[Discussion] LaTeX Rendering

Moderator: CmdrWilkens

Locked
User avatar
Surlethe
HATES GRADING
Posts: 12267
Joined: 2004-12-29 03:41pm

[Discussion] LaTeX Rendering

Post by Surlethe »

Over a year ago, there was a thread in the Senate requesting LaTeX rendering software for the board. Nothing came of it. Recently, I brought it up again in a thread about board modifications. In response, I received this PM:
The LaTeX mod you mention appears to hand user-submitted content to the LaTeX program---a full programming language with file access---to render its content. Its security checks are limited to blacklisting a set of known strings, which I find wholly inadequate. While I believe a mathematical rendering package would be useful on this board, this particular mod appears to be a security disaster. I personally wouldn't allow it anywhere near a public web board, and would recommend that you and the Senate not pursue it.
Starglider contacted me today to ask me to submit to the Senate a spoilers tag he implemented in his polls mod. In the course of discussion, rendering LaTeX came up, and he has said that he may be able to, with some effort, adapt this LaTeX-to-HTML renderer into the mod he's making. The LaTeX-to-HTML would, as I understand, effectively remove the security threats to the server and still retain functionality.

Every few months, a math-intensive thread comes up in SLAM where the need to communicate in symbols is hindered by the lack of an effective communication medium. Moreover, some basic math functions are also used in debate threads; they might be useful in some more technical economic discussions (possibly pertaining to peak oil?), as well as any future sci-fi or fantasy threads. I think a LaTeX renderer would serve the board well for the foreseeable future, if it's possible to implement it now with not too much hassle.

What say you all?
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
F. Douglass
User avatar
Beowulf
The Patrician
Posts: 10619
Joined: 2002-07-04 01:18am
Location: 32ULV

Post by Beowulf »

An alternative to a LaTeX to HTML translator would be a modded version of TeX, such that file operations are converted to NOOPs. This would probably create better looking output, because you'd get it as a image, instead of a using a symbol font to draw the special characters (badly).
"preemptive killing of cops might not be such a bad idea from a personal saftey[sic] standpoint..." --Keevan Colton
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
User avatar
Kuroneko
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 2469
Joined: 2003-03-13 03:10am
Location: Fréchet space
Contact:

Post by Kuroneko »

That particular implementation is rather subpar, not even having support for subscripts--despite the fact that this would be extremely simple to implement with the HTML <sub> tag. Come to think of it, just having board support for superscripts and subscripts in BBcode would immensely improve the rendering of equations all by itself, and since it they can be directly translated into HTML without any special handling--except making sure the tags are closed off properly, of course. (Idealy, this would be a bit different from normal bbcode handling, to allow sub-subsripts, etc.)

That said, something like the LatexRender phpBB mod would be superb.
Locked