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Show HN: Markdown + LaTeX math in the browser

121 points by pkrein 14y ago

cpursley 14y ago
This is cool. I wanted to do a blog post on some real estate appraisal topics, which requires math examples. Is this open source? Where I can I find socrates.io - it goes straight to the interface.
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  Yup it is! On Github: https://github.com/segmentio/socrates https://github.com/segmentio/socrates
alcuadrado 14y ago
LOVE it!
jessriedel 14y ago
People in this thread may also find GmailTex useful. It's a browser plugin which enables using LaTeX syntax in Gmail and GChat. http://alexeev.org/gmailtex.html http://alexeev.org/gmailtex.html P.S.: This Socrates thing is pretty fantastic. Is there a keyboard shortcut for switching to the compiled view?
somethingnew 14y ago
If you think this is cool, check out http://spandex.io/ http://spandex.io/
kanatzidis 14y ago
Oh man, this is really cool. Great job. I'm the co-founder of http://SpanDeX.io http://SpanDeX.io (which I see someone already commented about) and we love seeing this kind of stuff. Great to see LaTeX getting implemented in a really useful way!
imslavko 14y ago
That's cool. I was using markable.in in last weeks. But lack of code highlighting and Mathjax brings socrates.io on the first place :)
hnwh 14y ago
this looks nice, but i'm confused.. how do i actually use it on my webpage?
traeblain 14y ago
This is great!!
pixie_ 14y ago
Why not use jqMath? It's latex based, 10 times smaller, and 10 times faster than MathJax - which is aimed more at publishers.
- jey 14y ago
  Interesting. Looks like it maps TeX directly to HTML, so it must support fewer constructs? Or what are the downsides? Being 10x faster and 10x smaller without any drawbacks seems too good to be true.
  - jessriedel 14y ago
    "TeX-based" is the operative term here. The syntax is somewhat different true TeX (so it would drive people who use TeX regularly crazy, like me). And I don't believe it has the same abilities.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 14y ago
  jqMath doesn’t use LaTeX.
chjj 14y ago
I recommend upgrading to the latest release of marked ( https://github.com/chjj/marked/tree/v0.2.8 https://github.com/chjj/marked/tree/v0.2.8 ). It has a few improvements as well as GFM tables.
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  Beautiful! You wouldn't happen to know if it supports "smart" quotes would you? Been meaning to find one that does support those. Also auto-id-ing heading elements so they can be hash-linked to? That's another of my marked requests.
  - chjj 14y ago
    > Beautiful! You wouldn't happen to know if it supports "smart" quotes would you? Marked has a pretty big todo list right now. Those are on it somewhere. > Also auto-id-ing heading elements so they can be hash-linked to? This is actually requested less than I expected it to be, but I think I do want to add something for it in the future.
    - ianstormtaylor 14y ago
      Oh nice, didn't make the connection that you were the maintainer ;) Yeah id-ing of heading elements is something I really wish we had for our docs (https://segment.io/docs https://segment.io/docs) because we have to break out of markdown for every header to make them linkable. I just wish I knew enough to be able to contribute. That was my problem with Stylus too...
amckinlay 14y ago
Really wish they used Pandoc Markdown or some other form of extended Markdown... then I could consider using it for real stuff,
csense 14y ago
I tested it on Chromium (the FOSS version of Google Chrome), and in that browser, the math uses a much smaller font than the Firefox version. (Firefox looks "right.") I'm using Linux Mint 14 (the most recent version), the default version of Chromium from the distribution's repo; all packages are up-to-date, and I don't have any browser extensions or any intense customization.
- Benferhat 14y ago
  Same here with Chromium (23.0.1271.97-0ubuntu0.12.04.1)
- warmfuzzykitten 14y ago
  Looks fine in Chrome / Mac OS X.
- indubitably 14y ago
  The Firefox version appears broken to me? http://i.imgur.com/9eeSvlU.png http://i.imgur.com/9eeSvlU.png Firefox 19/OSX Lion
nimrody 14y ago
There used to be a similar service at http://notepag.es/ http://notepag.es/ However, it seems to be down now.
swah 14y ago
In the end, how should I use this product? Writing Latex before compiling the final thing on your PC?
justinvh 14y ago
I wrote a LaTeX Markdown plugin as well, but it served a different purpose. It was geared for offline documents. https://github.com/justinvh/Markdown-LaTeX https://github.com/justinvh/Markdown-LaTeX It generates inline/base64-encoded images with a small file-cache for the generated images. Try it out!
hyperbovine 14y ago
I wish it had better support for live editing, but this is really a limitation of MathJax / TeX in general. Still, I wonder if it might be possible to improve the experience a bit by e.g. only updating when I close a $$ block, etc.
- mcmire 14y ago
  That's what I was going to say. I found the constant reformatting of the math stuff in the right pane extremely jarring. Otherwise, nice and simple.
  - pkrein 14y ago
    yeah -- we'll try to smooth this out!
gmt2027 14y ago
It's a shame that there doesn't seem to be any export option.
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  That's something we've gotten a lot of requests for and want to build one of these weekends :)
warmfuzzykitten 14y ago
Does this mean you can only see the math in Socrates? How do you publish a page on the web outside Socrates?
quaz3l 14y ago
I've been working on something just like this! It is a mashup of Ghost<john.onolan.org/ghost/>, and a editor like this. If you was to see the uncompleted version its here: http://quaz3l.github.com/ghost/g-admin/posts.html http://quaz3l.github.com/ghost/g-admin/posts.html

121 points by pkrein 14y ago

This is cool. I wanted to do a blog post on some real estate appraisal topics, which requires math examples. Is this open source? Where I can I find socrates.io - it goes straight to the interface.

ianstormtaylor 14y ago
Yup it is! On Github: https://github.com/segmentio/socrates https://github.com/segmentio/socrates

alcuadrado 14y ago

LOVE it!

jessriedel 14y ago

People in this thread may also find GmailTex useful. It's a browser plugin which enables using LaTeX syntax in Gmail and GChat. http://alexeev.org/gmailtex.html http://alexeev.org/gmailtex.html P.S.: This Socrates thing is pretty fantastic. Is there a keyboard shortcut for switching to the compiled view?

somethingnew 14y ago

If you think this is cool, check out http://spandex.io/ http://spandex.io/

kanatzidis 14y ago

Oh man, this is really cool. Great job. I'm the co-founder of http://SpanDeX.io http://SpanDeX.io (which I see someone already commented about) and we love seeing this kind of stuff. Great to see LaTeX getting implemented in a really useful way!

imslavko 14y ago

That's cool. I was using markable.in in last weeks. But lack of code highlighting and Mathjax brings socrates.io on the first place :)

hnwh 14y ago

this looks nice, but i'm confused.. how do i actually use it on my webpage?

traeblain 14y ago

This is great!!

pixie_ 14y ago

Why not use jqMath? It's latex based, 10 times smaller, and 10 times faster than MathJax - which is aimed more at publishers.

jey 14y ago
Interesting. Looks like it maps TeX directly to HTML, so it must support fewer constructs? Or what are the downsides? Being 10x faster and 10x smaller without any drawbacks seems too good to be true.
- jessriedel 14y ago
  "TeX-based" is the operative term here. The syntax is somewhat different true TeX (so it would drive people who use TeX regularly crazy, like me). And I don't believe it has the same abilities.
Q6T46nT668w6i3m 14y ago
jqMath doesn’t use LaTeX.

chjj 14y ago

I recommend upgrading to the latest release of marked ( https://github.com/chjj/marked/tree/v0.2.8 https://github.com/chjj/marked/tree/v0.2.8 ). It has a few improvements as well as GFM tables.

ianstormtaylor 14y ago
Beautiful! You wouldn't happen to know if it supports "smart" quotes would you? Been meaning to find one that does support those. Also auto-id-ing heading elements so they can be hash-linked to? That's another of my marked requests.
- chjj 14y ago
  > Beautiful! You wouldn't happen to know if it supports "smart" quotes would you? Marked has a pretty big todo list right now. Those are on it somewhere. > Also auto-id-ing heading elements so they can be hash-linked to? This is actually requested less than I expected it to be, but I think I do want to add something for it in the future.
  - ianstormtaylor 14y ago
    Oh nice, didn't make the connection that you were the maintainer ;) Yeah id-ing of heading elements is something I really wish we had for our docs (https://segment.io/docs https://segment.io/docs) because we have to break out of markdown for every header to make them linkable. I just wish I knew enough to be able to contribute. That was my problem with Stylus too...

amckinlay 14y ago

Really wish they used Pandoc Markdown or some other form of extended Markdown... then I could consider using it for real stuff,

csense 14y ago

I tested it on Chromium (the FOSS version of Google Chrome), and in that browser, the math uses a much smaller font than the Firefox version. (Firefox looks "right.") I'm using Linux Mint 14 (the most recent version), the default version of Chromium from the distribution's repo; all packages are up-to-date, and I don't have any browser extensions or any intense customization.

Benferhat 14y ago
Same here with Chromium (23.0.1271.97-0ubuntu0.12.04.1)
warmfuzzykitten 14y ago
Looks fine in Chrome / Mac OS X.
indubitably 14y ago
The Firefox version appears broken to me? http://i.imgur.com/9eeSvlU.png http://i.imgur.com/9eeSvlU.png Firefox 19/OSX Lion

nimrody 14y ago

There used to be a similar service at http://notepag.es/ http://notepag.es/ However, it seems to be down now.

swah 14y ago

In the end, how should I use this product? Writing Latex before compiling the final thing on your PC?

justinvh 14y ago

I wrote a LaTeX Markdown plugin as well, but it served a different purpose. It was geared for offline documents. https://github.com/justinvh/Markdown-LaTeX https://github.com/justinvh/Markdown-LaTeX It generates inline/base64-encoded images with a small file-cache for the generated images. Try it out!

hyperbovine 14y ago

I wish it had better support for live editing, but this is really a limitation of MathJax / TeX in general. Still, I wonder if it might be possible to improve the experience a bit by e.g. only updating when I close a $$ block, etc.

mcmire 14y ago
That's what I was going to say. I found the constant reformatting of the math stuff in the right pane extremely jarring. Otherwise, nice and simple.
- pkrein 14y ago
  yeah -- we'll try to smooth this out!

gmt2027 14y ago

It's a shame that there doesn't seem to be any export option.

ianstormtaylor 14y ago
That's something we've gotten a lot of requests for and want to build one of these weekends :)

warmfuzzykitten 14y ago

Does this mean you can only see the math in Socrates? How do you publish a page on the web outside Socrates?

quaz3l 14y ago

I've been working on something just like this! It is a mashup of Ghost<john.onolan.org/ghost/>, and a editor like this. If you was to see the uncompleted version its here: http://quaz3l.github.com/ghost/g-admin/posts.html http://quaz3l.github.com/ghost/g-admin/posts.html