m i m e T e X   c h a n g e L o g Click for:  mimeTeX QuickStart download mimeTeX

Copyright © 2002-2005, John Forkosh Associates, Inc.
email: john@forkosh.com

Mimetex is discussed at http://www.forkosh.com/mimetex.html. And you can download its source from http://www.forkosh.com/mimetex.zip. Following are some recent changes that may or may not be discussed there yet. And recent changes probably haven't made their way into the precompiled mimeTeX binaries yet, either. You'll have to download the above zip file and compile from source.

• 8 Aug 2006 -- Negative spaces supported;   \!   produces a small negative space, e.g.,   a=b   renders     whereas   a\!=b   renders     and   a\!\!=b   renders   . For large negative space,   \hspace{-10}   permits a negative argument. But it stops at the first pixel to its left rather than "erasing" pixels. If you don't want to stop, use   \hspace*{-10}   instead. For example,   ABC\hspace*{-20}-DEF   renders   ,   erasing all of the C and the right half of the B.
• 8 Aug 2006 -- \reflectbox[axis]{expression} now supported. Without its optional [axis] argument, \reflectbox{expression} behaves as expected in LaTeX. For example,   ABC\reflectbox{DEF}GHI   renders   . If you optionally specify axis 2 then the expression is reflected vertically, e.g.,   \reflectbox[2]{ABC}DEF\reflectbox[2]{GHI}   renders   .
• 4 Aug 2006 -- wncyr cyrillic font now available, using the AMS input conventions (see amsfndoc.dvi). And embedded ligatures are automatically recognized. For example,
  
• 4 Aug 2006 -- \rule{width}{height} implemented, behaving in the usual way, rendering a black rectangle width pixels wide and height pixels high, with its base on the established baseline. For example,
  \frac12xyz\rule{10}{20}ghi   renders  
• 4 Aug 2006 -- \begin{cases} environment now supported, along with the correct treatment of math $...$ subexpressions inside an \mbox{ } (or a \text{ }).
• 4 Aug 2006 -- Gamma video correction implemented. For details, see the -DGAMMA switch under http://www.forkosh.com/mimetexmanual.html#options
• 15 Jan 2006 -- St. Mary's Road math symbols now available. For example,
  
• 20 Oct 2005 -- Additional font sizes \huge and \Huge now available.
  So mimeTeX now has eight font sizes
  In addition, mimeTeX's anti-aliasing has been slightly improved.
• 10 March 2005 -- \mathbf{ } now available for the cmmib10 font. Other characters and symbols (e.g., \pm) will continue to be rendered in cmr10 or cmsy10, etc. For example,   \mathbf{F}=q\left(\mathbf{E+v\times B}\right)   renders  
• 9 March 2005 -- \calendar now available, which renders a calendar for the current month, as illustrated by the left-hand image below. For a different month, the optional argument   \small\blue\calendar[2001,9]   renders the right-hand image, for the requested year and month. Years must be 1973...2099 and months must be 1...12.
  
• 5 March 2005 -- \today now available, which renders   .   That's default format#1, and there's an optional format argument so that   \blue\today[2]   renders   ,   showing both date and time, and   \red\today[3]   renders   ,   showing time only.   To accommodate time zones, you may also write, for example,   \small\blue\today[2,+3],   which renders   ,   adding three hours to format#2. The arguments may be in either order. The time zone increment must always be preceded by either + or -, and must be in the range -23 to +23.
• 1 March 2005 -- An etex-like   \middle   directive is now available. For example,   \left. \frac{a+1}b \middle/ \frac{c+1}d \right.   renders   .   An expression may contain as many \middle's as you like, and in mimeTeX the surrounding \left...\right isn't required. When omitted, the scope of \middle is either the entire expression or the   { }-enclosed subexpression in which the \middle's occur. For example,   \frac{a+1}b \middle/ \middle(\frac{c+1}d \middle/ \frac{e+1}f\middle)   renders   .  
• 1 March 2005 -- All 22 standard LaTeX \left...\right delimiters (in addition to the mimeTeX extensions discussed 28-Dec-2004) are now supported. The newly-supported delimiters are \left and \right   /,   \backslash,   \lceil,   \rceil,   \lfloor,   \rfloor,   \uparrow,   \downarrow,   \updownarrow,   \Uparrow,   \Downarrow,   and   \Updownarrow.   There are no mimeTeX abbreviations, like   \(...\)   for   \left(...\right),   for these new delimiters. You have to write the standard LaTeX \left...\right form. For (a completely meaningless) example,   \left\Uparrow \compose{\circle(50)}{\frac1{1-x^3}} \right\Downarrow   renders   .
• 20 Feb 2005 -- Operators like   \sum   and   \int,   that are available in several sizes, are now automatically "promoted" to the larger size in   \displaystyle. For example   \displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^n   renders   ,   whereas   \sum_{i=1}^n   renders   .   And mimeTeX defaults to \displaystyle at sizes \large and larger, and it defaults to \textstyle at sizes \normalsize and smaller. Directives \displaystyle or \textstyle, and \limits or \nolimits, override mimeTeX's default in the usual way. Also, to accommodate LaTeX-aware users, mimeTeX now renders   $ expression $   as if you had entered   \textstyle expression,   and renders   $$ expression $$   as if you had entered   \displaystyle expression.
• 28 Dec 2004 -- Besides many of the usual \left...\right delimiters, mimeTeX now also supports constructions like \left\int_a^b...\right. that automatically sizes the \int to accommodate everything between it and its matching \right. delimiter. And note that the \right needn't necessarily be a \right. , e.g., \left\int_a^b x^2dx =\frac{x^3}3\right|\nolimits_a^b produces . Also note that, except for Opening (TeX class 4) and Closing (class 5) delimiter characters like ( ) and \{ \}, limits are default-rendered \displaystyle, which is why \right|\nolimits_a^b was required. You can also write \left\sum, \left\prod, \left\cup, etc, for many of the symbols in CMEX10. (MimeTeX abbreviations like   \(...\)   for   \left(...\right)   won't work with these CMEX10 symbols. You have to write the standard LaTeX \left...\right form.)
• 8 Dec 2004 -- In addition to the existing \not, which "slashes" the single symbol following it, mimeTeX now implements a \Not for arbitrary expressions, which draws a line from the upper-right to lower-left corner of its argument, e.g., a\Not{x^2}=bx^{\not3} produces . And there's now also a ulem.sty-like \sout which draws a horizontal strikeout line through its argument, e.g., \sout{abcdefg} produces .
• 27 Nov 2004 -- MimeTeX's -DNEWCOMMANDS compile option now lets you define LaTeX-like \newcommand's _with_ arguments #1...#9, including the optional argument [ ]-form for argument #1. See -DNEWCOMMANDS under Compile-Options in Section-II of http://www.forkosh.com/mimetexmanual.html for complete details.
• 16 Nov 2004 -- Now, by default, operator limits like \int_a^b are rendered in \textstyle at font sizes \normalsize and smaller, and rendered in \displaystyle at font sizes \large and larger. The default can be adjusted by the -DDISPLAYSIZE=n compile option, discussed in the manual. And, as usual, the directives \textstyle, \displaystyle, \limits, and \nolimits override any default in the usual way. This may occasionally affect the appearance of expressions rendered using earlier versions of mimetex. Compile the new version with the extra switch -DDISPLAYSIZE=99 to recover the earlier behavior. Sorry for any inconvenience; the new default better accommodates a majority of users (as far as I can tell).
• 1 Nov 2004 -- A default so-called "squash" functionality has been added to all rendered mimetex expressions. TeX represents characters by boxes, with no idea how ink will be distributed inside. So an expression like \frac12\int_{a+b+c}^{d+e+f}g(x)dx is typically rendered as . But mimeTeX knows the character shapes of its fonts, and now tries to remove extra space, rendering the same expression as instead. To get the typical non-squashed rendering, precede your expression with \nosquash, or compile mimetex.c with the extra switch -DNOSQUASH if you prefer non-squashed default rendering. In this case, precede any expression with \squash to render it squashed. The scope of \squash and \nosquash is the {...}-enclosed subexpression in which the directive occurs. Thus, for example, if you want the g(x) part squashed but not the 1/2 part, then the expression \nosquash\frac12{\squash\int_{a+b+c}^{d+e+f}g(x)dx} gets rendered as . Some squashed expressions look funny, e.g., 1^2,2^2,3^2\ldots gets squash-rendered as . I'm still working on it. Please post a reply if you notice other squash problems.
• 14 Sep 2004 -- {n\choose k} now supported, along with { \atop } and { \over } which were previously available. Also, all three now work as a\atop b, with or without the surrounding { }'s. One side effect is the small backward incompatibility that the \frac-like form \atop{a}{b} which mimetex used to recognize is no longer accepted.
• 13 Sep 2004 -- \begin{align} and \begin{gather} ams environments now supported. And along with those, \left??...\right?? now fully supported. That is, nesting to any desired depth is supported, and constructions like \left|...\right\rangle should also work fine (but let me know if they don't). Unusual constructions like \left)...\right[ should also work, but _not_ corresponding mimetex abbreviations like \)...\[ which continue to require "usual" left (,[,<,{,| delimiters on the left and right ),],>,},| delimiters on the right. One little backward incompatibility is that you can no longer mix normal tex notation with mimetex abbreviations, e.g., \left(..\) no longer works. You must write either normal tex \left(...\right) or the mimetex abbreviation \(...\) on _both_ sides. But you can mix nested expressions in the sense that \left|...\(...\)...\right\rangle works fine.
• 10 Sep 2004 -- \counter[logfile:comment]{counterfile:tag} modified similarly to \input as described immediately below, now permitting many counters to be kept in the same counterfile. In this case, counterfile must be created/touched writeable by mimetex, but can be left empty. The first time \counter{counterfile:tag} is issued with a new tag, that tag's value will be initialized to 1_ for you. And \counter maintains its own timestamp tag in counterfile, containing the name of the tag last updated and the date/time it was updated.
• 8 Sep 2004 -- \input{filename} command (see 4 Aug item) enhanced. You may now also write \input{filename:tag} with the optional :tag. Without the optional tag, the file's entire contents are input, exactly as usual. But with the tag, only characters from the file between < tag >...< /tag > are input. This allows you to keep many separate questions/answers/whatever in one input file, and individually incorporate them into an html page.
• 6 Sep 2004 -- \color{red} or \color{green} or \color{blue} (which can be abbreviated \red or \green or \blue) implemented, producing, for example,
  
  A color applies to the entire expression, e.g., abc{\red def}ghi renders _everything_ red, not just the def part.
• 20 Aug 2004 -- \circle() command enhanced so that optional ;quads parameter can instead be supplied as ;theta1,theta2 in degrees, which will then draw exactly the specified arc instead of 90-degree quadrants. For example, \circle(100,50;120,290) produces
  
  To get the complementary arc use -70,120, which produces
  
• 15 Aug 2004 -- slightly better-looking lowpass filter anti-aliasing implemented, based on pnmalias.c from the netpbm package on sourceforge. \counter[logfile]{counterfile}, described below, modified so that logfile argument can now (optionally) contain a comment by writing logfile:comment instead. The comment is written to the log file in place of the HTTP_REFERER field. One intent is so that you can log the correct HTTP_REFERER by passing the comment as the php function $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], which will more likely log the originally referring page. A few minor bugs fixed, e.g., a comma between "tr" and "pmod" now renders \tr(A ) as tr(A) instead of trpmod(A).
• 09 Aug 2004 -- the \tilde{x}=, \dot{y}= and \ddot{z}= accents look more readable now. (Also a small bug in the \begin{array}...\end{array} parser has been fixed. If you had tried to skip the first column of a new row by writing ...\\&..., mimeTeX "saw" an escaped & instead of a column delimiter.)
• 05 Aug 2004 -- a \counter[logfile]{counterfile} command has been added to mimeTeX, for use when you want a line like
  You're the visitor to this page.
  Press the "reload" button on your browser and you should see the counter increment. The required {counterfile} argument is the path to a mimeTeX-writable file that you initialize (using any editor) with a single ascii line containing the initial count. That should just be 0 if you want the first viewer to see 1, i.e., the counter is incremented before it's displayed. The ordinal suffix displayed above is optional. If you want it, put an underscore immediately following the initial number, i.e., I initialized my counter file with 0_ instead of 0. You may have many counterfiles, e.g., a different one for each page. Caching, discussed below, is disabled for any expression containing \counter.
  The optional [logfile] argument points to a mimeTeX-writable file (that doesn't need to exist or be initialized as long as mimeTeX is permitted to create it) where a log of visitors to your page is written. The logfile must be different than any counterfile. You may also have many different logfiles, or (typically) just one logfile for all your counterfiles. Each logfile line contains a timestamp, the name of the counterfile and its current value, and the REMOTE_ADDR and HTTP_REFERER values provided by the server. A typical logfile line looks something like

  2004-08-05:10:08:58am counter.txt(6193) 133.30.14.12 forkosh.com/mimetex.html

• 04 Aug 2004 -- \input{filename} now supported, where flename is the path and name and .extension to a file whose contents are inserted into your expression. Like the corresponding LaTeX command, if filename isn't found then filename.tex is also tried. The path is relative to the location of your mimetex executable, which must have read permissions for the file. Caching, discussed below, is disabled for expressions containing \input, since the inputted file's contents may change between renderings.
• 03 Aug 2004 -- image caching implemented internally. Compile mimetex.c with the additional switch -DCACHEPATH=\"path/\", and it will cache generated images in directory path/ (relative to the mimetex.cgi executable image itself), as filename.gif where filename is the 32-character md5 hash of the LaTeX expression you submitted to mimeTeX. If that file already exists, mimeTeX will just display it rather than regenerating the image. But if the path/ directory doesn't exist, or if mimeTeX can't write to it, then images are regenerated as needed, without caching.
  This is the same caching functionality already provided by the mimeTeX "wrapper" script for phpBB described at http://www.mayer.dial.pipex.com/tex.htm#latexrender, and by the PmWiki plugin for mimetex described at http://www.pmichaud.com/wiki/Cookbook/MimeTeX. These plugins will continue to work unchanged since mimeTeX's internal caching isn't turned on unless it's compiled with the -DCACHEPATH switch described above. But future plugins should be easier to write using mimeTeX's built-in caching mechanism.
  And mimeTeX's caching provides one small additional feature -- it maintains a file path/mimetex.log containing information of the form

        ------------------------------------------------------------------
        2004-08-04:02:37:30am         d8685d70caa1898cd7ddf04a45d94813.gif
        f(x)=\int_{0$-\infty}^xe^{-t^2}dt
        ------------------------------------------------------------------

  that logs a timestamp, filename created, and LaTeX expression cached in that file.
• 28 Jun 2004 -- anti-aliasing using SuperSampling instead of the current LowPass algorithm is a work in progress. The difference will eventually look at least as good (and hopefully a lot better after I've tweaked the algorithm) as the following comparison...
  SuperSampling:
  LowPass:
  You can try out a few simple (e.g., \frac almost works but super/subscripts don't work at all yet) expressions yourself by compiling mimetex with the additional switch -DSSFONTS and then submitting expressions with the prefix \ssamp\rm (so far I've only prepared the \rm font for testing). For example, \ssamp\rm abcd produces . Size is controlled by the \sf "shrinkfactor" directive (larger shrinkfactor gives smaller size), e.g., \ssamp\rm\sf{11}abcd produces
• 28 May 2004 -- nested \array{}'s (finally) supported, e.g., see Example#9 in http://www.forkosh.com/mimetex.html illustrating block diagonal form, .
• 22 May 2004 -- mimeTeX now supports blackboard bold with the usual \mathbb directive. For example, \mathbb{123abcABC\alpha\beta\gamma} produces .

Copyright © 2002-2005, John Forkosh Associates, Inc. email: john@forkosh.com