Hi Markus,
with regard to the beta status: I think if word was open source it would be called
word-beta.
Mathoid can be installed locally, via npm install mathoid.
If your application supports HTML5 you can just include the MathML returned by your local
mathoid installation (or take the cached version from the service wmf provides for the
public benefits.
You could also install your own restbase instance for caching.
However, this requires some technical skills. Gabriel Wicke and me are working on Docker
Containers, to simplify the installation procedure.
When you use MathML there are (in theory) no problems with the styling and the integration
to your custom application.
However, for devices that do not fully support HTML5 the fallback images are not optimal,
since their shape is fixed.
They look similar to the way how LaTeX would render the input and do not adjust to the
layout.
While LaTeX is appreciated by many scientists, web browsers are no TeX renders and display
the declarative style information.
Note, that this is a completely different approach from imperative TeX typesetting
instructions.
MathJax now tries to support imperative typesetting instructions within a declarative
document.
While this is a nice bridge technology, we should finally aim for full declaratively.
Putting that in a broader picture, I completely share your initial skepticism in starting
with this texvc dialect.
The optimal way would certainly be to support content MathML to support all the formula
semantics
https://www.w3.org/TR/MathML3/chapter4.html .
However, while this is a nice idea I think it's not very likely at the moment that
people would enter content MathML expressions.
Therefore, I think it's reasonable to start with the same format that used within
Wikipedia, and keep the formats in sync.
For the future one could image a tex dialect that includes semantic macros that link to
the semantic concepts as defined in the MathML sepc
For example the following input
$ Z(t) = \exp@{\iunit \vartheta(t)} \RiemannZeta@{\tfrac{1}{2}+\iunit t} $
Which would be rendered as displayed here
http://drmf.wmflabs.org/wiki/Formula:DLMF:25.10:E1
The input form above was used by the editors of the DLMF
http://dlmf.nist.gov/ to produce
a digital version of the
Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables, edited
by Milton Abramowitz and Irene A. Stegun.
While there are a lot of plans what could be done in the future like for instance
- Identifier Namespaces in Mathematical Notation
http://de.slideshare.net/AlexeyGrigorev/identifier-namespaces-in-mathematic…)
- Wolfram Alpha integration
https://www.dima.tu-berlin.de/menue/theses/open_theses/msc_integrating_comp…
We still need to walk before we run. I.e. start with something simple and plan more
advanced stuff for the future.
The intermediate next steps are discussed here
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T67397
If you think that there is an idea that is ready to implement please share it in the
structured task tracker.
Thank you again for all your input and the interest in that project.
Moritz
*Disclaimer: I'm a PhD student in the Database Systems and Information Management
Group. While this message reflects my personal opinion, I might have been influenced from
Database Research ideas. Moreover, I'm director of the MathML association and there
committed to the association goals in enabling math rendering in all Web rendering engines
http://mathml-association.org/ . In addition, I'm an offsite collaborator of the
National Institute of Standards and Technology in the USA and I really appreciate
standards.
Moritz Schubotz
TU Berlin, Fakultät IV
DIMA - Sekr. EN7
Raum E-N 741
Einsteinufer 17
D-10587 Berlin
Germany
Tel.: +49 30 314 22784
Mobil:+49 1578 047 1397
E-Mail: schubotz(a)tu-berlin.de
Skype: Schubi87
ICQ: 200302764
Msn: Moritz(a)Schubotz.de
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Markus Krötzsch [mailto:markus@semantic-mediawiki.org]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 4. Februar 2016 08:20
An: Schubotz, Moritz; Discussion list for the Wikidata project.
Betreff: Re: AW: AW: [Wikidata] upcoming deployments/features
Hi Moritz,
On 03.02.2016 15:25, Schubotz, Moritz wrote:
Hi Markus,
I think we agree on the goals cf.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1404.6179 By
the way the texvc dialect is now 13 years old at least.
For now it's required to be 100% compatible to the texvc dialect in order to use
wikidata in Mediawiki instances.
However, for the future there are also plans to support more markup.
But all new options are blocked by
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T74240
Mathoid, the service that converts the texvc dialect to MathML, SVG + PNG can also be
used without a MediaWiki instance.
I posted links to the Restbase Web UI before.
api.formulasearchengine.com (with experimental features)
de.wikipedia.org/api (stable)
This is the API you said "has been opened to the public just moments ago" and
which describes itself as "currently in beta testing"? That seems a bit shaky to
say the least. In your email, you said that this API was for extracting LaTeX package
names and identifiers, not for rendering content, so I have not looked at it for this
purpose. How does this compare to MathJax in terms of usage? Are the output types similar?
It seems your solution adds the dependency on an external server, so this cannot be used
in offline mode, I suppose? How does it support styling of content for your own
application, e.g., how do you select the fonts to be used?
I think we agree that real documentation should be a bit more than an unexplained link in
an email. Anyway, it is not your role to provide documentation on new Wikidata features or
to make sure that stakeholders are taken along when new features are deployed, so
don't worry too much about this. I am sure your students did a good job implementing
this, and from there on it is really in other people's hands.
Cheers,
Markus
Am 03.02.2016 um 14:31 schrieb Markus Krötzsch:
Hi Moritz,
I must say that this is not very reassuring. So basically what we
have in this datatype now is a "LaTeX-like" markup language that is
only supported by one implementation that was created for MediaWiki,
and partially by a LaTeX package that you created.
Markus, this TeX dialoect is not a new invention by Moritz. It's what
the Math extension for MediaWiki has been using for over a decade now,
and it's used on hundreds of thousands of pages on Wikipedia. All that
we are doing now is making this same exact syntax available for
property values on wikibase, using the same exact code for rendering it.
I think having consistent handling for math formulas between wikitext
and wikibase is the right thing to do. Of course it would have been
nice for MediaWiki to not invent it's own TeX dialect for this, but
it's 10 years to late for that complaint now.
Moritz, I seem to recall that the new Math extension uses a standalone
service for rendering TeX to PNG, SVG, or MathML. Can that service
easily be used outside the context of MediaWiki?