Mimetex

As I promised in this thread some time ago, I will post a short install note on how to get mimetex to work on vB.

1.
You need to download the mimeTex source files to compile and install mimeTeX. I don't know if it is allowed to attached the compied mimetex.cgi file, nor do I know if there is something server specific in my file. So you have to do this on your own. Compile and installation instruction can be found in the mimetex source files.
http://moodle.org/download/mimetex/source/mimetex.html
EDIT (2005-06-14):Added the mimetex.cgi file as attachment

2.
Upload the mimetex.cgi file to a folder on your server where it could be used. As we don't wanted our users or anybody else to access this file, we put it outside the webserver root.

3. Create a folder on your webserver where the mimeTex images should be stored.

4.
Open the atteched functions_mimetex.php and alter the three variables at the beginning to your needs. Upload the attached functions_mimetex.php file to your /includes/ folder.

5.
Open /includes/functions_bbcodeparse.php
Find:

PHP Code:

    } // end smilies 


below add:

PHP Code:

  // Latex Hack by CDK
    require_once('functions_mimetex.php');   
    $bbcode = mimetex($bbcode); 


upload altered file.

6. If everything went right you should now can use [tex]\frac{x^3 + 2 x^2 - 6 x + 7}{x^2+1}[/tex] which results in http://www.chemieonline.de/images/fo...97a0d49e15.gif


I've put up some samples in the zip file. More samples by one of our Moderators can be found here: http://www.studenten-city.de/forum/s...91&postcount=1


It was a hack made for our forum, I have no further interest in developing this into a real stabel hack. Its working for us. I posted this, just to give other users who needed this a start into the right direction.

[the_sisko]

I see you found a solution fpr your self, just wanted to answer to your warining message:

system() has been disabled for security reasons

You or your host disabled the system function or even all execute function of php. This is done on a shared server to protect the server and clients in a better way.

Your workaround is nice. Images won't be stored and rendered everytime a user visits a post. This could be a problem on big boards...

[edst]

You're right -- the re-rendering could be an issue for larger boards. In this case, you could build a new version of mimetex.cgi that uses the -DCACHEPATH=\"path/\" argument and still cache the images locally. This probably makes sense to do whenever the workaround is needed.

On that note, if you're building your own mimetex.cgi anyway, I'd recommend using the -DREFERER=\"domain\" argument too. This will add some level of security so that others cannot make use of the engine if it's located in a public area of your server.