R devel - Apr 2020 - Use of MathJax (or something similar) in .Rd files

Hello All,

I am wondering if there has ever been any discussion/consideration given to
incorporating MathJax (or something similar) into R for rendering equations in
.Rd files. I know that equations are rendered beautifully in the pdf manuals,
but I suspect the majority of users primarily look at the html help files when
using R. While I am comfortable reading something like "B_x(a,b) =
integral_0^x t^(a-1) (1-t)^(b-1) dt", it would definitely be nicer if this
was shown as a 'proper' equation.

Best,
Wolfgang

You can probably already do this using the \if{html} conditional, and
either including the matchjax js files in the package, or getting them
from a CDN.

Gabor

On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 9:13 AM Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (SP)
<wolfgang.viechtbauer at maastrichtuniversity.nl>
wrote:
>
> Hello All,
>
> I am wondering if there has ever been any discussion/consideration given to
incorporating MathJax (or something similar) into R for rendering equations in
.Rd files. I know that equations are rendered beautifully in the pdf manuals,
but I suspect the majority of users primarily look at the html help files when
using R. While I am comfortable reading something like "B_x(a,b) =
integral_0^x t^(a-1) (1-t)^(b-1) dt", it would definitely be nicer if this
was shown as a 'proper' equation.
>
> Best,
> Wolfgang
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

Interesting. I gave this a try, but couldn't make this work. One would have
to infuse something like

<script id="MathJax-script" async
  src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax at
3/es5/tex-mml-chtml.js">
</script>

or 

<script id="MathJax-script" async
  src="<url-to-your-site>/mathjax/tex-chtml.js">
</script>

into the .html file, but just adding this to the .Rd file (directly or wrapped
with \if{html}{}) doesn't do that (it just gets printed). If somebody has
already successfully done this, I would be interested in hearing how.

Best,
Wolfgang
>-----Original Message-----
>From: G?bor Cs?rdi [mailto:csardi.gabor at gmail.com]
>Sent: Thursday, 30 April, 2020 11:51
>To: Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (SP)
>Cc: r-devel
>Subject: Re: [Rd] Use of MathJax (or something similar) in .Rd files
>
>You can probably already do this using the \if{html} conditional, and
>either including the matchjax js files in the package, or getting them
>from a CDN.
>
>Gabor
>
>On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 9:13 AM Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (SP)
><wolfgang.viechtbauer at maastrichtuniversity.nl> wrote:
>>
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I am wondering if there has ever been any discussion/consideration
given
>to incorporating MathJax (or something similar) into R for rendering
>equations in .Rd files. I know that equations are rendered beautifully in
>the pdf manuals, but I suspect the majority of users primarily look at the
>html help files when using R. While I am comfortable reading something like
>"B_x(a,b) = integral_0^x t^(a-1) (1-t)^(b-1) dt", it would
definitely be
>nicer if this was shown as a 'proper' equation.
>>
>> Best,
>> Wolfgang
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

This sounds promising.

Also remember that user-defined macros are possible, so even if you need 
a lot of contortions to enter the code, you can simplify it at the Rd level.

Duncan Murdoch

On 30/04/2020 5:50 a.m., G?bor Cs?rdi wrote:
> You can probably already do this using the \if{html} conditional, and
> either including the matchjax js files in the package, or getting them
> from a CDN.
> 
> Gabor
> 
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 9:13 AM Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (SP)
> <wolfgang.viechtbauer at maastrichtuniversity.nl> wrote:
>>
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I am wondering if there has ever been any discussion/consideration
given to incorporating MathJax (or something similar) into R for rendering
equations in .Rd files. I know that equations are rendered beautifully in the
pdf manuals, but I suspect the majority of users primarily look at the html help
files when using R. While I am comfortable reading something like "B_x(a,b)
= integral_0^x t^(a-1) (1-t)^(b-1) dt", it would definitely be nicer if
this was shown as a 'proper' equation.
>>
>> Best,
>> Wolfgang
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>