Muboard
Muboard is a tiny utility that runs a mathematics display board as a web page. Muboard lets you quickly scribble mathematics snippets using Markdown and LaTeX while presenting your desktop screen to others during real-world or virtual meetings.
Contents
Get Started
To get started with using Muboard, click here and start typing Markdown + LaTeX input at the text field at the bottom.
Here is an example screenshot that shows how Muboard with some content looks like:
Distributable Boards
Muboard can be used to create distributable boards. To try it out,
copy and paste the code below into an HTML file with .html
extension:
<!DOCTYPE html><script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]"></script><textarea>
# The Möbius function
For any positive integer $ n $, the Möbius function $ \mu(n) $ is
defined as follows:
$$ \mu(1) = 1; $$
If $ n > 1, $ write $ n = p_1^{a_1} \dots p_k^{a_k} $ (prime
factorization). Then
\begin{align*}
\mu(n) & = (-1)^k \text{ if } a_1 = a_2 = \dots = a_k = 1, \\
\mu(n) & = 0 \text{ otherwise}.
\end{align*}
If $ n \ge 1, $ we have
$$
\sum_{d \mid n} \mu(d) =
\begin{cases}
1 & \text{ if } n = 1, \\
0 & \text{ if } n > 1.
\end{cases}
$$Now open this file with a web browser. This is a self-rendering distributable board file. It renders itself to look like this: mu.html.
Valid HTML5
The code snippet in the previous section shows how we can create a
self-rendering document with a single line of HTML code but this
brevity comes at the cost of standard conformance. For example, the
required <title> element is missing from the code. Further the
<textarea> element is not closed. Despite the missing tags, this
example works just fine because all web browsers follow the
robustness principle.
For the sake of completeness and correctness, here is a minimal but
complete and valid HTML example:
mu-html5.html
(source). It has a few more lines of code
to ensure that this HTML5 code validates successfully at
validator.w3.org. In case you are wondering, a valid
HTML5 document does not require explicit <head>, <body>, or the
closing </html> tags, so they have been omitted for the sake of
brevity while maintaining completeness and correctness in this
example.
Features
- Runs in a web browser.
- Keyboard driven user interface.
- Vertical splits.
- Input is just LaTeX, Markdown, and HTML. Avoids any new syntax.
- Conforms to CommonMark specification of Markdown.
- Conforms to GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), a strict superset of CommonMark.
- Supports a subset of LaTeX using MathJax.
- Supports creating self-rendering distributable boards with a single line of HTML.
- Supports editing commands such as
,i,,d,,align*, etc. to automatically insert LaTeX delimiters for inline mathematics, display mathematics, align environment, etc. (Type,helpin the board input to see a complete list of supported commands.) - Support for saving/loading snippets to/from browser's local storage.
- Not a WYSIWYG tool.
- Not a collaborative editing tool.
Why?
Muboard was created originally for analytic number theory club meetings that I used to host in 2021. During the meetings, I needed a place to type out mathematics formulas and render them quickly. I chose to write a tiny non-WSYIWYG tool because I prefer such tools. It also helps in keeping the LaTeX snippets in an HTML file that can render itself using JavaScript.
The name Muboard is a reference to the Möbius function μ(n) which was the first function definition we discussed using this tool.
Mirror
The primary Muboard website is muboard.net.
A replica of the website is available at muboard.github.io.
License
This is free and open source software. You can use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of it, under the terms of the MIT License. See LICENSE.md for details.
This software is provided "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, express or implied. See LICENSE.md for details.
Support
To report bugs, suggest improvements, or ask questions, create issues.
More
If you like this project, follow me on Twitter or check out the related projects TeXMe and MathB.