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This could be quite nice for newcomers and also when wanting to respond to a question with typesetting one could see how they did it and imitate.

Of course there's the markdown guidelines, but seeing something you like and copying it is much easier than reading through a manual. Also, this is in line with how I learn LaTeX, see something nice, read the code, and incorporate.

For example, there is a question on math.SE about a strange equal sign that I have no idea how the person wrote. It would be nice to be able to see how it was done (somewhat like in MediaWiki where you can "view source" even if you cannot edit).


Addition: I've added a [feature-request] in meta.stackoverflow for a "view source" button. If you have an opinion about this, please vote or comment or answer over there.

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    Actually sounds like a nice idea! Jul 28, 2010 at 12:39
  • @Juan: so vote for it in Meta.SO! :-) Oct 27, 2010 at 21:09
  • Voted up here, there, and elsewhere. Oct 28, 2010 at 8:54
  • If you use a browser that allows user-scripts, this script will add several links to each question and answer, and modify the page a little to give you access to more raw information at a click. it's a little more than I want, but it's quite useful if you do not have access to these buttons. it works on all stackexchange-2.0 sites. Oct 29, 2010 at 7:36

2 Answers 2

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There’s a simple hack:

You can always access a detailed view of a post’s revisions by going to the link https://tex.stackexchange.com/posts/<ID>/revisions. From there you can chooise the link show source of the post.

For example: https://tex.stackexchange.com/posts/455/revisions leads me to https://tex.stackexchange.com/revisions/6da5772e-36c4-405d-b3ca-36d0c638879d/view-source, which is the source of the posting with ID 455. The ID of a posting can be discovered by inspecting the direct link to it.

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  • What about the answers? Do you know where they are? Jul 28, 2010 at 18:19
  • @Yossi: this works for questions and answers. In fact, my example is an answer. Below each answer there are (at least) two links: “link” and “flag”. The “link” link reveals the ID of the post. Jul 28, 2010 at 19:19
  • Ah yes, thank you for this clarification, but the ID of an answer shows up at the end of the link, after the ID of the question...that confused me. Jul 28, 2010 at 23:58
  • This feature request already exist for some time on meta.SO: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/24400/… with generally positive answers and comments. I don't understand where this feature request goes from that point... Jul 29, 2010 at 1:55
  • @Yossi: Bump it up by adding an answer. Vote to close your question as a duplicate of the old one, or ask that the older one be closed as a duplicate of yours. Encourage people here to vote on it there, say by adding a postscript to this question. Generally increase its visibility, so that it comes to the attention of someone with developer access. Oct 28, 2010 at 8:52
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It's not a completely satisfactory answer, but if you have enough rep to edit questions then you can see the source via that route (pretend you're editing it and then don't). Or if a question has already been edited, then you can click on the time it was edited to see the history to see the revision history and there's a "view source" link there.

Unfortunately, looking at the web address for the source in the revision history, I can't see how to guess that address for a question that hasn't yet been edited.

(NB I think this works equally well for answers.)

As I said, this isn't completely satisfactory for several (hopefully obvious) reasons. I would like to see a proper "view source" feature.

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  • @Andrew: Since this would mostly benefit newbies, having "enough" rep is missing most of the point.... Jul 28, 2010 at 13:08
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    @Yossi Farjou: I hoped that the tone of my answer would show that I agree with you completely! Jul 28, 2010 at 14:14
  • The revisions page exists even if there's only one revision, there's just no convenient link to it. If the question URL is tex.stackexchange.com/questions/12345/foo-bar-baz, go to tex.stackexchange.com/posts/12345/revisions (change questions to posts and the question title to revisions), and from there you can get the view source link Jul 28, 2010 at 14:21
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    @Michael Mrozek: A-ha! (To clarify my comment: I was looking at the URL for the source to a specific revision.) In that case, a little javascript could easily add a "view source" button somewhere on the page without having to hack the core. Still be nice to have it done properly, of course. Jul 28, 2010 at 14:37
  • In that case, I accept this answer. However, I think it would be nice to have a "view source" button that does said replacements. Jul 28, 2010 at 14:37
  • @Andrew: could you edit your post to incorporate Michael's comment? (If Michael cares about rep points, and he posts an answer I'd be happy to accept his answer instead...) Jul 28, 2010 at 14:39
  • @Yossi Farjoun: rep doesn't count here. I would actually leave this one open to indicate that although there is a work-around, it's not ideal and we'd like a proper implementation. So I recommend that you de-select this answer. Jul 28, 2010 at 17:26
  • @Andrew If you have a feature request to add this you should probably ask it on the main meta, it makes more sense there Jul 28, 2010 at 17:28
  • I've put this up on main: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6421/… Jul 28, 2010 at 18:27
  • @Yossi I think that's just for the SE-1.0 sites; this is a generic engine question and probably belongs on meta.stackoverflow Jul 28, 2010 at 18:50

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