Mathjax does not load until the page is refreshed

[quangounet]

Mathjax formulae are not loaded on the first page visit. One needs to refresh the page for the formulae to load.
One possible way around is to force the formulae to be statically loaded in SVG (set forceSVG to true in book.json), but this stops the compiling process each time there's a LaTeX error -> not convenient.

[fsuarez6]

I think using the option forceSVG = true is a good approach. In any case, one shouldn't push before building the book locally and therefore the LaTeX error won't go unnotice

[quangounet]

These guys have the same problem GitbookIO/plugin-mathjax#34
When forcing SVG output there are other errors (e.g. "Error: TypeError: speech.processExpression is not a function") that I was not able to debug.

[fsuarez6]

There is another plugin: https://github.com/GitbookIO/plugin-katex
The problem with katex is that it fails when global commands are defined, see this related issue, which is something we are doing here: math.md

@quangounet, Let's assume that katex doesn't force refreshing the page, are we willing to give-up global commands definitions (e.g. \newcommand{\bfp}{\boldsymbol{p}}) ?

[quangounet]

I've also looked into KaTeX but apparently it is still not as stable and well supported as Mathjax, in addition to the problem you mentioned. Let's give ourselves a few more days to see whether we can work around this issue in Mathjax (unless the switch is super-easy to try out).

[quangounet]

I found a (dirty) workaround: force Mathjax to load by adding the javascript command MathJax.Hub.Queue(["Typeset",MathJax.Hub]), see commit 3ee47e3

[fsuarez6]

Does it mean that for every page that has any kind of math ($$) we must include math.md?

[fsuarez6]

In any case, your workaround fixes this issue.

[quangounet]

Yes, for now we must include math.md. We can try and find a way to do cleaner includes.

[jeffrey-cochran]

I've been looking around to see if this was cleaned up somewhere. Looks like it's still the case that I have to modify each page? That's rough, but thanks for the solution!

[fsuarez6]

That's right. The issue is still open: GitbookIO/plugin-mathjax#34