# Integration support for Mathcha

My current workflow is:

1. looking up symbols through detexify
2. typing math expressions into this editor
3. scrolling up and down between the editor and preview box to make sure output looks good.

I think all these can be combined into a single step using Mathcha. Since it is an online service, surely MSE can be integrated with it. Mathcha already offers an export to latex option, so my new workflow would be:

1. click on Mathcha icon in editor's header
2. breeze through writing math expression
3. press "Insert" to insert latex code of my math expression into editor

I feel my already favorite site would become more powerful with the integration of Mathcha.

What does the community think of this?

UPDATE: I also realized that for beginner posters (like high school students) - with little know-how of online equation editors and certainly no idea of Latex commands - having an integrated equation editor can completely remove the friction between having a maths query and being able to ask it properly on MSE.

• I believe som similar suggestions have been made in the past. (Perhaps not about this specific site, but about including some similar editor in the interface.) Maybe you'll be able to find also some other posts about this. After looking through the questions tagged mathjax+editor and mathjax+feature-request, I found this: How to increase service/traffic, a set of suggestions. Sep 4, 2017 at 5:50
• However, that question is not very good, since 3 unrelated suggestions were made in the same post. (However, one of them was about and editor with a palette of TeX buttons - so I assume that the poster had in mind something similar to the site you linked to.) Sep 4, 2017 at 5:52
• @MartinSleziak Thanks for taking attention! However, the post you linked to has been downvoted heavily. Of the possibly useful links I found there were links to an external equation editor (CodeCogs, which is nowhere near Mathcha in terms of capabilities) and links on how to use latex commands. (guides to mugging them up) Certainly neither of them add value to my current post. I hope you agree. Sep 4, 2017 at 6:08
• One obvious disadvantage of the Mathcha editor is that it seems to be designed for LaTeX rather than MathJax. You can get things which will not work here - for example, tables. (And probably you can find more similar stuff.) Sep 4, 2017 at 6:37
• But probably before discussing which specific solution should be used, it would be good to know whether including some type of MathJax editor into the the PageDown editor is feasible at all. Sep 4, 2017 at 6:53
• @MartinSleziak part (1): we can restrict the Mathcha editor's features to only those which we require and can support through Mathjax. The MSE mods/devs should surely be able to talk to Mathcha's creator regarding this; part (2): if integrating code snippets into Stackoverflow's editor is possible, surely mathcha should also be possible :) Sep 4, 2017 at 12:06

3. The superficial workflows you describe both have three steps, and it is only asserted that one involving Mathcha will be simpler for beginners. Eventually edits will need to be made to posts, and users will be disaccommodated by WYSIWYG functionality when that need arises. Mathcha's ability to export $\LaTeX$ scarcely suggests any ability to import and revise such markup.