[Axiom-developer] RE: Bug in LaTeX page on MathAction

[Bill Page]

On December 18, 2005 8:08 AM Michel Lavaud wrote:
>...
> Bill Page wrote:
> > In this case I changed the {displaymath} to {equation*} and
> > the page works again. I do not know the correct rule about
> > when to use {displaymath} or {equation*} in LaTeX. Are they
> > exactly the same?
> 
> displaymath is defined in the "LaTeX de base", equation* is 
> defined in the amstex extension for LaTeX. So equation* ought
> to make an error if compiled with LaTeX de base (i.e. without
> any \usepackage in the preamble of the document), displaymath
> ought to make no error.

Ok, that is clear and I see why displaymath is preferred. I
will submit this as an bug report in IssueTracker and as time
permits, I will see if there is a solution. See Issue #238.

> ...
> I had the feeling that the whole page was compiled by
> LaTeX, but in fact it seems it is only formulas and what
> is inside of a finite set of environments, defined in a
> table internal to the wiki software, is it?

Yes that is correct. The original LaTeXWiki extension of ZWiki
that was developed by Bob McElrath implemented two special
"page types" in ZWiki that have the ability to process a
finite set of LaTeX constructs and display them as an image
in an HTML page. The two types are HTML+LaTeX and Structured
Text+LaTeX.

The extensions that I made provided an additional "pseudo-
environment" written:

\begin{axiom}
...
\end{axiom}

and now also {spad}, {aldor}, {boot}, {lisp} and {reduce},
which are not really processed by LaTeX at all but which
produce output which include the original LaTeX constructs -
specifically equations and symbols.

Most recently I implemented a new page type called "Pamphlet"
which combines the ability to process a full LaTeX document
(more more generally, a file in Axiom pamphlet format which
includes noeb literate programming code chunks) which can be
displayed in 'pdf', 'dvi', or 'ps' format. The pamphlet page
type is also compatible with the older StructuredText+LaTeX
format.

> 
> Just for the sake of curiosity (and it the answer takes only 
> a few lines) : did you try to use the software used in
> planetmath?

I did not know about this website when I designed MathAction.

> And if yes, what reasons led you to use wiki rather than this
> software? As far as I remember, it uses TeX everywhere, and
> the accompanying document comparing it to wiki software 
> seemed very interesting to me. This software ought to avoid 
> such problems, in the same way as TeX4ht avoids them by making
> use of TeX rather than finite conversion tables, as other LaTeX
> to html converters (I repeat it is just for the sake of curiosity,
> I do not suggest to switch from wiki software to planetmath
> software just because wiki did not deal with displaymath :-)
> 

I understand. Thankyou for the reference. I will more closely
at PlanetMath and the associated software.

Regards,
Bill Page.