Strange behavior when truncating while using MathJax - javascript

I have MathJax implemented for a website and what I am trying to implement is shortening the text area to a certain length and have it be clickable and then load more on click. MathJax loads the truncated text just fine, but when I click the text to expand it to the entire paragraph, MathJax appends the initial shortened math to the end of the newly rendered entire paragraph. Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm assuming it is occurring because the truncated text is still on the queue and so it still prints it after the entire text is loaded, but I cant seem to figure out how to clear the queue shortened text from the queue to get it to work properly. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Here is the basics of my code:
var showOnClick = function() {
ctrl.showAll(!ctrl.showAll());
};
MathJax.Hub.Queue(['Typeset', MathJax.Hub]);
return m('p.readable.pointer', {onclick: showOnClick},
ctrl.showAll() ? result.description : description_truncated);

I think that the main reason is that you already have all those spans that contain the formula parts and when you add the text, the engine tries to take all the contents of your text field as a source and reformat it. Since the spans don't look like the math source, it discards them (it is just a guess, but looks like it works this way).
My solution: instead of appending some text directly, add a new span and only regenerate the formula in this span. Be careful: if the text you are adding is cut like this it won't work: ["my super formula: $x \subset ", "\mathbb{R}$."].
So, here's my simplified example (note that I refresh the span with the id "txt2"):
<head>
<script type="text/x-mathjax-config">
MathJax.Hub.Config({tex2jax: {inlineMath: [['$','$'], ['\\(','\\)']]}});
function addText() {
document.getElementById('txt').innerHTML += '<span id=txt2> ...adding new formula: $x\\subseteq X$</span>';
MathJax.Hub.Queue(["Typeset",MathJax.Hub,"txt2"]);
}
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" async
src="https://cdn.mathjax.org/mathjax/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS_CHTML">
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id=txt>$1\neq 0$</div>
<input type=button onclick="addText()" value="Do it"/>
</body>

Your original post doesn't show how you were adding the additional text to the paragraph, but if it was using innerHTML += ... like in your answer, then that was probably the source of your duplicate math. By doing this, you are deleting the current DOM and replacing it with a new one, copied from the old one, but not identical to it. In particular, you lose the values that MathJax has stored with the old DOM that record what has been processed, and so when you asked MathJax to typeset the page again, it looked like all the math was new so it was typeset again, introducing a second copy of the typeset math into the document.
While your current version does avoid the duplication, it still has lost all the connections from the copied DOM to MathJax. For example, the contextual menu will no longer work on the older math expressions, since the code that handles that hasn't been copied by setting innerHTML. So this is not a good way to proceed.
Instead, you might try
document.getElementById('txt')
.appendChild(document.createTextNode('...adding new formula: $x\\subseteq X$'));
which will not alter the existing DOM, but simply add a new text node. Then you can typeset the page again without getting duplication.

Related

Document.write nondestructive alternative [duplicate]

In tutorials I've learnt to use document.write. Now I understand that by many this is frowned upon. I've tried print(), but then it literally sends it to the printer.
So what are alternatives I should use, and why shouldn't I use document.write? Both w3schools and MDN use document.write.
The reason that your HTML is replaced is because of an evil JavaScript function: document.write().
It is most definitely "bad form." It only works with webpages if you use it on the page load; and if you use it during runtime, it will replace your entire document with the input. And if you're applying it as strict XHTML structure it's not even valid code.
the problem:
document.write writes to the document stream. Calling document.write on a closed (or loaded) document automatically calls document.open which will clear the document.
-- quote from the MDN
document.write() has two henchmen, document.open(), and document.close(). When the HTML document is loading, the document is "open". When the document has finished loading, the document has "closed". Using document.write() at this point will erase your entire (closed) HTML document and replace it with a new (open) document. This means your webpage has erased itself and started writing a new page - from scratch.
I believe document.write() causes the browser to have a performance decrease as well (correct me if I am wrong).
an example:
This example writes output to the HTML document after the page has loaded. Watch document.write()'s evil powers clear the entire document when you press the "exterminate" button:
I am an ordinary HTML page. I am innocent, and purely for informational purposes. Please do not <input type="button" onclick="document.write('This HTML page has been succesfully exterminated.')" value="exterminate"/>
me!
the alternatives:
.innerHTML This is a wonderful alternative, but this attribute has to be attached to the element where you want to put the text.
Example: document.getElementById('output1').innerHTML = 'Some text!';
.createTextNode() is the alternative recommended by the W3C.
Example: var para = document.createElement('p');
para.appendChild(document.createTextNode('Hello, '));
NOTE: This is known to have some performance decreases (slower than .innerHTML). I recommend using .innerHTML instead.
the example with the .innerHTML alternative:
I am an ordinary HTML page.
I am innocent, and purely for informational purposes.
Please do not
<input type="button" onclick="document.getElementById('output1').innerHTML = 'There was an error exterminating this page. Please replace <code>.innerHTML</code> with <code>document.write()</code> to complete extermination.';" value="exterminate"/>
me!
<p id="output1"></p>
Here is code that should replace document.write in-place:
document.write=function(s){
var scripts = document.getElementsByTagName('script');
var lastScript = scripts[scripts.length-1];
lastScript.insertAdjacentHTML("beforebegin", s);
}
You can combine insertAdjacentHTML method and document.currentScript property.
The insertAdjacentHTML() method of the Element interface parses the specified text as HTML or XML and inserts the resulting nodes into the DOM tree at a specified position:
'beforebegin': Before the element itself.
'afterbegin': Just inside the element, before its first child.
'beforeend': Just inside the element, after its last child.
'afterend': After the element itself.
The document.currentScript property returns the <script> element whose script is currently being processed. Best position will be beforebegin — new HTML will be inserted before <script> itself. To match document.write's native behavior, one would position the text afterend, but then the nodes from consecutive calls to the function aren't placed in the same order as you called them (like document.write does), but in reverse. The order in which your HTML appears is probably more important than where they're place relative to the <script> tag, hence the use of beforebegin.
document.currentScript.insertAdjacentHTML(
'beforebegin',
'This is a document.write alternative'
)
As a recommended alternative to document.write you could use DOM manipulation to directly query and add node elements to the DOM.
Just dropping a note here to say that, although using document.write is highly frowned upon due to performance concerns (synchronous DOM injection and evaluation), there is also no actual 1:1 alternative if you are using document.write to inject script tags on demand.
There are a lot of great ways to avoid having to do this (e.g. script loaders like RequireJS that manage your dependency chains) but they are more invasive and so are best used throughout the site/application.
I fail to see the problem with document.write. If you are using it before the onload event fires, as you presumably are, to build elements from structured data for instance, it is the appropriate tool to use. There is no performance advantage to using insertAdjacentHTML or explicitly adding nodes to the DOM after it has been built. I just tested it three different ways with an old script I once used to schedule incoming modem calls for a 24/7 service on a bank of 4 modems.
By the time it is finished this script creates over 3000 DOM nodes, mostly table cells. On a 7 year old PC running Firefox on Vista, this little exercise takes less than 2 seconds using document.write from a local 12kb source file and three 1px GIFs which are re-used about 2000 times. The page just pops into existence fully formed, ready to handle events.
Using insertAdjacentHTML is not a direct substitute as the browser closes tags which the script requires remain open, and takes twice as long to ultimately create a mangled page. Writing all the pieces to a string and then passing it to insertAdjacentHTML takes even longer, but at least you get the page as designed. Other options (like manually re-building the DOM one node at a time) are so ridiculous that I'm not even going there.
Sometimes document.write is the thing to use. The fact that it is one of the oldest methods in JavaScript is not a point against it, but a point in its favor - it is highly optimized code which does exactly what it was intended to do and has been doing since its inception.
It's nice to know that there are alternative post-load methods available, but it must be understood that these are intended for a different purpose entirely; namely modifying the DOM after it has been created and memory allocated to it. It is inherently more resource-intensive to use these methods if your script is intended to write the HTML from which the browser creates the DOM in the first place.
Just write it and let the browser and interpreter do the work. That's what they are there for.
PS: I just tested using an onload param in the body tag and even at this point the document is still open and document.write() functions as intended. Also, there is no perceivable performance difference between the various methods in the latest version of Firefox. Of course there is a ton of caching probably going on somewhere in the hardware/software stack, but that's the point really - let the machine do the work. It may make a difference on a cheap smartphone though. Cheers!
The question depends on what you are actually trying to do.
Usually, instead of doing document.write you can use someElement.innerHTML or better, document.createElement with an someElement.appendChild.
You can also consider using a library like jQuery and using the modification functions in there: http://api.jquery.com/category/manipulation/
This is probably the most correct, direct replacement: insertAdjacentHTML.
Try to use getElementById() or getElementsByName() to access a specific element and then to use innerHTML property:
<html>
<body>
<div id="myDiv1"></div>
<div id="myDiv2"></div>
</body>
<script type="text/javascript">
var myDiv1 = document.getElementById("myDiv1");
var myDiv2 = document.getElementById("myDiv2");
myDiv1.innerHTML = "<b>Content of 1st DIV</b>";
myDiv2.innerHTML = "<i>Content of second DIV element</i>";
</script>
</html>
Use
var documentwrite =(value, method="", display="")=>{
switch(display) {
case "block":
var x = document.createElement("p");
break;
case "inline":
var x = document.createElement("span");
break;
default:
var x = document.createElement("p");
}
var t = document.createTextNode(value);
x.appendChild(t);
if(method==""){
document.body.appendChild(x);
}
else{
document.querySelector(method).appendChild(x);
}
}
and call the function based on your requirement as below
documentwrite("My sample text"); //print value inside body
documentwrite("My sample text inside id", "#demoid", "block"); // print value inside id and display block
documentwrite("My sample text inside class", ".democlass","inline"); // print value inside class and and display inline
I'm not sure if this will work exactly, but I thought of
var docwrite = function(doc) {
document.write(doc);
};
This solved the problem with the error messages for me.

Replacing text with javascript?

After much trial an error and some progress I still can't mange to change every instance of ,- with kr on my website.
I'm very much a beginner at JS and have pieced together the following code from several sources. Is the code the problem or something else?
function skrivkr() {
var skrivkr = $('div').text().replace(/\,-/g, 'kr');
$('p').html(skrivkr);
}
window.onload = skrivkr();
Update:
Thanks for the replies. The site loads jquery 1.10.7.
#Niet the Dark Absol: No, I don't want to put anything in p elements. How do I remove that part? I just want to find all ,- and simply replace with kr without changing any formatting.
Update
OK! Progress, kind of. The ENTIRE content of every <strong> and <dd> now changes to (0), instead of kr. With the odd exception of those tags including ,-. I haven't designed the site myself.
If it helps, one of the ,- appears in the following markup:
<a href="xxxx" rel="nofollow">
<span class="amount">1</span>
<span class="photo">
<img src="xxxx" alt="product name" width="62" height="42">
</span>
<span class="description">
Prtoduct name
<strong>4444,-</strong>
</span>
</a>
And the lastest script I'm applying is:
$(document).ready(function() {
$('strong, dd').html($('strong, dd').html().replace(/,-/g, 'kr'));
});
As has been mentioned innumerable times here on SO, do not try to manipulate the DOM as a string. Pain awaits.
Instead, traverse the DOM, finding text nodes, and perform whatever transformation you want to make on each text node. There are many ways to do that.
In your case, you have many problems, as mentioned already by some of the commenters and responders:
You're setting window.onload to undefined (the result of calling skrivkr), instead of to skrivkr itself.
You're extracting the text value of an element, which consists of the concatenation of all text down all levels, performing the replacement, then sticking it back in with html. This will wipe out all the element structure below.
Minor point, but there's no need to escape the comma in the regexp.
You're extracting the textual content of all div elements in the entire document, transforming it, then adding that back as the content of all p elements in the entire document. It's hard to imagine that's what you want to do.
You can update the content of each div like this
$(document).ready(function() {
$('div').each(function(){
var newText = $(this).html().replace(/,-/g, 'kr');
$(this).html(newText);
});
});
You can remove the var "newText = " and replace it with $(this).html($(this).html().replace(/,-/g, 'kr'));
The first example is easier to understand perhaps if you are new to programming.
You will, however only change the content of text placed in tags.
I would place the text to replace in a div with some predefine class, like "autoKronor", it would then look like this:
<div class="autoKronor">123,-</div>
and
$(document).ready(function() {
$('.autoKronor').each(function(){
var newText = $(this).html().replace(/,-/g, 'kr');
$(this).html(newText);
});
});
to en sure that only text you intended to change gets changed..
Example here: http://jsfiddle.net/akm1uw8h/2/
Also note the use of $(document).ready(); instead of window.onload. It does what you intended to do with window.onload.
if you really want to change EVERY single instance of ",-" to "kr" then you could do this:
$(document).ready(function() {
$('body').html($('body').html().replace(/,-/g, 'kr'));
});
But i strongly advice against the last example because it will be the slowest to compute and more importantly you might change stuff you don't intend to, like any script block inside the page body (with that i mean other javascripts)

Adding text to a speech bubbles in real time

I have an image that will form the background of an html page, and I want to superimpose speech bubbles over it. I've figured out how to make bubbles with css, and set their placement. But I cannot figure out how I will populate the bubbles (the div elements). Text messages will populate files, and I need to grab the strings and display them in the bubbles, refreshing the bubble content as messages come in. Any thoughts?
Assuming one of your bubbles contains a DIV which looks like this:
<div id="bubble1">This is the text</div>
You can use Javascript to easily change the text content. Using a JS library like jQuery is recommended. Here is a code example which changes the text:
<script>
$(document).ready(function()
{
$('#bubble1').text('This is the changed text'); // to change the text
$('#bubble1').html('This has <b>some</b> formatting'); // to change the html
});
</script>
Don't forget to include jQuery itself with a line like:
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.8.3.min.js"></script>
I couldn't understand where you are getting your strings from, if you let me know, I could update the answer.
If you are unfamiliar with jQuery, take a look here.
I think this will answer your question:
http://nicolasgallagher.com/pure-css-speech-bubbles/
Keep in mind that this is css3, so older browsers can have problems with that.

Create new (not change) stylesheets using jQuery

We've got a little tool that I built where you can edit a jQuery template in one field and JSON data in another and then hit a button to see the results immediately within the browser.
I really need to expand this though so the designer can edit a full CSS stylesheet within another field and when we render the template, it will have the CSS applied to it. The idea being that once we've got good results we can take the contents of these three fields, put them in files and use them in our project.
I found the jQuery.cssRule plugin but it looks like it's basically abandoned (all the links go nowhere and there's been no development in three years). Is there something better or is it the only game in town?
Note: We're looking for something where someone types traditional CSS stylesheet data in here and that is used immediately for rendering within the page and that can be edited and changed at will with the old rules going away and new ones used in their stead. I'm not looking for something where the designer has to learn jQuery syntax and enter in individual .css("attribute", "value") type calls to jQuery.
Sure, just append a style tag to the head:
$("head").append("<style>p { color: blue; }</style>");
See it in action here.
You can replace the text in a dynamically added style tag using something like this:
$("head").append("<style id='dynamicStylesheet'></style>");
$("#dynamicStylesheet").text(newStyleTextGoesHere);
See this in action here.
The cleanest way to achieve this is by sandboxing your user-generated content into an <iframe>. This way, changes to the CSS won't affect the editor. (For example, input { display:none; } can't break your page.)
Just render out your HTML (including the CSS in the document's <head>, and write it into the <iframe>.
Example:
<iframe id="preview" src="about:blank">
var i = $('#preview')[0];
var doc = i.contentWindow || i.contentDocument;
if (doc.document) doc = doc.document;
doc.open('text/html',true);
doc.write('<!DOCTYPE html><html>...</html>');
doc.close();
If the user should be able to edit a whole stylesheet, not only single style attributes, then you can store the entered stylesheet in a temporary file and load it into your html document using
$('head').append('<link rel="stylesheet" href="temp.css" type="text/css" />');
sounds like you want to write an interpreter for the css? if it is entered by hand in text, then using it later would be as simple as copy and pasting it into a css file.
so if you have a textarea on your page to type in css and want to apply those rules when you press the button, you could use something like this (only pseudocode, needs work):
//for each css id in the text area
$.each($('textarea[name=cssTextArea]').html().split('#'), function({
//now get each property
$.each($(this).split(';'), function(){
$(elem).css({property:value});
});
});
then you could write something to go through each element that your designer typed in, and get the current css rules for it (including those that you applied using some code like the snippet above) and create a css string from that which could then be output or saved in a db. It's a pain and much faffing around with substrings but unfortunately I don't know of a faster or more efficient way.
Hope this atleast gives you some ideas

What are alternatives to document.write?

In tutorials I've learnt to use document.write. Now I understand that by many this is frowned upon. I've tried print(), but then it literally sends it to the printer.
So what are alternatives I should use, and why shouldn't I use document.write? Both w3schools and MDN use document.write.
The reason that your HTML is replaced is because of an evil JavaScript function: document.write().
It is most definitely "bad form." It only works with webpages if you use it on the page load; and if you use it during runtime, it will replace your entire document with the input. And if you're applying it as strict XHTML structure it's not even valid code.
the problem:
document.write writes to the document stream. Calling document.write on a closed (or loaded) document automatically calls document.open which will clear the document.
-- quote from the MDN
document.write() has two henchmen, document.open(), and document.close(). When the HTML document is loading, the document is "open". When the document has finished loading, the document has "closed". Using document.write() at this point will erase your entire (closed) HTML document and replace it with a new (open) document. This means your webpage has erased itself and started writing a new page - from scratch.
I believe document.write() causes the browser to have a performance decrease as well (correct me if I am wrong).
an example:
This example writes output to the HTML document after the page has loaded. Watch document.write()'s evil powers clear the entire document when you press the "exterminate" button:
I am an ordinary HTML page. I am innocent, and purely for informational purposes. Please do not <input type="button" onclick="document.write('This HTML page has been succesfully exterminated.')" value="exterminate"/>
me!
the alternatives:
.innerHTML This is a wonderful alternative, but this attribute has to be attached to the element where you want to put the text.
Example: document.getElementById('output1').innerHTML = 'Some text!';
.createTextNode() is the alternative recommended by the W3C.
Example: var para = document.createElement('p');
para.appendChild(document.createTextNode('Hello, '));
NOTE: This is known to have some performance decreases (slower than .innerHTML). I recommend using .innerHTML instead.
the example with the .innerHTML alternative:
I am an ordinary HTML page.
I am innocent, and purely for informational purposes.
Please do not
<input type="button" onclick="document.getElementById('output1').innerHTML = 'There was an error exterminating this page. Please replace <code>.innerHTML</code> with <code>document.write()</code> to complete extermination.';" value="exterminate"/>
me!
<p id="output1"></p>
Here is code that should replace document.write in-place:
document.write=function(s){
var scripts = document.getElementsByTagName('script');
var lastScript = scripts[scripts.length-1];
lastScript.insertAdjacentHTML("beforebegin", s);
}
You can combine insertAdjacentHTML method and document.currentScript property.
The insertAdjacentHTML() method of the Element interface parses the specified text as HTML or XML and inserts the resulting nodes into the DOM tree at a specified position:
'beforebegin': Before the element itself.
'afterbegin': Just inside the element, before its first child.
'beforeend': Just inside the element, after its last child.
'afterend': After the element itself.
The document.currentScript property returns the <script> element whose script is currently being processed. Best position will be beforebegin — new HTML will be inserted before <script> itself. To match document.write's native behavior, one would position the text afterend, but then the nodes from consecutive calls to the function aren't placed in the same order as you called them (like document.write does), but in reverse. The order in which your HTML appears is probably more important than where they're place relative to the <script> tag, hence the use of beforebegin.
document.currentScript.insertAdjacentHTML(
'beforebegin',
'This is a document.write alternative'
)
As a recommended alternative to document.write you could use DOM manipulation to directly query and add node elements to the DOM.
Just dropping a note here to say that, although using document.write is highly frowned upon due to performance concerns (synchronous DOM injection and evaluation), there is also no actual 1:1 alternative if you are using document.write to inject script tags on demand.
There are a lot of great ways to avoid having to do this (e.g. script loaders like RequireJS that manage your dependency chains) but they are more invasive and so are best used throughout the site/application.
I fail to see the problem with document.write. If you are using it before the onload event fires, as you presumably are, to build elements from structured data for instance, it is the appropriate tool to use. There is no performance advantage to using insertAdjacentHTML or explicitly adding nodes to the DOM after it has been built. I just tested it three different ways with an old script I once used to schedule incoming modem calls for a 24/7 service on a bank of 4 modems.
By the time it is finished this script creates over 3000 DOM nodes, mostly table cells. On a 7 year old PC running Firefox on Vista, this little exercise takes less than 2 seconds using document.write from a local 12kb source file and three 1px GIFs which are re-used about 2000 times. The page just pops into existence fully formed, ready to handle events.
Using insertAdjacentHTML is not a direct substitute as the browser closes tags which the script requires remain open, and takes twice as long to ultimately create a mangled page. Writing all the pieces to a string and then passing it to insertAdjacentHTML takes even longer, but at least you get the page as designed. Other options (like manually re-building the DOM one node at a time) are so ridiculous that I'm not even going there.
Sometimes document.write is the thing to use. The fact that it is one of the oldest methods in JavaScript is not a point against it, but a point in its favor - it is highly optimized code which does exactly what it was intended to do and has been doing since its inception.
It's nice to know that there are alternative post-load methods available, but it must be understood that these are intended for a different purpose entirely; namely modifying the DOM after it has been created and memory allocated to it. It is inherently more resource-intensive to use these methods if your script is intended to write the HTML from which the browser creates the DOM in the first place.
Just write it and let the browser and interpreter do the work. That's what they are there for.
PS: I just tested using an onload param in the body tag and even at this point the document is still open and document.write() functions as intended. Also, there is no perceivable performance difference between the various methods in the latest version of Firefox. Of course there is a ton of caching probably going on somewhere in the hardware/software stack, but that's the point really - let the machine do the work. It may make a difference on a cheap smartphone though. Cheers!
The question depends on what you are actually trying to do.
Usually, instead of doing document.write you can use someElement.innerHTML or better, document.createElement with an someElement.appendChild.
You can also consider using a library like jQuery and using the modification functions in there: http://api.jquery.com/category/manipulation/
This is probably the most correct, direct replacement: insertAdjacentHTML.
Try to use getElementById() or getElementsByName() to access a specific element and then to use innerHTML property:
<html>
<body>
<div id="myDiv1"></div>
<div id="myDiv2"></div>
</body>
<script type="text/javascript">
var myDiv1 = document.getElementById("myDiv1");
var myDiv2 = document.getElementById("myDiv2");
myDiv1.innerHTML = "<b>Content of 1st DIV</b>";
myDiv2.innerHTML = "<i>Content of second DIV element</i>";
</script>
</html>
Use
var documentwrite =(value, method="", display="")=>{
switch(display) {
case "block":
var x = document.createElement("p");
break;
case "inline":
var x = document.createElement("span");
break;
default:
var x = document.createElement("p");
}
var t = document.createTextNode(value);
x.appendChild(t);
if(method==""){
document.body.appendChild(x);
}
else{
document.querySelector(method).appendChild(x);
}
}
and call the function based on your requirement as below
documentwrite("My sample text"); //print value inside body
documentwrite("My sample text inside id", "#demoid", "block"); // print value inside id and display block
documentwrite("My sample text inside class", ".democlass","inline"); // print value inside class and and display inline
I'm not sure if this will work exactly, but I thought of
var docwrite = function(doc) {
document.write(doc);
};
This solved the problem with the error messages for me.

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