MathJax v4.0.0-beta.3 now available

[Davide Cervone]

The MathJax team is placed to announce the release of v4.0.0-beta.3 of MathJax (beta.1 and beta.2 had issues with the packaging, so beta.3 is the version you should use).  This beta version includes a number of new features and bug fixes, including:

• The MathJax javascript files now come in two versions:  the original CommonJS modules compiled to ES5, and new ES modules compiled to ES6.  The webpacked files are now build from the ES6 files.  This dual-source setup has implications for those who are importing MathJax files directly into their own applications, so be sure to read the release notes for details.  Note in particular that the URLs used to access this beta version no longer include the /es5 that was part of the v3 and earlier v4 URLs.
  
  
• The line breaking algorithm has been improved to resolve issues that were reported in the alpha version.  In particular, a situation where MathJax could crash was resolved, and new alignment control has been added to allow tables that include line breaks to work better.  See the release notes for details.
  
  
• The assistive tools have been updated and include new locales as well as a new Euro Braille output format.  See the release notes for details.
  
  
• The TeX input jax includes updates to Unicode positions for some macros, new macros for characters that are now available in the fonts, updates to some TeX extensions packages, several new configuration parameters, a new macro for controlling vertical alignment of blocks with line breaks, support for the \char macro and a non-standard \U macro for entering unicode characters, a new units packages that includes \units, \unitfrac, and \nicefrac, the ability to create active characters in through the MathJax configuration object, a configuration option to control the alignment of tags with equations that have line breaks, a configuration option to control the italicization of Latin and Greek characters, better control over the characters used for a single mi identifier for operator names, and improved handling of errors for incorrectly nested AMS display environments.  See the release notes for details.
  
  
• The output renders now include improved handling of accents and stretchy characters, new parameters to control the weight of the characters in SVG output and whether to include the xlink namespace in serialized SVG output, and a fix for a long-standing issue with baseline alignment in the CHTML output in WebKit-based browsers like Safari.  See the release notes for details.
  
  
• The user interface now includes several new options in the “Show Math As” menu item. These allow you to obtain an SVG version of the expression, or its speech text, or the full error message when the expression produces an error.  See the release notes for details.
  
  
• Finally, the build tools used by MathJax to produce webpacked component files have been improved. These now support the dual MJS/CJS output formats, and include many more package scripts that can be used to compile and build the various files that are needed for MathJax. These tools are also used to produce the font data files, and by third-party authors of extensions or custom builds of MathJax.  See the release notes for details.

The release notes includes extensive documentation on the changes and new features, so be sure to read through that for the details about this beta release.  In particular, 

Please report issues to the MathJax issue tracker, and be sure you indicate that they are for v4.0.0.

Davide P. Cervone

MathJax lead developer