Re: The Feynman Lectures on Physics Online Edition

[Oliver Heimlich]

On 12.01.2016 11:16, Michael A. Gottlieb wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Michael Godfrey forwarded the following to me from this list, written by
> John S.:
> 
> 
>     This [online edition of The Feynman Lectures] does not render well
>     in my browser. The MathJax numbers use a different font with a
>     different weight compared to the surrounding text, which looks very bad.
>     ...
> 
>     MathJax looks bad in Google Chrome on OSX unless I right click and
>     go choose Math Settings-Math Renderer and select SVG as the
>     renderer. The HTML-CSS, Common HTML (which was the default), and
>     Fast HTML all look really bad for me. 
> 
> 
> This concerns me because I am the editor of The Feynman Lectures on
> Physics (FLP) and the publisher of the online edition. I also find it
> surprising because I use Google Chrome on OSX and don't see any problems
> with the rendering of mathematics by MathJax in the online edition of FLP. 
> 
> That  VG rendering works right but HTML-CSS doesn't on your system
> suggests a font problem... but (if you haven't changed the MathJax
> defaults) any fonts missing from your OS should be downloaded
> automatically when they are needed.
> 
> I would like to help resolve this problem, if I can.
> 
> Mike Gottlieb

Well, “looking bad” is a bit harsh.  Most visitors don't have an eye for
these details and won't even notice.  Please look at the screenshots
attached to get an impression.  There seems to be a font problem on my
system.  I have disabled any adblockers and do not enforce particular
fonts in my browser.  Text zoom is at 100%.

There is a very short period of time during page load when the font
looks good.  But then MathJax changes fonts.

Looking at the DOM, I can see “font-size: 113%” for all MathJax frames.
 This seem to cause the too big fonts and also some bad extra margin to
the left.  Maybe you can disable this font-enlargement in MathJax.

Oliver

feynmanlectures-iceweasel-svg.png
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feynmanlectures-iceweasel-htmlcss.png
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feynmanlectures-iceweasel during page load.png
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