ with MathJax, and it's fixed now. Thanks to everyone who worked on this (I probably have no way of being sure who those are.)
(In reply to comment #21) > It turns out the problem _was_ with MathJax, and it's fixed now. Thanks to > everyone who worked on this (I probably have no way of being sure who those > are.) Well there was some discussion at [[mw:Requests_for_comment/Reduce_math_rendering_preferences]], but basically whenever someone does it (patches welcome :)
Re-resolving.
