Talk:Texvc

PATH
For the new wiki administrators, it is almost impossible to guess, which characters in the setup files are constants, and which should be substituted to some name specific for the custom installation. Therefore, in the main page, I use the character $$\mathcal W$$ to denote the directory, where the mediawiki is installed.

I did not yet do the same with the text I have copypasted from the corresponding README, because I am not sure if I understand well this README. In particular, the file README contains the string PATH. Should these four characters appear in the full name of the texvc file, or they should be replaced to something? Is this thing somehow related to the directory I denoted as $$\mathcal W$$ in the main article?

Such misunderstanding may be one of reasons why I failed to install correctly the mediawiki at my server. It would be good to explain this in the main text. Tori 10:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

P.S. About all the manuals: it may be good idea, to name all variables with characters that DO NOT EXIST at the keyboard and cannot be copypasted, to force the customer to substitute them to the name, specific for the local server. For example, one may use the mathematical symbols, the letters from Japanese or Russian or Greek alphabets, etc. This would prevent a beginner to type them "as is" into the setup files. If some name is denoted with character　ふ, then the manual should say, that the character ふ　should be replaced to the string, specific for the custom server, and suggest some examples of possible values of ふ. (however, namely character ふ should not be used in the Japanese version of the manual; some Greek or Russian character should be used instead). Tori 10:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Setup section badly needs updating
Setup section is misleading. For example, it states "In Debian/Ubuntu you need to install tetex-extra." however  gives "E: Invalid operation tetex-extra". In fact teTeX is no longer developed, and has been replaced by the TeX Live collection. This section is years out of date. -- Rob Kam (talk) 20:15, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Note: The following is with reference to Extension:Math


 * You currently seem to be on the same quest. I also will have to work out how to get this running somehow. If I do find a way I will update and post the information. --&#91;&#91;kgh&#93;&#93; (talk) 19:26, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * This is how I made it work. I installed all the dependencies and prerequisites on Debian 7 as well as the "mediawiki-math-texvc" package. Only installing the texvc package made it work with the Collection extension. Compiling texvc in the extension's directory did not work. I guess I could have added the path to PATH for the PDF render server but I did not try this. --&#91;&#91;kgh&#93;&#93; (talk) 18:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I've begun to understand the contradictions in the instructions, and to untangle them at Extension:Math. You must using the private server method, while I'm working on a shared host. -- Rob Kam (talk) 04:10, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That's true. Though most shared hosts I know will not even allow you to do what you documented. I will do another tweak to make it more clear. --&#91;&#91;kgh&#93;&#93; (talk) 14:58, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I've started fixing that, using advice in the README files in the Math folder. I haven't got it working yet, and I don't know whether the parser.mli *.cmi and *.cmx files are also required? --Rob Kam (talk) 17:51, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Your recent change to the docu confuses me a lot. If you have command line access you do not need to compile externally. If you do not have command line access your option is a way out. This has to be documented separately. --&#91;&#91;kgh&#93;&#93; (talk) 19:54, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Hopefully now clarified. BTW I've still to get it working. --Rob Kam (talk) 06:37, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Cool. :) Why not just use MathJax. It is a great renderer and it works on shared hosting of any kind, at least it should. --&#91;&#91;kgh&#93;&#93; (talk) 08:03, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * It would be great to use Mathjax but client side is a bit slow - I will try it out. I did attempt to implement it the easy way with Extension:MathJax but that's no longer supported/developed and conflicted with SMW. My first choice would have been Extension:WikiTeX but sadly that's long dead. --Rob Kam (talk) 11:03, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I put these to rest to avoid others spending unnecessary time on them. Probably it depends how much stuff there is to render on a page, however, I found the MathJax option provided by the Math extension not significantly slower than the other rendering options if at all. --&#91;&#91;kgh&#93;&#93; (talk) 12:48, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for archiving those. I've wasted far too much time already on an important but neglected feature, that ought to be trivial to get working. I've given up on the maybe it will work texvc workaround. MathJax works easiest, it is the best option from those available however because of the lag, every equation briefly gives the misleading error message Failed to parse (Missing: etc. executable. Please see math/README to configure.) etc. -- Rob Kam (talk) 09:03, 7 September 2014 (UTC)