Embedding maths in a Google Gadget
Google sites is a great product to increase productivity of businesses of any size. At Lokad, one feature that I am really missing from Google Sites is the ability the embed clean mathematical formula in regular web pages.
Actually, a simple and yet very practical way of achieving a decent mathematical display consists of using a JavaScript ASCII Maths to MathML converter. Yet, Google Sites does not support direct 3rd party script inclusion either (which is probably on of the most painful limitation of Google Sites, but I digress).
Thus, I have decided to spend some time toying with the Google Gadgets to figure out if it was possible to circumvent this limitation through widgets. The resulting gadget can be found here. See also the screenshot below.
The syntax is identical the one of AsciiMathML. Enjoy.
Known limitations:
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Works poorly with Internet Explorer. Since MathML is not natively supported, you need a MathML addon (it’s free though).
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Gadget preferences can’t be changed in syndicated environment such as Google Sites. Which means that you have to edit first the page in Google Sites if you want the change made to the gadget to be persistent.
Reader Comments (3)
Hi We developped a math editor (you need latest flash) : http://www.mesmaths.com/Nm4/Applets/NmEquations-en.html If we removed the editor part and added some config to use it as a math renderer, would it be a good solution? Thanks Carl
November 27, 2008 | Carl-Alexandre Malartre
Actually, the main issue, that I was discussing about, is the current lack of flexibility of the Google Apps when it comes to integrate custom content - even raw MathML. Obviously, if embedding MathML was becoming possible in Google Apps, your editor (nice job btw) would be very handy.
December 1, 2008 | joannes
Hi Joannes, I’m not sure if I’m being really dumb or if something has changed in the google gadgets api but I can’t get this to work. have you tried it recently? Martin.
December 14, 2009 | Martin