0.100.0 2024-06-12

Issues Resolved

• #2396 Pressing the arrow keys in the virtual keyboard would not move the selection in the mathfield and display a runtime error in the console.

• #2395 Added a dispatchEvent command which can be attached to a custom keycap.

• #2392 Pressing the backspace key after typing several digits would delete all the digits.

  Its first argument is the name of the dispatched event, and the second argument is an object with the detail property, which is the data associated with the event.

    { 
      label: "✨",
      command: "displatchEvent('customEvent', {detail: 'some data'})"
    }
  

  To handle the event, add an event listener to the mathfield element:

  mf.addEventListener('customEvent', (ev) => {
    console.log(ev.detail);
  });
  

0.99.0 2024-06-10

Breaking Changes

• The mf.offsetFromPoint() method has been renamed mf.getOffsetFromPoint()

• The mf.setCaretPoint() method has been replaced with mf.position = mf.getOffsetFromPoint()

• The mf.scriptDepth() and mf.hitboxFromOffset() methodds have been replaced with mf.getElementInfo().

  The getElementInfo() method provides more information including any id that may have been applied with \htmlId{}.

  It is useful from within a click handler to get more information about the element that was clicked, e.g.

    mf.getElementInfo(mf.getOffsetFromPoint(ev.clientX, ev.clientY))
  

  The info returned is an object with the following properties:

  export type ElementInfo = {
    /** The depth in the expression tree. 0 for top-level elements */
    depth?: number;
  
    /** The bounding box of the element */
    bounds?: DOMRect;
  
    /** id associated with this element or its ancestor, set with `\htmlId` or 
       `\cssId`   
    */
    id?: string;
  
    /** HTML attributes associated with element or its ancestores, set with
     * `\htmlData`
     */
    data?: Record<string, string | undefined>;
  
    /** The mode (math, text or LaTeX) */
    mode?: ParseMode;
  
    /** A LaTeX representation of the element */
    latex?: string;
  
    /** The style (color, weight, variant, etc...) of this element. */
    style?: Style;
  };
  

Bold

The way bold is handled in LaTeX is particularly confusing, reflecting limitations of the text rendering technology of the time.

Various attempts have been made over the years to improve the rendering of bold, but this has resulted in inconsistent behavior. Furthermore, various implementations of LaTeX and LaTeX-like systems have implemented bold in different ways.

This release introduces a more consistent and intuitive handling of bold, although it may result in different rendering of some formulas compared to some implementations of LaTeX.

The original bold command in LaTeX is \mathbf. This command renders its argument using a bold variant of the current font. However, only letters and numbers can be rendered by this command. It does not affect symbols, operators, or greek characters.

For example, \mathbf{a+b} will render as 𝐚+𝐛, with the a and b in bold, but the + in normal weight. Characters rendered by \mathbf are rendered upright, even if they would have been rendered as italic otherwise.

The \boldsymbol command is an alternative to \mathbf that affects more characters, including Greek letters and symbols. It does not affect the style of the characters, so they remain italic if they were italic before. However, the inter-character spacing and italic correction may not be rendered correctly.

The \bm command from the bm package is a more modern alternative that affects even more characters. It also preserves the style of the characters, so they remain italic if they were italic before. The inter-character spacing and italic correction are handled correctly.

The \bm command is recommended over \boldsymbol and \mathbf. However, it is not part of the standard LaTeX distribution, so it may not always be available.

When serializing to LaTeX, MathLive will now use \mathbf when possible, and fall back to \bm when not. This should result in more consistent rendering of bold text.

When parsing, MathLive will interpret both \mathbf, \boldsymbol and \bm as bold.

The bold style is now consistently inherited by sub-expressions.

Similarly, when applying a bold style using mf.applyStyle({weight: "bold"}), the bold attribute is applied to the entire selection, not just the letters and numbers.

Mode Switching

• #2375 The switch-mode command has two optionals arguments, a prefix and suffix. The prefix is inserted before the mode switch, and the suffix after. The command was behaving incorrectly. It now behaves as expected.
• It is now possible to roundtrip between math and text mode. For example, selecting a fraction \frac{a}{b} and pressing alt+shift+T will convert the selection to (a)/(b). Pressing alt+shift+T again will convert it back to \frac{a}{b}.
• When in LaTeX mode, changing the selection would sometimes unexpectedly exit LaTeX mode, for example after the Select All command. This has been fixed.

New Features

• \href

  The \href{url}{content} command, a MathJax extension that allows a link to be associated with some content, is now supported.

  Clicking on the content will open the link. By default, the link is opened in a new window, and only links with a HTTP, HTTPS or FILE protocol are allowed. This can be controlled by the new MathfieldElement.openUrl property. This property is a function with a single argument, the URL to be opened, that is called when the content of the \href command is clicked on.

• Tooltip appearance

  Added CSS variables to control the appearance of the toolip displayed with \mathtip and \texttip:

  • --tooltip-border
  • --tooltip-color
  • --tooltip-background-color
  • --tooltip-box-shadow
  • --tooltip-border-radius.

• The maxMatrixCols property has been added that specifies the maximum number of columns that a matrix may have. The default value is 10, which follows the default value from the amsmath package. The property applies to all of the matrix environments (matrix, pmatrix, bmatrix, etc.). This property is also accessible via the max-matrix-cols attribute.

• The virtual keyboard now supports variants for shifted-keys. This includes support for Swedish specific characters such as å, ä, and ö and their uppercase variants.

• Accept "true" and "false" as values for on/off attributes in the <math-field> element, for example <math-field smart-fence="true">.

• Added a target property (a MathfieldElement) to the onMenuSelect arguments.

• #2337 Added an option MathfieldElement.restoreFocusWhenDocumentFocused to control whether a mathfield that was previously focused regains focus when the tab or window regains focus. This is true by default and matches the previous behavior, and the behavior of the <textarea> element.

• An alternate syntax for selectors with arguments. Selectors are used for example to associate actions with a keycap, such as switchKeyboardLayer. The previous syntax was command: ["switchKeyboardLayer", "alt-layer"], the new syntax is command: 'switchKeyboardLayer("alt-layer")'. This is more concise and easier to read.

Issues Resolved

• #2387 When using a macro, the spacing around the macro was incorrect in some cases.
• #2370 The order of the keydown and input event is now consistent with the <textarea> element.
• #2369 After typing a shortcut, using the backspace key could result in unexpected behavior. Now, pressing the backspace key after a shortcut has been typed will undo the conversion of the shortcut.
• #2380 In some cases, when using the menu, some spurious focus/blur events would be dispatched.
• #2384 When using repeating decimals after a comma (i.e. 123{,}4(1)), do not use a \left...\right command in order to get the proper spacing.
• #2349 The positioning of subscripts for extensible symbols, such as \int was incorrect.
• #2326 The Cut and Copy commands in the context menu are now working correctly in Safari.
• #2309 When using styled text (e.g. \textit{}), the content could sometimes be serialized with an unnecessary \text{} command, i.e. \text{\textit{...}}.
• #2376 When smart-fence was off, the { and } keys would not insert braces.
• #2273 Using one of the Chinese locales would result in a runtime error.
• #2355 When pressing the down arrow key in \sqrt[#?]{1} from the #? position, a runtime exception would occur.
• #2298 When using screen readers, pressing the spacebar would not always correctly focus the mathfield.
• #2297 In some cases, when using touch input, the previously selected item in a context menu would appear to be selected.
• #2289 When changing the value of the mathfield, the selection is now preserved. In addition, when using a controlled component with React an unnecessary update is avoided.
• #2282 Don't display selection when the mathfield is not focused
• #2280 Handle better very deeply nested expressions
• #2261 When a style was applied to an empty range, the style was ignored.
• #2208 When setting a variant style (i.e. blackboard, fraktur, etc...) the style is no longer adopted by subsequent characters.
• #2104, #2260 When replacing the selection by typing, the new content would not always be correctly styled. The content now inherits the style of the selection, or the style of the insertion point if the selection is collapsed.
• Better handle the case where the mathlive library gets loaded before the DOM is constructed.
• On Safari, the Insert Matrix submenu was displayed incorrectly.
• When the mathfield is an iframe, the before-virtual-keyboard-toggle and virtual-keyboard-toggle events are now dispatched on the window.mathVirtualKeyboard object of the iframe. This can be used to detect a request (and prevent) for the virtual keyboard to be displayed.
• If the unknown in an expression was a complex identifier, such as \mathcal{C} it would not be displayed correctly in the "Solve for" menu.
• The \mathrlap command was incorrectly rendering like \mathllap.

0.98.6 2024-01-27

New Features

• Added StaticRenderOptions.TeX.className to specify that an element with the specified class name should be rendered as a LaTeX formula.
• #2273 Added a --keycap-width CSS variable to specify the width of a keycap in a virtual-keyboard. By default, if the CSS variable is not specified, the width of the keycap is calculated based on the width of the parent container. However, this requires browser that support the cq CSS unit. If the browser does not support the cq CSS unit, this CSS variable can be used to specify the width of the keycap. (See #2028, #2133)
• #2255 Support for gather* environment
• #2242 A virtual keyboard keycap can now include a tooltip for its shifted variant.

Issues Resolved

• When using some APIs such as renderToMarkup() or renderToMathML() in a server-side environment, a runtime error would occur.
• When tabbing in a mathfield with multiple prompts, tab out of the mathfield when the last or first prompt is reached.
• **#2243##, **#2245** Unicode characters such as ² or ℂ are now interpreted as their LaTeX equivalent only when in math mode.
• #2237 The command \iff now renders correctly
• #2246 Changing the mf.value property would not always update the value of the mathfield.
• #2244 Worked around an issue in Safari on iOS where doing a double-tap on the virtual keyboard would result in the mathfield losing focus and the virtualy keyboard closing.
• #2252 At some viewport sizes, the integral sign in the symbols virtual keyboard would be clipped.
• #2235 Improved serialization to ASCIIMath.
• Avoid conflicts with some class names when rendering static math.
• When using renderMathToElement() or renderMathInDocument(), coalesce adjacent text nodes.
• Correctly parse the \cfrac optional alignment argument
• The commands \bf, \bfseries, \mdseries, \upshape, \itshape, \slshape, \scshape, \rmfamily, \sffamily, \ttfamily are now interpreted correctly.
• The command \operatorname is now spoken correctly
• #2152 On Safari, fill-in-the-blank prompts containing a fraction were rendered incorrectly.

0.98.5 2023-12-27

Issues Resolved

• When a font size command is inside a \left...\right command, apply the font size to the content of the command. As a result \frac34 + \left( \scriptstyle \frac12 \right) will now render as expected.

• #2214 When using Linux or Windows with a German keyboard layout, typing the ^ key will now switch to superscript.

• #2214 When typing Unicode characters such as ² or ℂ, correctly interpret them as their LaTeX equivalent. This also affects parsing of the value property.

• #2000, #2063 A mathfield with multiple lines now generate correct LaTeX using the \displaylines command.

• When a superscript or subscript is attached to a function, correctly position a following \left...\right command closer to the function.

• When typing a superscript after f, g or some other function, correctly interpret the superscript as an exponent, not as a function argument.

• #787, #1869 The f, g and h symbols are no longer hardcoded as symbols representing functions.

  Whether a symbol is considered a function affects the layout of a formula, specifically the amount of space between the symbol and a subsequent delimiter such as a parenthesis.

  Now whether a symbol should be treated as a function is determined by the MathfieldElement.isFunction hook.

  By the default, this hook uses the MathfieldElement.computeEngine to determine if the domain of a symbol is a function.

  This can be customized by setting the isFunction property of the mathfield or by declaring a symbol as a function using the declare() method of the compute engine. For example:

  MathfieldElement.computeEngine.declare("f", "Functions");
  

  In addition, a new isImplicitFunction hook has been added which can be used to indicate which symbols or commands are expected to be followed by an implicit argument. For example, the \sin function can be followed by an implicit argument without parentheses, as in \sin \frac{\pi}{2}. This affects the editing behavior when typing a / after the function. If an implicit function, the / will be interpreted as an argument to the function, otherwise it will be interpreted as a fraction with the function as the numerator.

• The "phi" keycap in the virtual keyboard was incorrectly displaying the \varphi symbol. It now displays the \phi symbol.

• #2227 Updating the content of the mathfield with mf.innerText will now correctly update the value of the mathfield.

• #2225 For consistency with <textarea>, when setting the value change the selection to be at the end of the mathfield.

0.98.3 2023-12-07

Improvements

• Improved contrast calculation for the checkmarks over color swatches, now using APCA.

• In some situations, the virtual keyboard would not be displayed when the mathfield was focused and the mathVirtualKeyboardPolicy was set to "auto".

0.98.2 2023-12-06

Improvements

• In some rare cases, the menu was not positioned correctly or would not display at all.

• When dynamically changing the layout of the mathfield, for example when using a font-size attribute based on viewport units, correctly redraw the selection

• Selection while dragging would stop after a few milliseconds

• The "contains highlight" indicator is no longer displayed when the mathfield is not focused or when the indicator is outside of a prompt.

• #2194 Ignore long press events when the pointer is a mouse.

Issues Resolved

• #2195 If the mathfield had a variable width the selection would not be displayed correctly.

• #2190 Under some circumstances, commands selected from the menu could be executed twice.

0.98.1 2023-12-05

New Features

• Added mf.showMenu() method to programmatically show the context menu.

Issues Resolved

• Correctly position the menu when the document has been scrolled.

• When serializing, do not generate a \text command around a \texttt command.

Improvements

• Keyboard navigate submenus with a grid layout

0.98.0 2023-12-03

Breaking Changes

• The mf.setPromptContent() method has been renamed to mf.setPromptValue() for consistency with the mf.getPromptValue() method.

• The mf.stripPromptContent() method has been removed. Its functionality can be achieved with:

const prompts = mf.getPrompts();
const values = prompts.map(id => mf.getPromptValue(id));
prompts.forEach(id => mf.setPromptValue(id, ""));

Improvements

• A new mf.getPromptRange() method returns the selection range of a prompt. This can be used for example to focus a mathfield and select a specific prompt:

mf.focus();
mf.selection = mf.getPromptRange(id);

• The Color, Background Color and Variant menus correctly toggle the colors and variant, and reflect their state with a checkmark or mixedmark.

• Setting the mf.menuItems property before the mathfield is inserted in the DOM will now correctly update the menu items.

• Correctly display tooltips in the menu when invoked via the menu icon.

• Localized menu items in the context menu.

New Features

• #348 Added a placeholder attribute, similar to the placeholder attribute of a <textarea> element. This specifies a short hint as a LaTeX string that describes the expected value of the mathfield. When the mathfield is empty, the placeholder text is displayed. The placeholder text can be styled with the math-field::part(placeholder) CSS selector.

• #2162 Added a "latex-without-placeholders" format to the getValue() method. This format is similar to the "latex" format, but does not include the placeholders (for "fill-in-the-blanks").

Issues Resolved

• #2169 Changing the selection programatically will now correctly update the mathfield.

• #2189 If the decimal separator is set to ,, the virtual keyboard will now correctly display the decimal separator as a comma.

• #2139 On some keyboard layouts, <kbd>ALT</kbd>+<kbd>/</kbd> would insert a \/ command, which is not standard. Now, the simple / is inserted.

0.97.4 2023-11-29

Issues Resolved

• When a global .row class was defined, it would be applied to the virtual keyboard rows, resulting in incorrect layout.

Improvements

• Added mf.queryStyle() method to query the style of a selection or the current style if no selection.