Editing Equations on Web 2.0 Sites - Mathematics http://maths.groups.vox.com/library/post/6a00fad69d53b000050110166ea1ba860c.

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Editing Equations on Web 2.0 Sites

Colin McAllister Jul 7, 2009 at 12:12 PM 2 comments Share Options

Support for equation editing is a weakness of all Web 2.0

sites that I have encountered. Students and lecturers of
science and mathematics need to use equations and
Quadratic_Solutions
formulae to develop their work. The blackboard or
whiteboard is convenient in the classroom, but academics
also need to share their work online. Social networks and Web 2.0 sites are the ideal forum for sharing, but they are not
geared for academic use. Programmers of FORTRAN, ALGOL and C already have a solution; they have been
expressing equations in plain text for half a century. It is common to see x-squared written as x^2, and the square root of
x as x^.5, (x to the power of one half), but many people would not be familiar with that shorthand. Some Web 2.0 sites
support HTML markup when editing posts and comments, and provide format controls like Bold and Italics on the
toolbar. Academic discussions would be considerably improved if Web 2.0 sites would add just three buttons:
Superscript, Subscript and Greek letters to the editing toolbar. Some social networks, such as LinkedIn.com and
Friendster.com do not support any HTML editing. The Hi5.com social network supports HTML in discussions, but you
need to code it by hand, or with HTML editing software such as Kompozer, and paste it into the edit box. Most blogs let
you attach an image to your post, so a solution is to use an online equation editor, as at CodeCogs or Thornahawk, to
generate an image of your equation. For example, the expression "\frac{-b\pm{\sqrt[]{(b^2 - 4*a*c)}}}{2a}" renders the
formula for solutions to the quadratic equation a*x^2+b*x+c=0. I uploaded the rendered image
"Quadratics_Solutions.gif" to this blog post. One popular Web 2.0 service, the online collaboration tool Zoho Writer has

1 of 3 08/07/2009 10:38
Editing Equations on Web 2.0 Sites - Mathematics http://maths.groups.vox.com/library/post/6a00fad69d53b000050110166ea1ba860c.html

a LaTeX Equation Editor. According to the Zoho Blog: "As you may know, a significant % of our users are students. We
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got a lot of requests from this user segment to build an Equation Editor into Zoho Writer. And Zoho Writer has it now."
The tool that Zoho added is LaTeX, a document markup language developed in the 1980's. If you host a blog or web
page, you can use equation rendering plug-ins or cgi programs such as Yourequations.com or MathTex to embed
Libraries in Malaysia
equations into your online content. Search for local libraries
This topic is also being discussed at Mathematics24x7.ning.com and on the Math, Math Education, Math Culture in your area.
www.701panduan.com
group at LinkedIn.com.

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Feedback sent to vox@sixapart.com. Please Support Simple Equation Editing on Vox Flag as offensive
Blog Posts. Many students and professionals need to edit and render equations or
formulae on blog posts and comments. Discussions would be considerably improved if Your rating: Suami Pancut Awal?
Vox.com would add just three buttons: Superscript, Subscript and Greek letters to the Lebih lama. Lebih puas.
HTML editing toolbar. And the square root symbol too! The topic "Editing Equations on 1-3 jam. Jaminan 100%.
Web 2.0 Sites" is being discussed at the active math group
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math, mathematics, science,
education, web2.0, maths
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Colin McAllister wrote:
2 minutes ago Reply Delete Free Countdown Clock
This also appears in:
Countdown Blog Widget
On the LinkedIn.com discussion about this topic, a LinkedIn member, Cal, explained Colin McAllister’s blog
Display a Countdown on
MathML, which is the W3C standard for mathematics on the web. MathML is not supported Physics Your Website
by most web sites and browsers. My response was: Cal, thank you for your reply. There is 29 members hotelscombined.com/Trip_Countdown
a disjoint between what PC users ask for and what they need. The 1994 Intel Pentium bug
cost Intel almost $500 million to fix, yet it had no practical significance. The absence of Web 2.0
rendering of equations online is a much bigger problem for students and scientists, and 261 members
one that could be addressed relatively easily by Microsoft, Apple and social networking Football Blogs
companies; by adhering to existing standards as you suggest. One popular Web 2.0 Breaking news, unique
service, the online collaboration tool Zoho Writer has added a LaTeX Equation Editor. views & more. Find it with
According to the Zoho Blog: "As you may know, a significant % of our users are students.
Google Blog Search.
We got a lot of requests from this user segment to build an Equation Editor into Zoho blogsearch.google.com
Writer. And Zoho Writer has it now." Students are not even asking for new technology; the
tool that Zoho added is LaTeX, a document markup language that was developed in the
1980's.
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