Wikispaces+Math+Display+Mode

I am not particularly computer savvy and I don't know if I'll really be able to explain this well within the wiki itself. Consider this page as a template for how to create a full page where all of the text and mathematics is created and displayed using wikispaces own math display mode. You can find the commands to enter display mode either by editing this page and seeing what I did or by searching for math in the wikispaces help menu.

Here is an example of how wikispaces intended their math equation display mode to work.

math \tan^2(x)+1=\sec^2(x) math

The commands must appear on their own lines and the output is a mathematical formula that is displayed (on its own line and in this case tabbed but usually it means centered). When the font and spacing changes below, it is my example of how to create inline equations with the wikispaces equation display mode.

math {}$ Although wikispaces intends for its math display mode to only display equations, it is possible to fake it out to some extent. Here is a sample inline equation $\frac{3}{2}=1\frac{1}{2}$ that I have done with wikispaces math display mode. Notice how the font and the spacing of the text around the equation changed. That is because the text is now being run through the math display mode and hence doesn't look exactly like the text in the normal editor.

math

It is conceivable that if I spoke TeX better, I could alter the font in the displayed equation mode to match that of wikispaces background type. However, I think that it would be extremely irritating to have to put that much TeX code in each time that I wanted to do something. In addition since I want to have my students editing the wiki, I don't want to assume too much knowledge of LaTeX. Here is an example of a page that one of my students made where she stayed in the math display mode for the entire page so that there is not a change in font. My student did leave the math display mode to upload the graphs that accompany the text.

Plusses:

 * No blue boxes that are distracting in the editor.
 * The TeX code is directly available in the editor
 * The entire entry is keyboard driven the way that TeX is supposed to be.

Minuses:

 * You have to remember to open and close the commands for the math display mode. If you try to save the page before you close the math display mode, it all breaks and you essentially have to start over from scratch. Repitition would teach you to do this right the first time eventually.
 * You have to put the {}$ on the line directly below the command, or the text is displayed as mathematics in TeX (italicized and with no spaces). Again experience would be a good teacher.
 * You lose a lot of the features of wikispaces (links, images, etc.) as you are now typing a TeX document. In the linked example above the student comes out of the math display mode in order to upload her screen shots.