Dear all,
The MathML rendering option was enabled in all WMF-deployed wikis
on March 12 for logged-in users [1].
Based on the feedback from the German-speaking community, many
advanced Math users prefer the LaTeX / MathJax style rendering, which
uses a bigger font size and provides an extra bold rendering experience.
Client-side MathJax is perceived to make it easier to differentiate
text and formulae. Consequently, a client-side MathJax rendering
option will be added, allowing power users to have the same experience
as many other websites that rely on client-side MathJax for math rendering [2].
This eventually means that we no longer rely on RestBASE or Mathoid
for math rendering in MediaWiki and can use math support even without
connections to external services. This goes beyond what was promised
after the technical conference in 2019 when the shift away from the
restbase cache was announced [3,4].
MathML rendering makes use of MediaWikis' built-in cache abstraction.
For more details on the new rendering option, see
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.16786.pdf.
In the optimal case, we can discontinue restbase and mathoid math
rendering from version 1.42 and backport the changes to LTS versions.
Please let me know if you rely on mathoid in one way or another.
All the best
Moritz (physikerwelt)
[1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T358803
[2]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T354136
[3]: https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org/…
[4]: https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=RESTBase/deprecation&oldid=6045…