Hi i have been searching unsuccessfully to include simple questions to test if the learner can work with logarithms to other bases, i do have a stck server up and running as well. Any help would be great.
Are you interested in just having log notation displayed, using log notation in answers, or actually having calculated answers that include log notations? Those can be three different matters....
Here we have the ability to use log notation via the Moodle Tex filter by enabling the filter and enclosing the appropriate Tex text expression in double dollar signs.
$$\text{If } \log_\alpha x = \log_\alpha y \text{ then } x=y$$
You can then include sch notation in lessons, quizzes, hotpots, etc using multiple choice and similar options.
With respect to have a CAS actually do calculations of logs that wold have to be explored through STACK as I do not think the caculated quiz question includes that option..... but that can be address to the quiz forum.
I'd be happy to just have basic math formatting ability ($$ \sqrt{x} $$, $$ \frac{x}{y} $$, $$ \int_{0}^{3}x\,dx$$, etc., ...) displayed in questions. It would be great to also get math formatting in the answer choices.
So far, with the Moodle Tex filter turned on, I'm seeing the DragMath equation inserter, which works, but the equation formatting is not appearing anywhere in Moodle for me.
Sent you a couple of emails earlier - you need to have a display technology working so that it parses the text expression between double dollar tokens. You need to read the docs about using texdebug.php so you can determine why mimetex is not displaying the equation as fallback. I would suggest that you think about installing either TexLive or mathjax on your server.
Once you get the text expressions displaying we cam take the next step.
Thanks for your reply, my email adress is mighk1969@gmail.com, not too sure which adress i had on my profile, can't seem to find it? (found it now and changed adress)
I will check which display tech i have on the server. Displaying the logs in my questions is not a problem as latex seems to work fine for questions, it is just in the answer boxes where i want the learner to be able to write logs to different bases. I am testing the ability to convert between exponential and log form,
so if i have a=bx the learner must write logba=x, (i used the subscript buttons)
this is drag maths latex -$$ \log \left(3\right)$$ doesnt seem to do other bases.
The closest work around i have thought of is to use hot pot cloze questions with the various parts of the log form as gaps.
Thanks
Sorry, I sent a note to Rick as he had started the thread and I don;t know if you are the same person or not, nor how much of his post applies to you....
If your TeX is displaying OK (i.e. you can put a TeX text expression between two sets of double dolar signs and it shows up like it is supposed to) then you have some display app running (either the TeX filter is turned on and you have mimetex or the actual TeX binaries working, or you have some other Tex display technology running) we can move on to next issue (though you should not exactly what you are using to display Tex.)
Yes, I had not noticed it before but DragMath does have that limitation (no subscript for different bases.) It is something I think that could be easily resolved and I will talk to Alex and Chris about it. In the meantime, for your purposes, you can do manually enter Tex for logs, as in the prior example of \log_\alpha x
Now.... placing Tex in multiple choice dropdowns can be an issue and there are tracker items listed for this in the MC type questions. Please review the discussion here: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-19440 If that is the kind of issue you are noting then there is nothing to be done save changing the type of answer you plan to use. It just means that you have one fewer options as far as displaying possible answers to the student (i.e plain old fashioned multiple choice will - or should - still work.) Give that a shot and see if you can get by your issues.
You could also test for an actual text expression, but because of variability of how students might enter the text expression, and the fact that so many students don;t know much about using Tex, that may be way more trouble than you want. I have recommended AsciimathML in the past because it was specifically designed to be simpler for the student than Tex.
Lastly, you could explore a CAS to see if the CAS would allow you to use calculation to elimiate any confusion, but that would arguably not address notation, onlythe calculated result, and as DragMath was designed to be the front end of STACK in a manner of speaking, I am not sure if STACK will calculate $$\log_\alpha x$$
Ok, last night my server guy installed both TexLive and MathJax on our server, but I don't know where, exactly. And I've already turned on the filter for Tex notation. I've been trying to find useful information in Moodle Docs, but I'm still stuck. This is what I get in every browser:
Rick,
You are thrashing.
First off telling me that your admin "installed TexLive and mathjax" doesn't tell me what they actually did.
Second, you need to use the texdebug tool if you want to use Tex filter. http://docs.moodle.org/en/TeX_filter
Third while you can configure Tex filter and mathjax to run side by side but don't.
Fourth, if you want to use mathjax you need to edit theme files and while the details are mentioned in the forums I don't think they have been added to the docs yet.
Fifth, as I recall your earlier post indicated you were using firefox. Please test with FF before trying with Chrome
Once you run texdebug post the results. It is likely that you have perm and location errors which will need to be adjusted by your admin in the admin screen for the filter (as you say you don't know where the binaries are) and in OS re perms.
Yeah, baby! Thrashing is what I do best. Maybe if I were younger I'd see a future in becoming a math formatting expert. Right now I just want to put some basic symbols in my Moodle homeworks and quizzes. Yeah, low expectations, I know. So, forget MathJax. I'll just focus on DragMath and TexLive. I'm waiting for my SA to meet with me. I'll find out what he did and we'll do some editing and run texdebug together. And, I know browsers are a wildcard. If a single solution can't work on all the majors: IE, FF, Chrome, and Safari, then I'll throw in the towel. We've come this far without beautiful math, we can finish the work without it.
If Texlive is installed and functional you just need to know the correct paths for latex, dvips (Texlive paths) and convert (Imagemagick or Ghostscript path) binaries in settings of tex filter (administration menu) and those binaries need to be executable by all users. Default paths are not allways correct. And note that you can set moodle to use PNG images instead of GIF images for better quality images (at the bottom of that screen - this screenshot is from one of the old posts).
Fear not, Rick, you are almost there
Once you get with your SA I am sure he can assist you in resolving your few remaining issues. As noted in the docs, the Moodle Tex filter at present uses three binary files that are not included in Moodle, and uses mimetex as a fallback executable if the three aren't found. Two of the three are in TexLive and the other is typically pulled from ImageMagick or Ghostscript, but the new versions of TexLive have a dvipng binary that can allow your SA to hack the tex filter to bypass using the convert binary from ImageMagick or Ghostscript (if your SA has an issue with ImageMahick or GhostScript, I can talk him through the hack easily enough.)
Now, with this all in place your Moodle server should take any Tex text expressions, parse them, and display in their place gifs or pngs which are viewable by all. A little reading on using the tl manager and the Tex prolog will allow you to include a wide range of additional Tex functionality (such as long and polynomial division) but first things first.
MathJax can be a rather more elegant solution in some respects as it can produce and parse MathML which provides some greater flexibility and can avoid creating lots of little image files. Now that you have it installed, all you would need to do is hack one Moodle file to add the appropriate invocation of MathJax, which takes about 5 minutes. It is not as extensible as Tex is at the moment, and TexLive should address all your needs for the near future based on your description of your requirements and environment.
Marc
p.s. There are two basic ways to install a TexLive system, by installing a prepackaged distrubition or by installing the TexLive manager, and then using it to manage your TexLive installation. The former is quick and easy and the latter requires a bit more time, but the latter allows you to expand your Tex features more easily....
Marc & Mauno,
Success! You guys rock!
I haven't extensively tested it yet, but I'm happy with what I got.
Thanks for all the help.
Rick
LOL, great! BUT, as I mentioned in my email today, this now opens broad vistas of mathiness which you undoubtedly WILL explore sooner rather than later 
In addition to teaching the Mayan calendar and some basic cryptography throw in a lesson writing Tex text expressions :0
All the best!