Can Greek Letters be Added to the Reply Menu in Online Forums?

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The discussion centers on the proposal to add Greek letters to the reply menu in online forums, enhancing accessibility for users who need these symbols for equations or notation. Participants suggest a dropdown menu for easy insertion of Greek symbols, similar to existing features for other formatting options. Concerns are raised about server load, with some arguing that using Greek letters would be less burdensome than LaTeX. There is also interest in integrating MathJax for better mathematical typesetting, although some users express skepticism about its compatibility with the forum's current setup. Overall, the idea aims to streamline the process of including Greek symbols in forum posts.
  • #31
I'm getting firefox script errors. It's probably my lack of understanding how to use it.
 
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  • #32
dlgoff said:
I'm getting firefox script errors. It's probably my lack of understanding how to use it.

In 3.6.13 I get two trivial css errors
 
  • #33
Works fine for me now. It looks good. I would prefer a slightly bigger size for the stuff we'd normally use tex tags for, but I assume that sort of thing can be tweaked later.

Will we still be using tex and itex tags as before?

I can't tell if this will solve the problems we have right now.
 
  • #34
Fredrik said:
Works fine for me now. It looks good. I would prefer a slightly bigger size for the stuff we'd normally use tex tags for, but I assume that sort of thing can be tweaked later.
indeed

Fredrik said:
Will we still be using tex and itex tags as before?
nope

Fredrik said:
I can't tell if this will solve the problems we have right now.

The equations are generated on the fly. There is no storage or caching.
 
  • #35
Sounds good. Oooh...I just discovered the http://www.mathjax.org/resources/articles-and-presentations/accessible-pages-with-mathjax/ . Pretty sweet.
 
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  • #36
OMG... I must say that I'm really into MathJax now: neat, and beautiful... :x Hope that it'll soon be implemented on our server. :)

Oh, and btw, how can I enter a new line in MathJax?
 
  • #37
The LaTeX code for new line is \\, but it doesn't seem to work in the default environment. It does however work in the align environment, so I would suggest that you use that. For example,

\begin{align} x &= 1\\
y &=2
\end{align}

Alternatively, I'm guessing that we're going to have to put some kind of tags around the math expressions, so you could just put separate tags around expressions that are to appear on different lines. This is of course how we do this now.

1

2
 
  • #38
Still not working.
 
  • #39
Kurdt said:
Still not working.
What happens when you try? (It's working fine for me).
 
  • #40
Fredrik said:
What happens when you try? (It's working fine for me).

Errors on page, then nothing.
 
  • #41
Did you try this page?

Greg Bernhardt said:
ok try now at https://www.physicsforums.com/mathjax/test/preview.html

Fredrik said:
The LaTeX code for new line is \\, but it doesn't seem to work in the default environment. It does however work in the align environment, so I would suggest that you use that. For example,

\begin{align} x &= 1\\
y &=2
\end{align}

Alternatively, I'm guessing that we're going to have to put some kind of tags around the math expressions, so you could just put separate tags around expressions that are to appear on different lines. This is of course how we do this now.

1

2

Yeah, I think there should be some kind of tags, or there may be some way to work around, like enabling \\ by putting \begin{align}, and \end{align} at 2 ends of every post.
 
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  • #42
VietDao29 said:
Did you try this page?

Yep.
 
  • #43
What does "press RETURN" means? Or more precisely - what it DOES? I know how to hit Enter, but unless I click outside of the edit field (as it was required previously) nothing happens.
 
  • #44
Borek said:
What does "press RETURN" means? Or more precisely - what it DOES? I know how to hit Enter, but unless I click outside of the edit field (as it was required previously) nothing happens.
It's the same for me. I just assumed that the app is working as it should, and that the text is wrong about what you should do.

Kurdt said:
Errors on page, then nothing.
Does it work when you try it in another browser?

VietDao29 said:
Yeah, I think there should be some kind of tags, or there may be some way to work around, like enabling \\ by putting \begin{align}, and \end{align} at 2 ends of every post.
You rarely need newlines in LaTeX expressions in a forum post, but a button or a key combination (like Ctrl+A) that inserts

\begin{align}

\end{align}

when you click/press it would be nice. I wouldn't want them inserted by default.
 
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  • #45
The eqnarray environment works.
 
  • #46
I think eqnarray is considered more or less obsolete. align is easier to use and the output looks better. See e.g. this blog post.
 
  • #47
Thanks for that; played around a bit with both environments and I'm inclined to agree.
 
  • #48
I did a "view source" on one of their demo pages. It appears that the tags to begin and start a math expression are \( and \) respectively. Those are pretty annoying to type on a Swedish keyboard, where you have to hold down Alt Gr to type \ and Shift to type ( or ), so I hope there will be a button that we can click to insert the tags. It would be awesome if that feature is sophisticated enough to check if some text is currently selected, and in that case insert the tags before and after that text. (MediaWiki (e.g. Wikipedia) has this feature). This would enable us to type the math expression first, highlight it, and then click the button.

I'm probably just suggesting things that Greg and chroot have already thought of, but it's not like I have anything better to do right now. :smile:

Edit: Looks like \( \) is used where we would use itex tags, and \[ \] where we would use tex tags.
 
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  • #49
Fredrik said:
I think eqnarray is considered more or less obsolete. align is easier to use and the output looks better. See e.g. this blog post.
Thanks for that Fredrik. I think I can even learn how to do this.

Hopefully Greg will provide a little tutorial but I'm bookmarking your link for now.
 
  • #50
Fredrik said:
I did a "view source" on one of their demo pages. It appears that the tags to begin and start a math expression are \( and \) respectively.

Could be wrong but I bet that is something we can easily change. In fact, thinking about it, we'll need to change it to our tex tags so past equations are preserved on once the old latex images are gone.
 
  • #51
Greg Bernhardt said:
Won't be necessary. We will look into switching to mathjax once 1.1 is out of beta.

That's now.

http://www.mathjax.org/news/
 
  • #54
Looking forward to it.
 
  • #55
Greg Bernhardt said:
Could be wrong but I bet that is something we can easily change. In fact, thinking about it, we'll need to change it to our tex tags so past equations are preserved on once the old latex images are gone.
The Stack Exchange network uses MathJaX with $ (inline) and $$ (block) as the delimiters, so it definitely should be possible to change that. At worst I'd imagine it's a matter of changing a couple of constants in the source code.
 
  • #56
It would be nice to have delimiters that are easier to type than [noparse][/itex][/noparse]. $ and $$ are easy enough, but \( and \[ are not. An Alt Gr shortcut would be an OK alternative. For example, if you type "Alt Gr+i" now, "[noparse][/noparse]" is typed, and the cursor is placed between the tags. If you select some text first, the tags are placed around that block of text. We could have e.g. Alt Gr+f and Alt Gr+d for the tags. Assuming of course that this can be configured in vBulletin. If function keys can be used this way, then I would suggest F8 and F9 (or F4 and F5).
 
  • #57
I suppose it shouldn't be too hard* to use '$', '$$', and tex tags to delimit TeX. That way, backwards compatibility is maintained and it's easier to type in LaTeX.*I haven't read the source.
 
  • #58
Fredrik said:
It would be nice to have delimiters that are easier to type than [noparse][/itex][/noparse]. $ and $$ are easy enough, but \( and \[ are not. An Alt Gr shortcut would be an OK alternative. For example, if you type "Alt Gr+i" now, "[noparse][/noparse]" is typed, and the cursor is placed between the tags. If you select some text first, the tags are placed around that block of text. We could have e.g. Alt Gr+f and Alt Gr+d for the tags. Assuming of course that this can be configured in vBulletin. If function keys can be used this way, then I would suggest F8 and F9 (or F4 and F5).
Whatever is done, it'll have to also work for people who don't have an AltGr key (i.e. most US keyboards).
 
  • #59
Fredrik said:
It would be nice to have delimiters that are easier to type than [noparse][/itex][/noparse].
If we have different delimiters, then Greg will have to ensure that the tex and itex tags used in all previous posts be automatically changed to the new ones, so we don't lose the ability to read old TeX. I don't know if that is trivial to do.
 
  • #60
diazona said:
Whatever is done, it'll have to also work for people who don't have an AltGr key (i.e. most US keyboards).
They don't have Alt Gr keys!? :eek: That country is just completely crazy. :wink:

Gokul43201 said:
If we have different delimiters, then Greg will have to ensure that the tex and itex tags used in all previous posts be automatically changed to the new ones, so we don't lose the ability to read old TeX. I don't know if that is trivial to do.
I expect that it will only be trivial if we can have several different delimiters mean the same thing.
 

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