[TxMt] MultiMarkdown in TextMate

[Dr. Drang]

TeXdown looks interesting, but it has two characteristics that I want  
to avoid:

1. It creates HTML only.
2. It uses uses image files for the equations, which do not scale.

MultiMarkdown eliminates the first by allowing an XSLT transformation  
to LaTeX (MultiMarkdown.pl doesn't do this, but the MultiMarkdown  
system does). My additions to MultiMarkdown create <math> tags that  
can be processed in one of two ways:

1. Into LaTeX through the XSL files.
2. Into reasonably good-looking web pages through [jsMath][1].

jsMath is a pretty amazing rewrite of the TeX/LaTeX equation-handling  
code into JavaScript, which moves the characters into position. With  
jsMath, the size of an equation scales with the font size of the  
page, a great thing for those of us with failing eyesight.

Similar to jsMath is [ASCIIMathML][2], which takes TeX-like equations  
and turns them into MathML. Pretty nice if you're using a MathML- 
aware browser (Firefox), but not so good for us Safari users.

One very good thing about TeXdown is that it's implemented as a pre- 
filter. I may change my MultiMarkdown additions to that form, so I  
don't have to try to keep up with Fletcher Penney's development pace.  
I remember starting my work as a pre-filter, but can't remember why I  
decided to edit Fletcher's code directly. Memory, like eyesight,  
fades quickly in middle-age.


[1]: http://www.math.union.edu/locate/jsMath/
[2]: http://www1.chapman.edu/~jipsen/asciimath.html

--
Dr. Drang


On Apr 10, 2006, at 9:52 AM, Mark Eli Kalderon wrote:

>
> Thanks, Dr. Drang. Look forward to your blog entry. BTW have you  
> seen TeXdown http://wwwth.mppmu.mpg.de/members/jgrosse/texdown/ 
> TeXdown-Readme.html ? It is a markdown preprocessor that adds just  
> that functionality.
>
> All the best, Mark
>
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