Internet Explorer 8 Broke jsMath

[Matt]

I upgraded my computer from Internet Explorer 7 to Internet Explorer
8, and now jsMath says that no TeX fonts are found, and I cannot see
my wiki. I tried to see if javascript was enabled, and it looks like
it is. Not positive, really. I confirmed that the fonts are still in
the font directory. I'm not sure what to do to get it working again.

The only change was the upgrade from 7 to 8.

Any help you can provide is appreciated. Because of where I work I
have to use Internet Explorer.

Thanks,

Matt

[Matt]

The error I'm getting is:

"jsMath failed to load. The error was:
TypeError: Object doesn't support this property or method on line
undefined"

Thanks again,

Matt

[Yakov]

Hello Matt,

> The error I'm getting is:
>
> "jsMath failed to load.  The error was:
> TypeError: Object doesn't support this property or method on line
> undefined"

It seems that IE introduced the same security measures that Opera and
Chrome did. In short: the plugin loads files from your filesystem, and
now some browsers block this by default. You may try to check this
using, say, Dropbox: when you access the same wiki and jsMath files
through HTTP, you should get the result that you'd expect usually. If
so, this indicates that the problem is because of those security
measures.

Now, how to get through? That's an interesting question, and most
likely you should dig it on some IE forums/documentation (unless
someone using IE answers here). In Opera, there's a config page, where
one should change an option (this one: opera:config#UserPrefs|
AllowFileXMLHttpRequest), Chrome can be launched with some parameters
(with --allow-file-access-from-files). There should be something like
this in IE, but I don't know.

If you find the solution, write it here, I collect this things :)

[Matt]

So am I to understand that out of the who-knows-how-many folks that
use TiddlyWiki and jsMath, none of them use IE 8??

[Yakov]

> So am I to understand that out of the who-knows-how-many folks that
> use TiddlyWiki and jsMath, none of them use IE 8??

I wouldn't count on others in this matter: there seemingly are not
many guys who use TW + jsMath, and IE 8 users among them can be just
couple of people. How many of them solved this issue? I don't know,
but it may be zero guys. I didn't get help with jsMath in Opera
(although Opera is not as widespread as IE, I'm not sure about the
statistics among people who use TW + jsMath), so I digged docs and
found the solution; probably it's the only way for you. You'll
probably need to consider the setting of ActiveX.

PS. Ah, I've found that Plugin: jsMath was updated this spring (6th
may, 2011, as the timeline sais [1]). Do you use the version 1.5.1?
There's 1.6 already and the issue seems to be fixed there (at least
for Chrome, but try it anyway). Be aware, though, that the new version
changes MarkupPostHead which is not undone if the plugin is
uninstalled (there was also MathJax plugin which implemented the same
syntax), and it seems that there's some problems with the logic of
MarkupPostHead modification. Let us know if the new version work for
you.

[1] http://bob.mcelrath.org/tiddlyjsmath.html

[Yakov]

Ah, no, I'm wrong. First, there's no problem with the logic of
MarkupPostHead modification due to core function behavior;
second, the modification in the new version seems to be applied to
Chrome only. Test it anyway, though.

[Matt]

I'll test it out here. I do appreciate the help very much.

Is there an alternative to jsMath? I use my TW for engineering
resources; links, local pdfs, excerpts from books and magazines, and
occasionally I'll type an equation in there and that's what jsMath is
for. Any substitutes for putting equations into TW?

Thanks again.

-Matt

[Matt]

Wow, OK, updating jsMath fixed the problem.

I always get an ActiveX warning when I open my TW with Internet
Explorer. I've been using JsMath-v3.5 since I started using TW. I
just updated to 3.6e and it works. Since the fonts were already
installed (installed from TeX-fonts-25.zip, dunno where I got that if
anyone needs it) I just deleted the jsMath directory (sitting in the
same directory as my TW) and unzipped 3.6e and renamed it to
'jsMath'. Works now. No warnings or problems.

There are a couple things to note: One, it starts up much slower than
before. After I allow ActiveX to run, there's and additional ~2
second delay when bringing up TW. And then when I click 'edit' on a
tiddler, for some reason the webpage jumps down to near the bottom of
the page. I have to scroll back up to get to the edit window, and
various odd things are highlighted, as if I had tried to click-drag
select an area of the window.

I edited a tiddler, seemed to work. I tried to run an upgrade, and it
says "error with the new core code", so I don't know what that's
about. I don't know what version I am running currently. I may
switch to using Chrome (despite my company's desire to stick to IE),
as apparently folks have worked the bugs out there.

Thank you for the help! I hope someone else finds this information
helpful.

-Matt

[Yakov]

> Wow, OK, updating jsMath fixed the problem.

So, updating jsMath only (not the Plugin: jsMath)?

> I tried to run an upgrade, and it says "error with the new core code",
> so I don't know what that's about.

That a problem of some versions of TW it was fixed recently (in
v2.6.4, as I remember); to get a TW with new core and your content you
can download a new TW file (v2.6.5) and import everything from your TW
into new one. However, be aware that import can have problems in 2.6.5
(as I remember recently there was a complain at least about importing
from the web).

> There are a couple things to note:  One, it starts up much slower than
> before.  After I allow ActiveX to run, there's and additional ~2
> second delay when bringing up TW.  And then when I click 'edit' on a
> tiddler, for some reason the webpage jumps down to near the bottom of
> the page.  I have to scroll back up to get to the edit window, and
> various odd things are highlighted, as if I had tried to click-drag
> select an area of the window.

Ok, let's see what you'll have with new core version (and Plugin:
jsMath's?).

Besides, if it's not a secret, what kind of stuff do you write in TW
with formulae? Do you write just for others in your company or you
make some sort of collaboration via TiddlyWiki?

As for the alternative plugins for inserting formulae, consider the
following:

0. There are 3 main methods of insertion: generation of iimages,
generation of some text which is formatted by some library into what
looks as formula and usage of special language which is meant to
generate formulae.

1. Generation of images is usually used in servers (because this
requires less calculations from them then other methods), such as
wikipedia (I know no TW-compatible server with such a thing), and in
services, -- among them there's codecogs [1] which can be incorporated
in TW [2], [3]. However, codecogs has limitation of usage (see their
site).

2. For the second method, there are two well-established libraries:
jsMath and MathJax. There were plugins for TW to use both, Plugin:
jsMath and PluginMathJax which was located at [4]. However, the site
[5] suddenly disappeared and at least 3 beatiful plugins, including
PluginMathJax, were lost (though, I haven't asked in the group whether
anyone copied any of those plugins or knows anything about the site).
But basically both plugins have similar structure and it's better to
ask developers about problems rather than seek for something else.

3. The last method I mentioned is actually using of mathML -- a markup
language for formulae. Unfortunately, it's not that widely supported
(I know only that FireFox has not bad support, Opera has much worse
and Opera Mobile has no at all). See [6-9].

But practically I'd say that Plugin: jsMath is the best thing
available.

[1] http://www.codecogs.com/latex/about.php.
[2] http://twmath.tiddlyspot.com/
[3] http://twequation.tiddlyspot.com/
[4] http://tiddlywiki.canada-east.ca/#PluginMathJax
[5] http://tiddlywiki.canada-east.ca/
[6] http://jostylr.com/twasciimathwiki.html
[7] http://math.chapman.edu/~jipsen/asciencepad/asciencepad.html
[8] http://www1.chapman.edu/~jipsen/mathml/asciimath.html
[9] http://www.math.ist.utl.pt/~psoares/MathSVG.html