Math formulas in Wiki

Yanche would this be of any use? Would it be of any use to anyone else?

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Math

I have some familiarity with LaTeX but that's about it. It's a Unix based publishing tool. For math equations there's a add on tool that you enter equations using only text characters and then it renders an image that represents the formula. That's what your reference seems to be illustrating. I don't see it of much value to those on the forum. Most don't seem to like formulas let along create them! If I were describing something using a formula I would create the formula graphic on my own computer and then just incorporate the image as part of the text that describes it.

Yanche wrote:For math equations there's a add on tool that you enter equations using only text characters and then it renders an image that represents the formula.

Correct, you need to know the syntax for generating the equations. But it will output some really nice images.

There's some samples here of the syntax and the images: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Dis ... _a_formula

Equation syntax in any language will probably not get the point across, if everyone does not know that specific language. Equation formulas in graphic form would be more meaningfull to anyone reading this.
Richard, there are some great examples of this in the link you provided above.

The trouble with it is the guy writing the equation also needs to know the syntax.

Richard S. wrote:The trouble with it is the guy writing the equation also needs to know the syntax.

Yes, if someone needed to write a program with that formula, with that specific language. More importantly, is the graphic representation of that formula, so anyone can convert it to whatever language they want. I would create the formula graphic on my computer and then take a screen-scrape of that formula, and just post it as a pic. If you want to inlude the syntax with it, all the better.

is alot more meaningful than or

Maybe I got the wrong context of the original question. Are you wondering if it would be a useful addition to the Knowledge Base Wiki? By that I mean an author would upload the text type syntax and the KB Wiki would render it as formula. That would be useful but how many of the forum members might want to explain or discuss things using a formula? If a member wants to use a formula just render it on his own machine and upload it as a graphic image.

More useful to me would be the rendering of the Greek alphabet symbols. A least if there is a way to include them in a sentence with other keyboard typed text. With that I could discuss, for example a particular Greek variable in a formula.

Yanche wrote:More useful to me would be the rendering of the Greek alphabet symbols. A least if there is a way to include them in a sentence with other keyboard typed text. With that I could discuss, for example a particular Greek variable in a formula.

It will do that: http://www.wikiwaves.org/index.php/Help ... aTeX#Fonts

Installed...



Note I'm looking into how to make sure it adds some borders. It will look good in the wiki but that's trick.

If you want to play around with this first

L
• ogin to the KB.
• Click you're name highlighted in red on the top (it should be red if you have not created a user page). For example this would be my page: http://nepacrossroads.com/kb/User:Richard_s.
• If you have not already created this page you'll get a prompt that this page does not exist. You can use this page to tell a little about yourself etc. I'll probably be pulling this page if it exists into the existing profile page for the forum. Click "save".
• Now we're going to create another page for experimentation. Add this to the URL so it loks like this:
  

  Code: Select all

  http://nepacrossroads.com/kb/User:Richard_s./Sandbox

• You'll get another prompt that the page does not exist, You can use this pge for testing purposes. It has all the functionality of any page except it's not included in the standard wiki links...

For example the image above is from here:

http://nepacrossroads.com/kb/User:Richard_s./Sandbox

Directions for the usage of the syntax can be found here:


http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Formula

or here:

http://www.wikiwaves.org/index.php/Help ... _and_LaTeX

Or... probably a thousand sites.

Code: Select all

<math>\Alpha\ \Beta\ \Gamma\ \Delta\ \Epsilon\ \Zeta\ \Eta\ \Theta\ \Iota\ \Kappa\ \Lambda\ \Mu\ \Nu\ \Xi\ \Pi\ \Rho\ \Sigma\ \Tau\ \Upsilon\ \Phi\ \Chi\ \Psi\ \Omega</math>

Makes:




Note that this only works inside the wiki, you cannot use these codes in the forum however you could for example create a page in the wiki and link to the images in a post as I've done here.

Nice! Thanks Richard!

For those who want a online math formula calculator try wolframalpha.com. This company sold a Mac software product called Mathmatica that I used for engineering and management classes in the 90's. A brief trial tonight looks promising.

Snuffy

snuffy wrote:For those who want a online math formula calculator try wolframalpha.com. Snuffy

Yep good company. They have a Windows Vista Gadget that I have installed. Its free, you can get it here....
http://www.wolframalpha.com/downloads.html