Mathematics tools

As Derek suggests, this is a very complex question, it currently has no definitive answer. I have found that even though computers are so heavily wrapped by maths, in every stage of their development and operation, Maths is the one subject they are really poor at in its presentation. Whether it be Arithmetic, Algebra, Calculus or anything else, including representing physics, chemistry, biology or any other form of scientific Maths.  (I am not a dev, and my programming days are long gone, so really cannot explain why this is still the case.) Having said that, the one tool I have found that does work in a normal web environment, and can work in a Moodle is TeX, more specifically TeXLive. 

There are many different brands of TeX, and a decent TeX filter is not easy to find, but this is the best I have found so far. The syntax is pretty clear, but involved, so there is a learning curve. There is a lot of online, free, manuals available to give anyone who can read a good chance at picking it up relatively quickly though.

These forums have TeXLive activated, but the release versions can have support for TeXLive or MathJax relatively easily installed. 

Solve \( e^{5x} \) for x giving an exact expression. (Using MathJax)

When using roots of squares, arguments can become tedious, $$\sqrt{4^2}=4$$ or some logarithms are obvious $$log_{10}100 = 2$$ The two above are TeX.

And the presentation here is not what I would like to see in my student's work. That, I think, is Atto, just using an arbitrary centred alignment rather than allowing a user choice the TeX, but it aligns the MathJax properly.  

An alternative though can be using the Generico filter and importing WolframAlpha widgets for people to use. Whether that can be made available to students, though, without giving them editing capability, I can't say.  That, I suspect, is going to be the sticking point.