Overview on formula usage with creole markup language

Creole, the markup language used throughout this website, has not implemented formula rendering as wikipedia markup language, for instance. It is practicable, however, to write a macro for that purpose. The evolution of such a macro is described here.

After some rather frustrating experiments with HTML, TEX, and MathML, it became clear that a solution must involve formulas rendered into images that can be included into the HTML code.

As I already implemented matplotlib to visualize graphics it seems feasable to create some formula images through matplotlib. That became the method on many web pages. Then however I realized that LATEX renderíng by matplotlib is incomplete and unstable. Moreover the graphic boxes have to be adjusted manually tho enclose the whole formula.

The for the present final solution includes latex -> dvi -> png rendering. This graphic not only fit better into the text on screen and printout but also allow for numbering.