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TikZJax: Embedding LaTeX Drawings in HTML

(tikzjax.com)
137 points steventhedev | 4 comments | 20 Apr 25 22:04 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Garlef ◴[20 Apr 25 23:52 UTC] No.43747430[source]▶
Hm. Either that page or the tech itself is not great on mobile.
replies(2): >>43747496 #>>43747961 #
ano-ther ◴[21 Apr 25 00:08 UTC] No.43747496[source]▶
Takes a second or so to load on mine (iOS Safari). But then it shows correctly, even if the second diagram is a bit small (it fits in a quarter of the 1in circle).
replies(1): >>43747514 #
frumplestlatz ◴[21 Apr 25 00:11 UTC] No.43747514[source]▶
It crashes (“a problem repeatedly occurred”) a few seconds after loading everything on my device (also iOS Safari).

I love tikz, but lightweight it is not; it’s not a huge surprise it takes a few seconds to render.

No idea what’s causing the crash, though.

replies(1): >>43747730 #
kccqzy ◴[21 Apr 25 01:06 UTC] No.43747730[source]▶
Well iOS Safari is in general buggy and tends to display the "a problem repeatedly occurred" message on many other slightly heavy web pages. This web page shouldn't be blamed for causing Safari to crash.
replies(1): >>43747834 #
frumplestlatz ◴[21 Apr 25 01:32 UTC] No.43747834[source]▶
Nobody is assigning blame, we don’t know the root cause.

I could just as easily say that Safari shouldn’t be blamed for a buggy website, but I’d be overreaching just as much as you just did.

replies(1): >>43747872 #
kccqzy ◴[21 Apr 25 01:43 UTC] No.43747872[source]▶
By definition buggy websites that crash the browser are bugs in the browser.

It may have security implications, or it may not. It might just be an innocent case of someone using assertions instead of proper error reporting. Nevertheless it's a bug in the browser.

replies(2): >>43747904 #>>43749091 #
1. frumplestlatz ◴[21 Apr 25 01:54 UTC] No.43747904[source]▶
Safari will terminate a page for using excess resources with the same message.
replies(1): >>43748078 #
2. kccqzy ◴[21 Apr 25 02:37 UTC] No.43748078[source]▶
So? Still Safari's problem for not displaying a proper error message.
replies(1): >>43748441 #
3. frumplestlatz ◴[21 Apr 25 04:11 UTC] No.43748441[source]▶
Sounds like you just dislike Safari. Doesn’t seem to be much help here.
replies(1): >>43752169 #
4. kccqzy ◴[21 Apr 25 14:05 UTC] No.43752169{3}[source]▶
No. Safari chose the exact wrong way to handle this case. Let's suppose some webpage is in fact allocating too much memory. It is the user agent's job to inform the user of this fact. What does Safari do? It silently crashes. It's not even about displaying the wrong error message here: the handler for the crash is to simply refresh the page and render it again. But this is exactly the wrong way to handle out-of-memory errors: chances are the web page will again allocate too much memory and crash yet again. In the end the final displayed error message is "a problem repeatedly occurred" with no reference to the nature of the problem.

I hate this trend of hiding error messages from the user. Apple as a company known for its attention to detail in UI, should have been the one company especially dedicated to presenting a good error message without overwhelming the user with technical details—it is supposed to be the master in user communication. And it is not. Hence my disappointment.