Mathematics tools

finally, I got the mathml filter to work. Here are my working notes:

1. changed executable path from /usr/local/bin/Xalan to
/usr/bin/xalan (since I use debian package xalan) ...
looks like this needs its own config variable at the top

2. changed path for location of filter (already at the top, but not as a clearly labelled config option)

3. had to make the 6 include paths in mmltex.xsl relative to current directory ... maybe this is because debian xalan behaves differently from your Xalan

4. cannot use ± this one is not currently in the list of entities you have already included

I noticed that mimetex.cgi can be compiled to do xbitmap instead of gif ... this might be the best solution for me until june 2004

Thanks for your great work and sorry i ran out of time to make the patches here and send them to you


General note (for future reference): this filter takes MATHML notation and converts into TeX notation with Xalan (using XSL) and then converts TeX notation into gif or xbitmap with a GPL C program called mimetex.cgi (it does one job well in the unix tradition)

To whomever was testing the MathML filter on my site last night:

The reason that your expression cos(pi)=-1 failed to display through my filter, is that whatever software you are using to produce MathML is broken.  It is using the character &#150 to represent the minus sign on the right side of the equation.  This character only displays as a minus sign in the Times New Roman and Arial fonts (not in Courier)  in MS-windows - it is not proper MathML. When I fix the minus sign, your expression does display properly under my filter.

I've improved the MathML filter. It now recognizes over 100 additional character entities (math. symbols). Also some error checking and error messages are provided. The changed files mathml.php and entities.xsl are attached. Here's a link to a page on my system which involves processing quite a lot of MathML:
https://webwork2.math.ohio-state.edu/moodle1_2d/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=10&username=guest

Somebody else posted a bunch of Javascript (which perhaps was meant to output MathML).  This will not work in forum postings, as Moodle does not allow Javascript in forum postings (or any place that students can enter input). Javascript in such areas would pose a serious security threat.