Should or can a formatter for Mathematica code be added?

Question

Update: I have found out that my request below has nothing to do with this site. But because there are at least a few folks occasionally posting Mathematica code, I'll shortly provide an answer with approaches to obtain more easily readable Mathematica code.

For both Mathematica.StackExchange.com and Math.StackExchange.com there is an available button to format Mathematica code with the installation instructions found at https://mathematica.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1043/additional-useful-buttons-for-our-m-se-editor.

This allows Mathematica coding for Greek letters such as $\alpha$ to be displayed as α rather than the default \[alpha] which makes for reading the code much nicer. Here is where that button shows up (with that button highlighted with a red rectangle):

Yes, there are not hordes of folks providing Mathematica code on this site and the same goes for Math.StackExchange.com but that site does provide that functionality.

So the question is: Should or can such a formatter be added for this site? (Or is such functionality already available and I'm just not aware of that?)

Answer 1

We as a community, or as moderators, have no way of adding it. It is a kind of change that can be done by the StackExchange developers.

Personally, I see no reason for adding it. Mathematica is far from the most popular among statisticians and data scientists. Moreover, we support $\TeX$ and if you look at the posts, most of the users have no problem with using it, so it would solve a problem for a small group of users who know Mathematica but don't know $\TeX$.

Answer 2

I think if I were writing Mathematica code to illustrate a statistical point for readers who probably aren't familiar with Mathematica, I shouldn't want to use Greek letters. On their own, they're only a small step towards mathematical notation, & while it would be nice to be able to write $\sigma_1^2$ rather than sigma1^2, it feels to me as if σ1^2 is neither fish nor fowl.

A less subjective concern is that not all readers will have the necessary fonts installed on their system to render the Unicode characters properly, or at all. For example, on my 'phone I see a script a rather than $\alpha$, & a 'white square' rather than $\varphi$.

Answer 3

When answering questions on this site with Mathematica code, Greek letters and special characters (which are valid in variable names in Mathematica) look like \[Alpha] and \[Beta], for example. This can make the code harder to read and understand.

It turns out that the button I was asking for above has nothing to do with this site's management and depends only on a script that can be made to work on any of the StackExchange sites.

There are a few ways to turn such characters in more readable characters with that script.

0. Use a special website that does the conversion.

https://steampiano.net/msc/

You can paste in text and all of the Mathematica codes (like \[Alpha]) get converted. From that webpage: "Some of these are mapped to characters in the Unicode character set, and can therefore be translated into Unicode, suitable for displaying outside Mathematica. Others, however, are in the Unicode Private area, and are displayed correctly only using Mathematica fonts."

1. Install the script:

https://mathematica.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1043/additional-useful-buttons-for-our-m-se-editor.

This gets you a button to convert such characters (selecting some text and then pressing the added button) but works currently only on Mathematica SE and Math SE (because those sites are specifically mentioned in the script and CrossValidated SE is not).

You can then go to a "Your Answer" box on those sites (Mathematica or Math SE), type in your answer for CrossValidated, and then copy-and-paste it into "Your Answer" box on CrossValidated. (Yes, that's not a very attractive approach.)

2. Modify the script yourself.

This (in my opinion) is not for the faint at heart. One can use a script editor such as Tampermonkey to add in the 1 line of necessary code to the above script:

// @include       https://stats.stackexchange.com/* 

(as discovered by @Scortchi-ReinstateMonica). I am not recommending or giving more details to this approach but only give it as a possible alternative.

3. Wait until the authors of the script add in the above line of code.

Then it will work on CrossValidated directly. (I have asked the authors and am awaiting a response.) If and when this happens, this will be the best alternative as it doesn't require installing things like Tampermonkey.