Proposal: Lightweight, ultra-fast slide formula rendering using 3.5KB native MathML

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Slidev is a fantastic presentation tool for developers. However, when rendering mathematical formulas, it primarily relies on KaTeX or MathJax. This introduces a couple of performance bottlenecks:

1. Bundle Size and Loading Speed: KaTeX/MathJax have massive bundle sizes (often hundreds of kilobytes to megabytes of JS and font assets), slowing down slide initialization.
2. Main-Thread Overhead: They require heavy client-side layout engines that mutation-render thousands of DOM/SVG nodes, causing noticeable rendering delay or lags on low-end mobile devices and during transitions.

A Modern Approach: Native Browser MathML
Since 2023, all major web engines (Chromium, WebKit, Gecko) have fully supported the MathML Core specification natively. Instead of bundling a heavy layout engine inside slides, we can compile LaTeX to native <math> elements, delegating layout calculations directly to the browser's C++ rendering engine.

To solve this, we created @webc.site/math:

• Extremely Small: Only 3.58 KB (Gzip), zero dependencies.
• Ultra Fast: Compiles at ~329,000 ops/s (3.6x faster than KaTeX, 48x faster than MathJax).
• No Client-Side Footprint: Renders pure markup with zero rendering script overhead.

We believe introducing a MathML renderer option would fit Slidev's goal of high performance and instant slide compilation!