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Update: The decision has been made to deactivate MathJax on the site. This does not reflect the current votes, as these changed significantly after the decision was made.

We've had MathJax support for 3 days now. While it makes our maths challenges look neat, it has also created two problems:

Especially the latter is a fairly big deal around here. So far, only a few questions have adopted MathJax, and these could still be reverted. However, if we wait any longer, too much content on this site will rely on MathJax to be able to revert MathJax support.

Chris has asked me to get a new community consensus on whether we want to keep MathJax. Apparently, fixing the above issues is not a priority (although it might happen some day).

Do we want MathJax to be deactivated until these issues are fixed?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Note: We might also be able to get away with changing the delimiter instead (ex. using \$foo\$ instead of $foo$, and similarly \$$ instead of $$), which would give us MathJax and unbroken code blocks for the most part (how often are you going to have \$ happen twice in one code block?). The only reason I'm not posting this as an answer is that I still haven't Done the Science™ on a site with \$ as their delimiter to make sure that this would actually fix the problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Apr 10, 2015 at 12:56
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    \$\begingroup\$ Is there any way to disable it for a certain post? For example, <killjax> in the post body? If so, that would help a lot. I don't have much problem with the search result issue, but snippets and code blocks should probably work right. Alternatively, a tag that enables it on a post, and have it skip others by default. \$\endgroup\$
    – Geobits
    Apr 10, 2015 at 13:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Geobits We are talking about fixes that do not require any code changes. Enabling MathJax is just a per-site setting change; the code that enables/disables it is already there. And similarly (I believe) with the delimiters. But adding support for metatags, that's a whole different thing. \$\endgroup\$
    – C. K. Young
    Apr 10, 2015 at 13:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ChrisJester-Young I figured that would be the case, but was mainly curious if there was any hidden feature/tag already to do it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Geobits
    Apr 10, 2015 at 13:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ How about just using <mathjax>, <mj>, or <math> like we do for strikethroughs? \$\endgroup\$
    – ASCIIThenANSI
    Apr 10, 2015 at 17:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Doorknob /\$/ might be popular in string-matching challenges. \$\endgroup\$
    – Neil
    Jun 30, 2016 at 12:15

3 Answers 3

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Yes, deactivate MathJax until these issues are fixed

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    \$\begingroup\$ As much as I really, really wanted MathJax and was excited when it finally happened, in the end it is just icing on the cake, and not truly necessary to the site. Not having broken searches and code blocks, unfortunately, should take precedence. \$\endgroup\$
    – Sp3000
    Apr 10, 2015 at 12:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ This answer should not be accepted, currently. \$\endgroup\$
    – isaacg
    Apr 12, 2015 at 22:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ @isaacg The decision has been made (and action been taken) two days ago, when the votes on all answers were pretty much tied, so we mods decided we had to make a call. Unfortunately, we can't stop people from voting after the action has already been taken. Maybe we should have waited a few more days before making a decision, but the purpose of a quick decision was to avoid more people using MathJax before the relevant posts grew too many to be reverted any longer. \$\endgroup\$
    – Martin Ender
    Apr 13, 2015 at 10:28
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No, keep MathJax

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    \$\begingroup\$ I just changed all my challenges over :( \$\endgroup\$
    – Joe Z.
    Apr 10, 2015 at 18:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JoeZ. I'm aware of that, and if we do revert this, I'll gladly help you revert the changes. \$\endgroup\$
    – Martin Ender
    Apr 10, 2015 at 18:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ oh, -1 from me btw (can't vote) \$\endgroup\$
    – Martin Ender
    Apr 11, 2015 at 15:47
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Keep MathJax, but change the delimiters

From my comment:

Note: We might also be able to get away with changing the delimiter instead (ex. using \$foo\$ instead of $foo$, and similarly \$$ instead of $$), which would give us MathJax and unbroken code blocks for the most part (how often are you going to have \$ happen twice in one code block?). The only reason I'm not posting this as an answer is that I still haven't Done the Science™ on a site with \$ as their delimiter to make sure that this would actually fix the problem.

So I tried it:

screenshot

Looks perfect. My suggestion: change the delimiters from $ to \$, and $$ to \$$.

Update: Customising the display mode delimiters $$ is not currently possible. (See Chris's comment.)

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    \$\begingroup\$ Alas, only the $ can be customised, the $$ does not currently have a site setting. \$\endgroup\$
    – C. K. Young
    Apr 10, 2015 at 15:48
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    \$\begingroup\$ I'd say this is still not "perfect". Ideally, nothing in code blocks (block or inline) would have anything to do with MathJax. Changing $ to \$ mitigates the problem but doesn't solve it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Calvin's Hobbies
    Apr 10, 2015 at 20:11
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    \$\begingroup\$ -1 from me. If we do this I think getting a proper fix will be such low priority we'll never see it. \$\endgroup\$
    – orlp
    Apr 11, 2015 at 18:32

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