[Feature]: preview of math codeblocks

[anandkumar89]

What problem are you trying to solve?

Inline and block math are not previewed/rendered. This makes working with math difficult.

Proposed solution

No response

Area

No response

Alternatives considered

No response

[amikofalvy]

Hi @anandkumar89, thanks for filing this!

Some context on where math support stands today: Open Knowledge renders math with KaTeX in the visual editor, and all of these syntaxes render when a document is loaded:

Block math with $$ fences or a math code fence:

$$
E = mc^2
$$

```math
\int_0^\infty e^{-x^2} \, dx = \frac{\sqrt{\pi}}{2}
```

Inline math with single or double dollars mid-sentence:

The identity $e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0$ is famous.

You can also insert a math block from the slash menu (type /math), and click any rendered equation to edit its LaTeX in place.

That said, your report prompted us to do some testing of our own, and we've already turned up a few bugs that could match what you're seeing. A couple of known gaps worth mentioning too:

1. Typing math directly into the visual editor doesn't convert as you type in the current release. If you type $E = mc^2$ in the rich-text view today, it stays plain text rather than turning into a rendered equation, even though the same content renders fine when the file is loaded. Good news on this one: we have a fix coming out in the next release that converts inline math automatically as you type. In the meantime, the /math slash command inserts a math block directly.
2. \( ... \) and \[ ... \] delimiters aren't recognized. These are common in LaTeX documents and in ChatGPT output. If your source uses them, nothing will render at all.

The single most helpful thing you could share is the exact source text you expect to render as math, even one failing line. That would let us pin down whether you're hitting one of the bugs we've found, one of the gaps above, or something new, and it will directly focus the fixes. If you can also include:

1. How you're entering it: typing directly in the visual editor, pasting, opening an existing markdown file, or working in source mode? (Source mode intentionally shows raw markdown, so equations only render in the rich-text view.)
2. Your version: ok --version, or the app version if you're on the desktop app.

Thanks again for the report, it's already been useful. 🙏