jsMath difficulty in beginning to use

jsMath difficulty in beginning to use

by Fred Frazelle -
Number of replies: 7
Hi! i've managed to download and unzip the js program and fonts and place the fonts dir. inside the js directory and create a new dir. on the server and upload the two directories and then download the other two programs: javascript and filter.php and upload them to the filters directory and turn on jsMath filter.

i didn't edit either of the javasrcipt or filter.php files because i haven't got a clue to what to do.

My webhoster says they can't/won't turn on mime.linux bec. of security problems on a shared system so i'm reduced to seeing if i can get this to work. This will mostly be used for jr. high math and high school math symbols.

Uh, when i now look at my site's homepage, it has the jsMath's README in the middle of the page, above other posts to the Forum. i suspect that this is not correct. Anybody know what we've missed in all this?

Have a great day! smile


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In reply to Fred Frazelle

Re: jsMath difficulty in beginning to use

by Fred Frazelle -
This is the actual title of the Readme

View of /contrib/plugins/filter/jsmath/filter.php


thanks and have a great day! smile

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In reply to Fred Frazelle

Re: jsMath difficulty in beginning to use

by Davide Cervone -
It appears that you have saved a view of one of the CVS pages as filter/jsmath/javascript.php and filter/jsmath/filter.php rather than downloading the files themselves. You need to use the DOWNLOAD link on the CVS page rather than the VIEW link, and save that. If done properly, these files will start with "<?PHP" rather than "<!DOCTYPE" followed by HTML.

I also noticed that you have an extra layer of directories. You have filter/jsmath/jsMath/jsMath/ but that is an extra jsMath. You should have filter/jsmath/jsMath/ with the .js files in it. ON the plus side, it does look like you have jsMath installed properly (other than the extra level of nesting).

It may be easier to use this jsMath link (the word jsMath is a link to the jsMath filter page) and follow the "download latest version" link near the bottom right of the page. That will download everything again, but will do it all in one piece so you don't have to get each file separately, and won't run the risk of copying unwanted HTML into the .php files.

Hope that helps.

Davide
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In reply to Davide Cervone

Re: jsMath difficulty in beginning to use

by Fred Frazelle -
Thanks, David!

Yes, i already noticed & fixed (i hope) the subdirectory problem. i'll try and get the correct other 2 files again as per your instructions.

Thanks again and i'll let you know what happens! Have a great afternoon! smile

Edit...

That was fast. i just uploaded the 2 good files and checked the page. It now loads correctly! Thanks a lot!

Are the equations supposed to be centered on the page?

Have a great afternoon! smile
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In reply to Fred Frazelle

Re: jsMath difficulty in beginning to use

by Davide Cervone -
There are two kinds of equations, displayed equations and in-line equations. Displayed equations are shown on a separate line and are centered. In-line equations are part of the text of a paragraph. You get displayed equations using $$...$$ or \[...\] while in-line math is obtained from \(...\). You can also make $...$ produce in-line math, but that is off by default since dollar signs in text are common and could cause text to unexpectedly be rendered as mathematics. You can enable it in the filter/jsmath/javascript.php file by changing the processSingleDollars setting from 0 to 1.

It is also possible to have double-dollars produce in-line mathematics instead of centered displayed math. There is a setting for that in the javascript.php file as well.

Finally, you can set jsMath to process your own custom delimiters in case you want some other way of specifying math. For example you could use triple dollars for display math and double dollars for in-line math if you want. (It would be best to turn off the other forms if you do that, however.)

Davide
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In reply to Davide Cervone

Re: jsMath difficulty in beginning to use

by Fred Frazelle -
Davide

Thanks for the reply! i'll try this as well and see what happens.

BTW, i don't have access to the MS Explorer (i'm on a Linux box and am using FireFox) and i saw a post earlier where jsMath didn't display well in Explorer and was wondering if this was still an issue since most of our students will probably be using Expl.

Have a great evening! smile and thanks again for your extensive and complete help.
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In reply to Fred Frazelle

Re: jsMath difficulty in beginning to use

by Davide Cervone -
Well, Internet Explorer is the most bug-filled browser I've ever had to work with, so it certainly is possible that there are still some issues with it and jsMath. I've fixed all the ones I know about, and in particular, the alignment problem that was mentioned in August 2006 (the last message I can find relating to MSIE and jsMath). So I think you should be OK to use jsMath with IE6 and IE7.

Davide
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In reply to Davide Cervone

Re: jsMath difficulty in beginning to use

by Fred Frazelle -
Davide! Again, thanks! i was worried a bit about this issue -- we even moved from Opera, which we originally started with, to Firefox, since FF is OpenSource and we are trying to support this model of colaboration, cooperation and mutual help as much as possible.

i'll see if i can get my son-in-law's laptop when he comes over next to check it out.

Have a great afternoon! smile
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