Talk:Multiplicative arithmetic functions

\,

In \scriptstyle used for inline formulae (but not for subscripts or superscripts), I was doing the grunt work of adding \, before and after operators to get proper spacing (for better readability, and in agreement with standard typographical convention). I know it adds lots of clutter (why does LaTeX not add proper spacing?)... You may observe that the readability is somewhat reduced now, as everything is lumped together in the formulae... — Daniel Forgues 02:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

LaTeX is designed to handle its own spacing. It adds a certain amount around all binary operators, for example, without being given explicit spacing. I don't know what software is used to render formulas here -- probably not actually LaTeX -- but what I see now is correct rendering, with the right amount of space around = signs and the like. Before, when space was manually added, the spacing was incorrect (too much space). It's interesting to me that you don't have the same experience. I wonder if the difference is your preference or your software environment.

Charles R Greathouse IV 06:39, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm... I think you're talking about the \scriptstyle, which does indeed look somewhat odd. In fact this software renders \scriptstyle so poorly that I prefer to not use it at all, using HTML or plain math tags inline. Of course when possible formulas should simply be pushed to their own line, so the whole issue can be avoided.

I'm not sure what is best when it comes to the remaining inline formulas. The danger of manually adding space is that if we update the software to a version that does \scriptstyle properly, the added space will make all inline formulas look terrible. Of course they already look terrible, they'll just look terrible in a different way...!

Charles R Greathouse IV 06:52, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've looked at this website on Safari and Firefox for Mac OS X and Internet Explorer and Firefox for Windows NT, XP, 7, Vista, etc. On Windows the expressions with scriptstyle look a little too small and the ones without a little too big. Scriptstyle looks better under Mac. Alonso del Arte 21:33, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The annoying thing about inline formulae is that if we don't use \scriptstyle we end up with simple formulae in HTML and less simple formulae in default \displaystyle (too big for inline) and it looks like so many Wikipedia pages... with inconsistent rendering style of inline formulae. Things look fine with displaystyle formulae, unless the formula is simple where we end up with HTML (too small for display style) unless using \, to force PNG rendering.

Concerning the math preferences, Mediawiki 1.19 is considering (I recall that a recent mediawiki-l posting said that Mediawiki 1.19 offers the only options: "Always render as PNG" or "Always return as LaTeX for text browsers") see

Requests for comment/Reduce math rendering preferences—MediaWiki.org.

and related to the baseline issue for inline formulae, see

Bug 32694 - Use baseline shift when positioning inline math PNGs

There are four rendering styles in LaTeX (I read that \textstyle should be used for inline, but it renders the same as \displaystyle so we can't use it for that purpose. The typographic convention for subscripts and superscripts is to have no space before and after operators and since \scriptstyle was meant for that purpose that must be why it doesn't put "comma spaces" \, around operators. I'm hinting that we should have been using \textstyle for inline formulae, if only it actually gave proper inline style...)

​<math>\scriptscriptstyle a x^2 + b x + c \,</math>​ yielding $\scriptscriptstyle ax^{2}+bx+c\,$ (for second level subscripts or superscripts) (it looks like the exponent is in \scriptstyle instead of \scriptscriptstyle, another bug...?)

​<math>\scriptstyle a x^2 + b x + c \,</math>​ yielding $\scriptstyle ax^{2}+bx+c\,$ (since \scriptstyle was intended for subscripts or superscripts, we should not expect baseline alignment here, and operators should not be surrounded by "comma spaces" \, here, and this is exactly what we get!)

​<math>\textstyle a x^2 + b x + c \,</math>​ yielding $\textstyle ax^{2}+bx+c\,$ (font size should between the sizes of \scriptstyle and \displaystyle, should be properly aligned with baseline, and should surround operators with "comma spaces" \,) (Why does it render the same as \displaystyle?) (This is what we should be using for inline formulae, but it doesn't work as intended!)

​<math>\displaystyle a x^2 + b x + c \,</math>​ yielding $\displaystyle ax^{2}+bx+c\,$

— Daniel Forgues 01:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

See also ("Disable the partial HTML and MathML rendering options for Math, and render as PNG by default (see RFC and r104498).") in

MediaWiki 1.19#Easier reading, editing, and maintenance—MediaWiki.org.

— Daniel Forgues 01:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Just look at the inconsistent rendering of the inline variables and formulae in

{{Sequence of the Day for October 1}}

— Daniel Forgues 01:53, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Erdős proof

Does the comment belong to multiplicative functions instead? — Daniel Forgues 21:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, it belongs here (I checked the link). — Daniel Forgues 21:46, 10 May 2013 (UTC)