Schrodinger's Cat Strikes Back

Home » Technical issues » What Plugins do we need?

What Plugins do we need?

As expected, not everything we are used to from SE works by default when installing Q2A as it is and creating a site. However there are some helpful plugins to improve the functionality of the site.

So this short post is to keep track of what is already installed or has been tested and what plugins would potentially be nice and useful to have.

Suggestions of useful plugins can be pointed out in the comments.

Already installed and tested:

Edit History

https://github.com/svivian/q2a-edit-history

This allows puts a link below each post to view the edit history. There is no roll back feature and they only plan to allow moderators to roll back in a future version. The link is a bit capricious, which may be related to the fact that there seems to be a
bug.

Q2A Markdown Editor LaTex

https://github.com/thibaultduponchelle/q2a-markdown-editor-latex

Certain things as for example the array environment

\begin{array}

\end{array}

Do not work for some reason, whereas when displaying the question on MathOverflow for example :-P, it works beautifully …
Maybe the “standard Markdown Editor together with a Java script for LaTex works better, as suggested by Dimension10 (?) …

Add an image upload button to the Markdown Editor

http://www.question2answer.org/qa/19686/add-an-image-upload-button-in-markdown-editor?show=25789#a25789

This works nicely, without solving the LaTex problems however …

Here is a stupid question with a nice image:

ScalarPotential

Comment voting

http://wiki.question2answer.org/doku.php/plugins/comment-voting

There appear no comment vote buttens for some reason, but the provider wisely said that it might not work as expected…

Q2A tagging tool

https://github.com/svivian/q2a-tagging-tools

Works nicely

Pinging @user

http://sourceforge.net/projects/scorchqaplugins/files/latest/download

This seems to have a bug

http://www.question2answer.org/qa/28885/bug-when-trying-to-use-the-plugin-to-ping-somebody-with-%40user

To be installed and tested as soon as possible

Q2A History

https://github.com/NoahY/q2a-history

Q2A Markdown Editor

https://github.com/svivian/q2a-markdown-editor

This needs to be complemented by a Mathjax Java script

Pinging @user

http://sourceforge.net/projects/scorchqaplugins/files/latest/download

Bookmarks

https://github.com/NoahY/q2a-bookmarks

RSS feeds

https://github.com/mbentley3123/q2a-rss-feed

Prevent simultanous edits

https://github.com/echteinfachtv/q2a-prevent-simultaneous-edits

Chat

https://github.com/svivian/q2a-chat-room


31 Comments

  1. I think I managed to understand the problem with the MarkDown + LaTeX.

    I found out somewhere on http://www.MaThJaX.org that in an earlier version of MaThJaX, the commands like “\begin”, “\end” weren’t installed.
    Probably, the MD+MJ editor used this old version of MaThJaX. This problem is also evident, on e.g. AskBot.
    As for it working in the edit histories, my explanation is that the edit history plug-in has an intrinsic MaThJaX renderer which uses the latest CDN or file.

    This problem can be fixed by using the standard MD editor with the image upload button.

    • Dilaton says:

      The Markdown Editor with the image upload button works :-), however it does not solve the LaTex Problem…

      • Well, obviously the image upload won’t solve a LaTeX problem.

        When you say it “works”, do you mean that an image can actually be uploaded (not just a link)/ ? If so, to which image host (Assuming it’s not the PostImage extension that you used) ?

        • Dilaton says:

          The image is displayed directly in the post, you can either upload it from your computer or give a link, similar to how it works on SE. You can see an example in this blogpost, but dont laugh at my stupid test questions 😛
          I have not looked at how and where the image is hosted …

          Concerning the LaTex, I can test if it helps when I do exlusively this second +1 answer to this questions

          http://www.question2answer.org/qa/1996/how-can-i-configure-q2a-to-support-mathtex-or-latex

          and nothing else. Do work with the LaTex Markdown Editor we had to slightly change some scripts etc too …

          • Oh, that’s nice! But I still don’t get it, which image service does it use? It’s important to ensure that it doesn’t randomly destroy it’s images.

            The second answer is the same as what I said, adding the CDN to the top of the page.

            By the way, you don’t actually need to any major script-changing for that. It can be found in the administrator panel.

            • Dilaton says:

              Maybe one could ask in the Q2A Forum about what image service the Plugin uses, in the Fucking Manual how to install it this is not explained

              Concerning the LaTex, I have written these lines at the top if each page (Admin -> Layout)

              MathJax.Hub.Config({ extensions: [“tex2jax.js”], jax: [“input/TeX”,”output/HTML-CSS”], tex2jax: {inlineMath: [[“$”,”$”],[“\\(“,”\\)”]]}, TeX: { extensions: [“AMSmath.js”,”AMSsymbols.js”]} });

              and this at the Head of each page

              The first one might be only needed by the LaTex Markdown-Editor however …

  2. Not a plug – in, but a suggestion: If we are using the markdown editor, we could try using the Courier New font instead.

  3. Here’s a plug – in that allows one to *upload* an image (not just post a link) using a service called PostImage.Org.

    http://blog.inventic.eu/2012/11/q2a-markdown-editor-with-file-upload/

  4. Have you tested out the MJ-CDN+Ordinary MD Editour?.

    • Dilaton says:

      Yep that is the last possibility to be tested 🙂

      My technical friendly helper ( this user is maybe interested in the new site too http://physics.stackexchange.com/users/21123/a-friendly-helper), has found out, that the Markdown Editor with Latex swallows from time to time som characters, such to obtain “row breaks” in a matix one has to write /// instead o // for example. As the problem persists when using the ME with image upload button, I suspect that that one does the same and the probability is hight that the most simple one will do the same … He said he will investigat the issues with the Markdown Editors further 🙂

      Conserning importing the TP data, my friendly technical helper managed to import the users, whereas importing the posts is still work in progress …

  5. https://github.com/NoahY/q2a-bookmarks

    The in-built favouriting is not really bookmarking as you don’t get to track activity on it.

  6. It seems that Phys.SE does not’ use the ordinary MaThJaX CDN, as you can see from the html of any Phys/.SE page.

    MathJax.Hub.Config({"HTML-CSS": { preferredFont: "TeX", availableFonts: ["STIX","TeX"], linebreaks: { automatic:true }, EqnChunk: (MathJax.Hub.Browser.isMobile ? 10 : 50) },
    tex2jax: { inlineMath: [ ["$", "$"], ["\\\\(","\\\\)"] ], displayMath: [ ["$$","$$"], ["\\[", "\\]"] ], processEscapes: true, ignoreClass: "tex2jax_ignore|dno" },
    TeX: { noUndefined: { attributes: { mathcolor: "red", mathbackground: "#FFEEEE", mathsize: "90%" } }, Macros: { href: "{}" } },
    messageStyle: "none"
    });

    If one does not use this, then inline maths will have to be entered as \(MATH-EXPRESSION-HOW-TO-SPELL-THAT\) instead of $MATH-EXPRESSION-H0W-TO-SPELL-THAT$.

    I propose that we slightly modify that further as

    MathJax.Hub.Config({"HTML-CSS": { preferredFont: "TeX", availableFonts: ["STIX","TeX"], linebreaks: { automatic:true }, EqnChunk: (MathJax.Hub.Browser.isMobile ? 10 : 50) },
    tex2jax: { inlineMath: [ ["$", "$"], ["\\\\(","\\\\)"], ["##","##"] ], displayMath: [ ["$$","$$"], ["\\[", "\\]"] ], processEscapes: true, ignoreClass: "tex2jax_ignore|dno" },
    TeX: { noUndefined: { attributes: { mathcolor: "red", mathbackground: "#FFEEEE", mathsize: "90%" } }, Macros: { href: "{}" } },
    messageStyle: "none"
    });


    ‘` :

  7. […] have already discussed Plugin Customisation for Q2A   but Q2A even allows customisation in the core itself. And this customisation is […]

  8. […] Then you can choose either the Markdown Editor or a WYSIWYG Editor as the default for posting questions, answers, and comments. Here, I think we should choose an appropriate Markdown Editor, see also the discussion about Plugins. […]

Leave a reply to Ψε = (Dimension10) Cancel reply