Item2085: MathModePlugin package issues

A user was on #foswiki this evening, trying to bring up a test foswiki from Debian packages. After clearing out some problems from twiki, he still couldn't get mathmodeplugin to work, a showstopper. Neither could I while he was online. Later, the following additional configuration worked to enable MathModePlugin. It would be good if we came up with a way to build this into the extension packaging so it just worked out of the box.

/etc/foswiki/LocalSite.cfg requires

$Foswiki::cfg{MathModePlugin}{Latex2Img} = '/var/lib/foswiki/tools/MathModePlugin_latex2img';

The plugin documentation mentions requiring latex2html, which isn't listed as a package dependency. dvipng was also required before rendering worked.

aptitude install latex2html dvipng

-- DrakeDiedrich - 17 Sep 2009

This isn't a debian specific issue. As you correctly identified, there needs to be a DEPENDENCIES file entry in this plugin, and the $Foswiki::cfg{MathModePlugin}{Latex2Img} setting needs to be initialized in its Config.spec file - a relative path to one of the general settings one.

-- SvenDowideit - 17 Sep 2009

I changed the component to MathModePlugin.

-- MichaelTempest - 17 Sep 2009

• mathmodedepends.diff: proposed patch

i installed foswiki from http://fosiki.com/Foswiki_debian/ on 24.03.2010, i.e. with

ii  foswiki                               1.0.9-1                    A Web Based Collaboration Platform
ii  foswiki-mathmodeplugin                091118-204                 Foswiki Package: MathModePlugin

i did not test a clean install with this patch. What i did was aptitude install dvipng and i tried the line in the diff with $Foswiki::cfg{ToolsDir}.'/MathModePlugin_latex2img';. However, this failed. i needed the full path '/var/lib/foswiki/tools/MathModePlugin_latex2img';. So this patch would require ToolsDir to be configured in the main foswiki package, or else depend on a tools plugin if it's not put in the main foswiki package. The plugin works fine with the full path in the config.

BTW, my subjective impression of foswiki is that it seems in general easier to install than the older versions of TWiki(TM). Congratulations to all the developers :).

i've added a tick to this task being dependent on 1.0.9.

-- BoudRoukema - 26 Mar 2010

Fixed in 4.02

-- MichaelDaum - 19 Mar 2011