[Axiom-developer] RE: LatexWiki for free open source AXIOM computer algebra system

[Bill Page]

Bob,

Here is a slightly more convenient link

  http://page.axiom-developer.org

> > 
> > (LatexWiki works inside Plone too. Great!)
> 
> Neat!  I had not tested with plone for the 0.29 release, I 
> had planned to do some more extensive Plone testing for 0.30 
> or 0.31, but I'd appreciate any plone contributions you may 
> have.  It looks like fonts in plone need some work to make 
> math the same size.  Are you using Plone 2?

Yes, I am using Plone 2 and the latest Zwiki-0.30 from darc.

> 
> When I was playing with it, I created a file ploneCustom.css 
> in the plone root directory containing the following::
> 
>     img.equation { vertical-align: middle }
>     .latexwiki { font-family: "serif"; font-size: 16px; 
> background-color: white }
> 
> Comparing to the stylesheet.css currently distributed with 
> latexwiki, I think it should be::
> 
>     img.equation { vertical-align: middle; border: 0px }
>     .latexwiki { 
>       font-family: <dtml-var latexwiki_font missing="'Times 
> New Roman', 'Adobe Serif MM', 
>         'Nimbus Roman No9 L', 'Luxi Serif', 'Bitstream 
> Serif', serif">;
>       <dtml-let 
> fontadj="_.int(REQUEST.get('latexwiki_fontadjust',0))" 
>                 fontsize="latex_font_size">
>       font-size: <dtml-var expr="fontsize+fontadj">px;
>       </dtml-let>
>     }
>     .latexwiki input, .latexwiki select {
>       font-family: 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif;
>       font-size: 12px;
>     }
>     .latexwiki code,
>     .latexwiki pre {
>       font-family: 'Nimbus Mono L', monospace;
>       font-size: <dtml-var expr="latex_font_size" missing="17">px;
>     }
> 
> if you get this working, please send me your ploneCustom.css.

I added your suggested ploneCustom.css to the Plone root.
Looks quite ok to me. Does it look better to you?

I still get a grey/blue background for the LaTeX generated
graphics. (I am using MS Explorer 6.0 -- perhaps a cause of
some differences?)

> ...
> > I have a temporary patch that makes it work, and I will be
> > looking at a better long term solution. The problem appears
> > to be the way that Zope Monster handles the url rewrite for
> > the proxy ...
> 
> Yes, I use fastcgi and apache.  The relevant parts of my 
> httpd.conf are::
> ... 
> this took some time to get working...  Note that zope handles 
> the authentication and the files /etc/apache/passwd and 
> /usr/lib/cgi-bin/Zope don't seem to exist...
>

Ah. I used to run Plone like that when I first installed it.
That would explain why you may not have noticed any problems
with the way LatexWiki generates urls for the images.

I found "fastcgi" it a bit inefficient. In the quest for more
speed and flexibility I switched to the newer proxy method.
There are now some good docs for this on the Zope site - but
there are also too many out-of-date alternatives lying around.

> 
> LatexWiki creates PNG's with a proper alpha-channel, so all 
> you need do is modify the background of the HTML.

In the LatexWiki code I see that you use the Ghostscript
pnggray device. I am running Ghostscript 7.x on RedHat 9.
As far as I know pnggray does not generate "alpha-channel"
transparent graphics. To do that you need the GS pngalpha
device, no?

> i.e. in your stylesheet.css change::
> 
>     img.equation { vertical-align: middle; border: 0px; 
> background-color: #ffcccc; }
>

I will try this.
 
> My goal thus far has been to make the math as seamless as 
> possible, not make it stand out.  ;)
> 
> ... 
> I am also very interested in Axiom, so I'm excited to see you 
> using LatexWiki!  I use Maple heavily and have decided that 
> for my next project I was going to use Maxima, and in general 
> start using and contributing to it (and texmacs).  I wasn't 
> familiar with Axiom until I noticed what you were doing.  Any 
> words on the strengths/weaknesses of Axiom vs.  Maxima?  Any 
> references on this?
> 

I also use Maple heavily and am active in Maple beta testing
for the new release. I have'nt used Maxima much myself. The
best place to ask about Axiom vs. Maxima would be on the axiom
user's list.

  address@hidden

Perhaps Tim Daly will be able to add something when he gets
a few spare moments.

Regards,
Bill Page.