StandardForm in Cloud FormFunctions

Question

Cross posted on community.wolfram.com

Example

choices = {
   "label 1"                     -> 1
  , Column[{"label", 2}]         -> 2
  , Framed[3]                    -> 3
  , HoldForm @ Sum[i, {i, 0, ∞}] -> 4
};

CloudDeploy @ FormFunction[
 { "a" -> <|
     "Interpreter" -> choices
   , "Control" -> (RadioButtonBar[##, Appearance -> "Vertical"] &)|>
 }
]

So by default StandardForm is not supported (though e.g. Column is).

My attempts to fix it

• I tried to force "HTMLCloudCDF" as an export form for those elements:

   ...
   "Interpreter" -> MapAt[ExportForm[#, "HTMLCloudCDF"] &, choices, {All, 1}]
   ...
  

  

  But it is not supported.

• At the end I am using: ExportForm[#, "SVG"] & but it makes fonts inconsistent with the rest of the form and selected item's label gets an ugly red frame if it is an image:

  

Question

How to use arbitrary expressions in form functions layout? Is there a better way than SVG? Shouldn't it work out of the box?

Related

Wolfram Cloud deployment guidelines

Answer 1

What about doing the following thing.

(1) In a text cell (Ctrl-7) just write the mathematics, that is Ctrl-( to open inline math, type the formula and Ctrl-) to close the inline math.

(2) Shift-Ctrl-E to Show Expression and copy the expression. Example below.

math = Cell[
  TextData[Cell[
    BoxData[FormBox[
      RowBox[{RowBox[{"F", "(", "x", ")"}], "=", 
        RowBox[{SubsuperscriptBox["\[Integral]", 
           RowBox[{"-", "\[Infinity]"}], "x"], 
          RowBox[{RowBox[{"f", "(", "\[Tau]", ")"}], 
            RowBox[{"\[DifferentialD]", "\[Tau]"}]}]}]}], 
      TraditionalForm]], FormatType -> "TraditionalForm"]], "Text"]

(3) Use combination of EmbeddedHTML[] and ExportString[] with MathML format. Example below.

mathml = EmbeddedHTML[ExportString[math, "MathML"]]

(4) Using this I produced the following form.

FormFunction[
 {Style["Form 1", "Title"],
  "Describtion of the form here.",
  "x" -> <|"Interpreter" -> {"A" -> 1, mathml -> 2},
    "Control" -> (RadioButtonBar[##, Appearance -> "Vertical"] &),
    "Label" -> "Select choice"|>},
 Identity,
 PageTheme -> "Blue"
 ]

The code above gives the following result.

This is not ideal but at least it does not have the frame around it and fonts seem to be consistent.

This answer is based on the help that I got from @b3m2a1 and @Kuba (he pointed me the this question).

Answer 2

To an address your comment on Michal's post, we can actually implement the Framed in CSS and use that in the FormFunction, using the styledXMLExport from this answer:

$xml =
  XMLElement[
   "p",
   {},
   {
    XMLElement["framed",
     {},
     {"1"}
     ]
    }
   ];
$style =
  {
   "framed" ->
    {
     "border" -> "solid 1px black",
     "display" -> "inline-block",
     "padding" -> "5px"
     }
   };

fo =
  FormFunction[
   {
    styledXMLExport[$xml, $style]
    }
   ];
HTTPHandling`StartWebServer[fo];
"http://localhost:7000" // SystemOpen

Of course, just because we can doesn't mean we should have to. WRI is clearly dropping the ball here.