[Axiom-developer] website <-> latex

[Page, Bill]

Tim,

You wrote:

"HTML is a dead end, write-only format."

Well, I know where you are coming from, but I seriously doubt
that you will be able to convince the current generation of
web users of that!  The move is still very strongly away from
traditional LaTeX and towards XML-based extensions of HTML
such as MATHML.

In the current LatexWiki that is implemented at

  http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/Plone/wiki

when you Edit the contents of a page, you have option of
specifying alternate input languages for the page:

   Structured Text + LaTeX
   HTML + LaTeX
   Structured Text
   reStructured Text
   HTML
   Plain text

The thing that is closest to pure LaTeX coding is the first
one: Structured Text + LaTeX. In that case you can have simply
formatted text, e.g. paragraphs and embedded LaTeX coding
(usually only for equations). Structured Text also allows you
to specify list structures, heading etc. but the format is
not the same as in usual LaTeX coding.

I find the HTML + LaTeX option a rather strange mix, however
it is powerful and flexible that the first one.

One enhancement of LatexWiki that I would like to see is a
"pure" LaTeX mode which would parse LaTeX constructions such
as \itemize and some of the other common LaTeX text formatting
codes into the equivalent HTML code rather than rendering it
as a graphic generated from LaTeX output. And this might also
be extended to handle MATHML coding (if desired). We have
had some discussions here about software that can do reliable
LaTeX to HTML/MATHML and I think this could be quite easily
encorporated in LatexWiki. At the present time, it should be
possible to process LaTeX to HTML/MATHML using an external
program and then use the simple HMTL option to upload it to
a wiki page. But if your generated HTML code needs associated
graphics, these will have to be uploaded separately.

I know that Bob McElrath is working on the idea of extending
LatexWiki here:

  http://mcelrath.org/Notes/address@hidden

----

Today I have updated the software on the Axiom Portal so that it
is now possible to subscribe to Discussions (forum topics) as
well as to Wiki pages. For example see the :> Subscribe menu
option at

  http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/Plone/forum/public

In the case of subscription to a Wiki page, any new pages or
comments on these pages are immediately sent to all subscribers.
But in the case of the Discussion (forum) subscriptions, a
digest of new topics and replys is sent only once per week.

Please let me know if you have any trouble using these
features.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim Daly [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 10:22 AM
> To: address@hidden
> Cc: address@hidden; address@hidden
> Subject: learning in public
> 
> 
> More interesting to me would be a way to unify the
> website <-> latex. I can create a website with latex2html
> which is how I usually do these things. I'd like to have
> the information in latex format because I can do so many
> more things with it. HTML is a dead end, write-only format.
> 
> Tim
>