[Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Wed Jan 26 11:33:01 GMT 2011

The stripslashes function in the save is where I think this goes wrong (the links don’t help – my fault – I thought fiddler would show me what went wrong).

http://uk.php.net/stripslashes

Says is magic_quotes on?

Can you run a phpinfo page?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read
Sent: 26 January 2011 11:28
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

One with double slashes (left open): http://elearning.net.marjon.ac.uk/rlo/play.php?template_id=201

One with single slashes (left open – shouldn’t display correctly): http://elearning.net.marjon.ac.uk/rlo/play.php?template_id=204

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Patrick Lockley
Sent: 26 January 2011 11:12
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Can you link me to your file so I can look at in fiddler?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 26 January 2011 11:11
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Did you check those PHP settings?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read
Sent: 26 January 2011 11:11
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Anyone have any other suggestions to work around this?

Adam

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 24 January 2011 12:03
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

The \ isn’t being escaped. That’s the trouble.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read
Sent: 24 January 2011 12:00
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

When just using just one slash in the editor there are no slashes in the XML – or when re-edited.

When using two, the Xml shows one – and so does the editor when re-opened, but then the preview doesn’t work. Publish, close the re-edit and finally all slashes are gone!

MAGIC!

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 24 January 2011 11:39
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

OK, we so we know it is down to how the editor opens the file. That’s good detective work. It is not happening here. We need to dig around in the process by which the file is opened. Just to check:

If you do it as it should be, i.e. with one slash, what do you see in the saved .xml file on the server? One slash?
And what happens if you then re-edit that file (so it now breaks) and exit again?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read
Sent: 24 January 2011 11:36
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

- open the editor, make some working latex;
- preview – it works, right?
- don’t close the editor
- make it public, set access rights, publish it
- now hit it using the play_wxyz url as your end users would hit it.

DONE.

The LO works when using the play URL – and even when the editor is closed. The changes seem to save, right up until you attempt to re-open the editor and publish – then it seems to strip out the slashes and latex breaks. Of course, needing to constantly re-edit is a bit of a pain!!

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 24 January 2011 11:07
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

>works (until the editor is closed).
That’s the puzzling bit. The file is saved when previewed, so it’s not how the file is being saved, it’s how the file is being opened: try this:

- open the editor, make some working latex;
- preview – it works, right?
- don’t close the editor
- make it public, set access rights, publish it
- now hit it using the play_wxyz url as your end users would hit it.

That fails (because we have just loaded up the xml)?
But preview still works (because we haven’t just loaded up the xml)?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read
Sent: 24 January 2011 11:03
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Double use of HTML chars seems to break the latex whereas \\ or \\ works (until the editor is closed).

Whatever combinations I try the data.xml file still only shows one slash:

- <![CDATA[ Here's a simple bit of maths:
<br><tex src="ax^2 + bx + c"></tex>
<br><br>But you can also do complicated stuff like:
<br><tex src="\frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a} "></tex>
<br><br><br>Or just keep things simple:
<br><tex src="\frac{1}{3}"></tex>
<br><br><br>and like this:
<br><tex src="a \neq 0"></tex>
  ]]>

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 24 January 2011 10:52
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

You can see that in the .xml file?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read
Sent: 24 January 2011 10:52
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Nope, Xerte still strips them out after publish/close/re-edit.

☹

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 24 January 2011 10:35
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Hmm.

Maybe use the html escape character?
From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read
Sent: 24 January 2011 10:28
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Arghhh, it would appear that once you close the edit window and re-open Xerte strips out the extra \s.

Then the latex breaks on windows. Any suggestions?

A.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read
Sent: 24 January 2011 10:23
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Hi Julian

Thanks for the suggestion. It does look like it's something to do with Windows messing around with the "\"s. I've managed to fiddle around to get it to display correctly:

It would appear double \\ is needed before special characters:

<tex src="ax^2 + bx + c"></tex>

<br><br>are given by the formula

<br><tex src="\\frac{-b \\pm \\sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a} <file:///\\frac%7b-b%20\pm%20\sqrt%7bb%5e2%20-%204ac%7d%7d%7b2a%7d%20> "></tex>

<br><br><br>where

<br><tex src="\\frac{1}{3}<file:///\\frac%7b1%7d%7b3%7d>"></tex>

<br><br><br>where

<br><tex src="a \\neq<file:///\\neq> 0"></tex>

Which then outputs:

[cid:image001.png at 01CBBD4C.C9CADAF0]

I don’t suppose there is another work around for this? I’m sure staff could get used to adding the extra “\”s where needed.

Cheers, Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 24 January 2011 10:00
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

After a bit of pre-processing the url that is called is:

latex[1] = 'http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mathtex.cgi?\\png ' + escape(latex[1]) + '#.png';

where latex[1] is the src string, so this returns an image:

http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mathtex.cgi?\png%20e=mc^2#.png<http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mathtex.cgi?\png%20e=mc%5e2#.png>

A simple fraction

http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mathtex.cgi?\png%20\frac{1}{3}#.png<http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mathtex.cgi?\png%20\frac%7b1%7d%7b3%7d#.png>

the #.png is for flash, otherwise it doesn't know an image is coming back, and won't try and display one, so directly in the browser you can do this:

http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mathtex.cgi?\png%20\frac{1}{3}<http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mathtex.cgi?\png%20\frac%7b1%7d%7b3%7d>

It does appear that your '\' is being lost, i.e. not escaped on the way through somewhere.

-----Original Message-----

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read

Sent: 24 January 2011 08:40

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Cheers Pat.

I'll wait and see if Julian can send a latex URL. For the meantime, let's blame Windows...

---------------------------------------------------

Adam Read

eLearning Technologist

Learning and Quality Unit

University College Plymouth St Mark & St John

Tel: 01752 636700 Ext: 5673 | Room: 114

P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

-----Original Message-----

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Patrick Lockley

Sent: 21 January 2011 19:20

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Hello,

Xot has always generated one red error when it loads a project. Never sure why.

As for the problem, and by looking at the latex construction it would seem that the \ character isn't being sent properly.

Adam, your server is windows, so it may send it in a different way. Julian could you send Adam a URL with the latex as a string so he can access it directly and see what happens.

Failing that, click on the latex URL in fiddler and some new panels appear on the right hand side. One of those will show exactly what data has been sent.

If these fail, on the rising of the sun on Tuesday morning, look west and I shall appear ________________________________________

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney [Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk]

Sent: Friday, January 21, 2011 3:34 PM

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

I saw the undefined in there and didn’t like the look of it. Pat knows more about it. It shows you all the requests your machine is making: one of them / some of them will be for the latex images, I wanted to see what they were,

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read

Sent: 21 January 2011 15:33

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Don’t really get fiddler. Here’s what im getting from my machine

#

Result

Protocol

Host

URL

Body

Caching

Content-Type

Process

Comments

Custom

21

404

HTTP

elearning.net.marjon.ac.uk

/favicon.ico

1,635

text/html

chrome:5796

22

200

HTTP

elearning.net.marjon.ac.uk

/rlo/play.php?template_id=201

1,079

text/html

chrome:5796

23

404

HTTP

elearning.net.marjon.ac.uk

/favicon.ico

1,635

text/html

chrome:5796

24

200

HTTP

elearning.net.marjon.ac.uk

/rlo/USER-FILES/201-aread-Nottingham/data.xml?time=1295623900

363

text/xml

chrome:5796

25

404

HTTP

elearning.net.marjon.ac.uk

/rlo/undefined?t=1295623900687

1,635

text/html

chrome:5796

Adam

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney

Sent: 21 January 2011 15:00

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

I want to see what URL is being requested for the latex stuff:

I get this when I try and debug in fiddler – problem?

[cid:image001.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image001.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read

Sent: 21 January 2011 14:44

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

It does seem strange

Here my LO running the code below: http://elearning.net.marjon.ac.uk/rlo/play.php?template_id=201

Can anyone else get proper symbols appearing in an LO using John’s code:

<tex src="ax^2 + bx + c"></tex>

<br><br>are given by the formula

<br><tex src="\frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a} "></tex> <br><br><br>where <br><tex src="a \neq 0"></tex>

Should display like:

[cid:image002.jpg at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image002.jpg at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

Not like this:

[cid:image003.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image003.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

Adam

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney

Sent: 21 January 2011 14:36

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Bit lost then, because those are images returned from a server somewhere. Not sure why the requests from your machine / network for the same thing to the same place return different results…

Post the link to your object so we can run it?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read

Sent: 21 January 2011 14:35

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Yep – updated it earlier to fix the gapfill problem.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney

Sent: 21 January 2011 14:19

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

What XMLEngine.swf have you got?

Is it this one?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read

Sent: 21 January 2011 14:17

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Hi John

Thanks very much for providing the examples. However, mine still doesn’t seem to want to render special characters.

First example:

[cid:image004.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image004.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

Returns this in Xerte:

[cid:image005.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image005.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

Any ideas?

Adam

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of John Horton

Sent: 21 January 2011 14:06

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Here are some examples:

<tex src="ax^2 + bx + c"></tex>

<br><br>are given by the formula

<br><tex src="\frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a} "></tex> <br><br><br>where <br><tex src="a \neq 0"></tex>

[cid:image006.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image006.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

<tex src="e^{-i\pi} \;+ \;1 \;=\; 0"></tex>

[cid:image007.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image007.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

<tex src="E = mc^2"></tex>

<br><br>where

<br><tex src="m = \frac{m_0}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}"></tex>

[cid:image008.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image008.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

<tex src="\frac{1}{c^2}\; \frac{\partial \psi^2}{\partial t^2} \;=\; \nabla^2\psi"></tex>

[cid:image009.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image009.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

This is the general equation where H is the Hamiltonian:

<br><tex src="i\hbar {\partial\Psi(\mathbf{r} ,\,t) \over \partial t} = \hat H \Psi(\mathbf{r},\,t)"></tex>

<br><br>For a single particle in three dimensions it can reduced to:

<tex src="i\hbar\frac{\partial}{\partial t} \Psi(\mathbf{r},\,t) = -\frac{\hbar^2}{2m}\nabla^2\Psi(\mathbf{r},\,t) + V(\mathbf{r})\Psi(\mathbf{r},\,t)"></tex>

[cid:image010.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image010.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Fay Cross

Sent: 21 January 2011 13:55

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

It’s the $ in your example that seems to be causing the problems I think.  This works without them in:

<tex src="\sqrt{2}">

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read

Sent: 21 January 2011 13:07

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Cheers Julian

A.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney

Sent: 21 January 2011 13:03

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

It’s not my project. I did look at the raw xml, but it has a load of escaped characters in there which make it more difficult to copy / paste into a mail.  I have sent your message to the owner of the project.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read

Sent: 21 January 2011 12:16

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

No chance of seeing the text as it appears in that Xerte LO?!

That document doesn’t really help at the moment as I can’t replicate the examples in Xerte until im sure what to include and what not to!

For example, the document tells you to write:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

The square root of two: $\sqrt{2}$. I can type math!

\end{document}

To output:

[cid:image011.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image011.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

But in Xerte

<tex src="\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

The square root of two: $\sqrt{2}$. I can type math!

\end{document}

">

Renders:

[cid:image012.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image012.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

And

<tex src="The square root of two: $\sqrt{2}$. I can type math!"> renders:

[cid:image013.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image013.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

<tex src="$\sqrt{2}$"> just renders:

[cid:image014.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image014.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

Any ideas? I could probably work out what I’m missing from that example Nottingham LATEX LO!

---------------------------------------------------

Adam Read

eLearning Technologist

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney

Sent: 21 January 2011 11:55

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/LaTeXPrimer/

I don’t think there is anything ‘funny’ about the latex service we use. It is a third party service though, but we are working to implementing it ourselves,

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read

Sent: 21 January 2011 11:45

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Any chance of seeing the LATEX code to generate these equations:

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/toolkits/play_595

My LO doesn’t seem to want to do fancy graphic ones (e.g. special chars) – do you need to tell latex to load a set of chars? I can get it to render things like e=mc2 but not much else:

[cid:image015.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]<mailto:[cid:image015.png at 01CBB980.AC292080]>

Bl***y maths…

I’ve tried doing

<tex src="\usepackage{amsmath}”> to no avail.

---------------------------------------------------

Adam Read

eLearning Technologist

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney

Sent: 21 January 2011 11:00

To: Xerte discussion list

Subject: [Xerte] Re: Math Symbols

Use latex in text fields

<tex src=”e=mc^2”>

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read

Sent: 21 January 2011 11:00

To: Xerte discussion list (xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk)

Subject: [Xerte] Math Symbols

Hi all

Is anyone using Math / Scientific symbols in Xerte? I’ve had a request for help from a Maths lecturer who needs to use symbols.

I’ve had a go using <sub> and <sup> which works in XOT with “allow subscripts” ticked, and also came across an earlier list post pointing out HTML chars which seem to work, but I also came across some reference to Latex.

Does latex work in XOT? Last I read it seemed some service you chaps used had crashed?

If there is an easier way than using HTML syntax then let me know. I guess another alternative would be to use some other software and save them as images.

Cheers, Adam

---------------------------------------------------

Adam Read

eLearning Technologist

University College Plymouth St Mark & St John,  Derriford Road, Plymouth, PL6 8BH

            Phone:  01752 636700     Web:  www.ucpmarjon.ac.uk<http://www.ucpmarjon.ac.uk<http://www.ucpmarjon.ac.uk%3chttp:/www.ucpmarjon.ac.uk>>

Principal: Professor Margaret Noble A Church of England College Founded in 1840

University College Plymouth St Mark & St John is a registered charity the trustee