Custom $\KaTeX$ Macros

Background

Same as the last section in Beautiful Hugo Improvements.

Goal

To write math efficiently by automatically loading longer code with shorter macro code.

For example, when I wrote Some Infinite Cardinality Identities, it would be ten times more quicker and efficient to type \card{C} than to write \mathop{\mathrm{card}}(C) all the time.

Changes committed to my repo

The current version of Beautiful Hugo is still using $\KaTeX$ v0.7, which doesn’t support macros in auto-rendering. It would be inconvenient to include the macros after invoking $\KaTeX$’s render function.

I spent a night trying to put my custom $\KaTeX$ macros into layouts/partials/footer_custom.html. Unaware of the $\KaTeX$ version, I couldn’t find a solution from Google.

• Migrated the JavaScript code from the big <script> tag in layouts/partials/footer_custom.html to static/js/katex-macros.js
• Wrapped the auto render function renderMathInElement() with a listener for the DOMContentLoaded.

Comparison with my MathJax macros

Once I had confirmed that $\KaTeX$’s support for equation tagging and custom macros worked on this site, I ported my MathJax macros to here.

Hugo interpreted (C) as (C), even inside a pair of $...$: $(C) becomes $(C)$.

In MathJax macros, one has to specify the total number of argument(s) for macros that accepts argument(s). As a result, I didn’t configure argument for operators for like “vol”, “Int”, etc. I would type “\vol(E)” on my old Octopress blog for convenience.

However, to avoid typos like “$\mathop{\mathrm{card}}(C)$”, I’m going to rewrite my $\KaTeX$ macros so that they will be capable of accepting arguments. This will be carried out gradually as I’m currently quite occupied with my studies in math.

Some macros Qike \N, \R, \Z, etc, have been removed as they were already supported by $\KaTeX$.

TODO list

• enable $\KaTeX$ auto-rendering
• port existing macros from my old blog
• write some math articles to test the macros
• rewrite my macros’ syntax to accept arguments
• promote $\KaTeX$ to the mathematical community
• watch $\KaTeX$ update for automatic equation referencing support