Rendering math equations?

[IreneCrisologo]

Hi folks,
Any updates on this? Rendering math on README pages would be very very helpful.

I know it can be done using online tools like iTex2Img but it would be easier if the normal latex expressions can be digested.

Thanks a bunch!
-i

[adavidzh]

Also #274 was asking to go in this direction. No chance to have a supported way to render math in github README files?

[jayvdb]

I've been doing a little analysis on imsky/PocketEuler#44

One simple and secure approach is to use the small mimetex (code mirrorred at https://github.com/icaoberg/mimetex) , which is a standalone renderrer, not using any other larger binaries like latex.

https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=jessie&searchon=names&keywords=mimetex
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/package/rpms/mimetex/

No CVE since 20090713, which a batch of problems was found. See also https://www.debian.org/security/2009/dsa-1917.en.html

Another approach is the use the MediaWiki approach, which is also battle tested, of texvccheck/texvc , an OCaml program , which has a small checker program (texvccheck) that checks the AMS-Latex before sending to a second program that using latex to render it.

0 CVE : https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=texvc

[jayvdb]

@bkeepers , you closed #274 saying "can't be resolved by a change to the code in this project".

So, which project(s) should this feature be added to? Each of the processors? Or a new project to do that math rendering only?

Most people are interested in maths in markdown , which is https://github.com/vmg/redcarpet , but they have rejected that feature request : vmg/redcarpet#313 and a smaller version of it vmg/redcarpet#395

RST and docutils supports maths, but this has been disabled #83

asciidoctor supports MathJax (asciidoctor/asciidoctor#492) , but without MathJax JS loaded by github markup it wont work. And there is https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-latex

mediawiki has <math> and wikicloth has supported it since 2011 (nricciar/wikicloth#19 / https://github.com/nricciar/wikicloth/blob/master/lib/wikicloth/extensions/math.rb) , but again it isnt enabled by github markup.

Is there a plan? What is the plan? What do you need? How can we help?

[jayvdb]

Note related request for MathML : #551

[jayvdb]

Maybe a first step is for Github to treat typical math mode as non-markdown mode, similar to backticks (..).

Currently Github renders

Let $\text{S}_1(N) = \sum_{p=1}^N \text{E}(p)$

with the _ denoting italics, as

"Let $\text{S}1(N) = \sum{p=1}^N \text{E}(p)$"

The same thing happens with *.

[AaronNGray]

@bkeepers I have found a stop gap solution a site https://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php that generates embedded links with TeX editor that then embeds a gif in GitHub :-

double click on the equation to be taken to the editor ;)

[adavidzh]

Hey @AaronNGray, that is pretty nifty!

[adavidzh]

I'm wondering if the codecogs workaround of @AaronNGray could be packaged with github.io+MathJax?

[AaronNGray]

It would be very easy to make a similar webapp to codecogs https://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php. This would give the security isolation that GitHub needs by having it as a separate web based application.

It would be useful to attach persistant URL's to equations and use them for accessing the images and the editor rather than the long URL's codecogs uses.

Also codecogs does not support many packages. It does not support the 'semantic' and 'maths-symbols' that I need in order to make this useful and I am sure others will want other packages.

https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/semantic
https://www.ctan.org/pkg/maths-symbols

The following should come out as an inference rule :-

and codecogs does not support \usepackage{}

[AaronNGray]

I am putting together a Node.js solution for this.

[taiya]

I taught that GitHub originally had MathJax on his pages, later on removed it to make sure everything was nice and responsive. Why would it be so difficult to have a "preview" button that enables mathjax on demand? Wikipedia seems to be doing math, yet maintain responsiveness, just fine!

[FlorianFranzen]

+1

[allefeld]

How about opt-in MathJax on a per-repository basis? General GitHub responsiveness would not be impaired, but simple math would be there for people who need it.