Re: proposed ARIA role for math [DRAFT 1]

On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:59:16 +0100, Gregory J. Rosmaita  
<unagi69@concentric.net> wrote:

>
> aloha!
>
> when i asked neil soiffer to review my proposal for the math role, he
> kindly responded with the following suggested definition:
>
> <q cite="NeilSoiffer">
> Definition: content that represents a mathematical expression.  This  
> could
> be an accessible format such as MathML, or it can be other textual
> representation that can be converted to an accessible format such as TeX.
> This also includes images that represent math. Such images may have
> alternative text or long descriptions that can be converted to an
> accessible format, or the image itself may have embedded comments that  
> can
> be made accessible.  OCR could even be used to interpret the image as
> mathematics. This role enables a plug-in mechanism to provide compliant
> MathML, as well as enabling support for MathML in "mainstream" user  
> agents.
> </q>

It seems unnecessary to say role='math' on MathML content -- surely it is  
implied that MathML content is math.

I would suggest that it be defined exactly what role='math' means so that  
implementors and authors know what to do, as in e.g.:

    Definition: content that represents a mathematical expression expressed
    in TeX. [TEX] If the element is an HTML "img" element, then the content
    of the alt attribute represents the expression, otherwise the element's
    textContent DOM attribute represents the expression. [HTML4] [DOM3CORE]

(I don't know if TeX is the best way to represent a mathematical  
expression in plain text, but in any case I think we need to say which it  
is and not let it be an open-ended anything-goes.)

-- 
Simon Pieters
Opera Software