TeXerBase Exercise Database

What is this?

TeXerBase is a database with a webfrontend to create and manage exercises for science and math education.

Exercises have to be coded in Markdown with the special enhancement, that you can write Formulas in TeX/LaTeX, solving the problem that formulas are not natively supported by Markdown.

You could write this code for an exercise:

### $pq$-formula

1. Describe what the $pq$-Formula $x_{1,2} = -\frac{p}{2} \pm \sqrt{(\frac{p}{2})^2-q}$ is for.
2. Solve the quadratic equation $f(x)= 3x^2 - 2x + 1$

Unfortunately GitHub doesn't allow html in this readme so I can't show you the result here :-(

In addition to assisting you in creating your exercises TeXerBase will manage your solution, as well as some meta-information like the source, the license, author, skill-level and, most important, lets you categorize your exercises in subjects and topics.

You just need LaTeX-Support in Markdown?

Just check out the modules/mdTeX2html.py-file that uses the latex2mathml-python-library.

You can also use the entire thing as quick-and-dirty solution: The TeXerBase-Server will return HTML with MathML for your Markdown-TeX-Mixture send to <server>/mdtex2html with a POST-Request. By default your <server> will be localhost:8081.

Have a Look at the file template\cheatsheetMdTeX.tpl for reference or run TeXerBase and see the sandbox in <server>/cheatsheetMdTeX.

Installation and running

• clone the repository
• make sure the external dependencies are installed:
  • python3.7 and up (comes with Ubuntu 19.10 and up, not default in Ubuntu 18.04!)
  • python3-jinja2
• run TeXerBase.py
• point your browser to localhost:8081

customize subjects and topics

The structure is in the file structure.yaml which can be changed to your needs.

Just make sure you don't change any subjects or topics after your first run since they are included in, but not removed from your database on startup! Adding new subjects and topics is fine though.

Limitations

• It's in german Language so far, but there are just a few words in the frontend that would need to be translated, let me know if you need it.
• The browser needs to support MathML, but all modern browsers do by now.
• Only SqLite-Database supported. Feel free to add i.e. postgres-support in the modules/dbio.py and the modules/dbInit.py if you need it to scale better.
• for secure/limited/external access I recommend using nginx as reverse proxy
• There is no user authorization: Hand out the Exercises as printed pdf-files or as saved websites. Or create a cool solution with nginx, maybe I will offer it here some day.

Further Ideas

Maybe I will extend TeXerBase in the future, depending on my needs, with some of the following:

• allow formulas in \[ \] and \( \)- enviroments in addition to the already supported $ $ and $$ $$-environments
• include an option to assemble handsets of exercises
• ...tell me about your ideas or create a pull-request!