Re: Whither MathML support?

Daniel,

just adding my limited knowledge in the area… And forgive me if you already know that.

MathML is, actually, a dual specification. It has an XML representation referred to as Presentation Markup[1], and a parallel one called Content Markup[2]. As the name suggests, the first representation is down to the presentation, there are elements to create fractions, integrals, etc. The Content Markup tries to operate on a higher level, representing the underlying concept. I just copy here an example from [2] for the representation of a factorial n!:

Content MathML
 <apply><factorial/><ci>n</ci></apply>

Presentation MathML
 <mrow><mi>n</mi><mo>!</mo></mrow>

The Content Markup is clearly superior for accessibility. However, it would rely on a rendering engine that converts that into presentation mathml, taking also into account the fact that various cultures use slightly different typesetting rules for mathematics, for example.

This is the theory; I do not know whether content markup has ever been used and accepted as a good solution, and I also have not heard any mathml rendering engine starting with content markup.

AFAIK, there are also activities (but I do not know the details) starting with presentation markup and add annotations to the markup to reproduce the semantics. I know there are groups at, e.g., Benetech doing something like that, and produce some accessible version of mathematics, but I do not know the details (some others on this group probably know more about it).

The bottom line is that yes, this is is also a huge issue, adding to the complexity of Math on the Web…

Cheers

Ivan

[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/MathML3/chapter3.html <https://www.w3.org/TR/MathML3/chapter3.html>
[2] https://www.w3.org/TR/MathML3/chapter4.html <https://www.w3.org/TR/MathML3/chapter4.html>



> On 7 Sep 2017, at 19:56, Daniel Bennett <daniel@citizencontact.com <mailto:daniel@citizencontact.com>> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have a couple questions that bother me about this issue. First was the issue of accessibility. It has seemed as there is no way to have a semantic version of Math and presentation together. Is there ever going to be a single solution for Math that has just one version for both as HTML text has had (especially in HTML5)? 
> The second question, and as a strong supporter of XML, is it possible to semantically represent math with XML? For example, there is no real way to have page and line numbers in XML as well as paragraphs that span them, as this breaks nestedness. The fixes for this are problematic within XML. Is math intrinsically impossible to represent in XML? Or is it just so difficult there is no solution that can be both semantic and presentation? And is there an XSLT possible that can transform them in either direction?
> 
> Sorry if the answers are obvious, but I had not heard of them.
> 
> Daniel
> 
> 
> On 9/7/2017 12:56 PM, Rachel Comerford wrote:
>> MathML is definitely not a niche language in educational publishing.  We have tens millions of dollars of revenue tied to students being able to read our math, stats, science, econ, and psych texts (to name a few).  Without MathML, our fall back is an SVG, but SVG doesn't have enough support, so then our fallback becomes png or jpg.  Imagine trying to navigate your first math text in a digital environment to find that many inline equations aren't resizing with your text.  Or worse, imagine reading that text with a screenreader and having to hear someone's complex alt text interpretation of the equation rather than a standard language interpretation.
>> 
>> For better or worse, educational publishing is deeply dependent on MathML even as we provide image fallbacks to MathML in our epubs for those readers that do not support it... 
>> 
>> If there is a better solution for accessible pedagogically appropriate display of math then I'm all ears, but until then, the treatment of MathML as niche could be devastating for students.
>> 
>> Rachel Comerford | Director of Content Standards | T 212.576.9433 
>> 
>> Macmillan Learning
>> 
>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 11:24 AM, Liam R. E. Quin <liam@w3.org <mailto:liam@w3.org>> wrote:
>> On Thu, 2017-09-07 at 08:32 -0500, Ric Wright wrote:
>> > I agree with most of this.  But IMO there is a large divide between
>> > vertical Japanese text and MathML.  One is pretty much a requirement
>> > in Japan, while MathML is somewhat of a niche language.
>> 
>> You seriously went all the way through school without having an
>> equation in a text book? :)
>> 
>> But yes, I agree there's similarity with SVG. And CSS took a long time
>> to catch on too, even though the use of generic styles for markup was
>> an integral part of SGML itself.
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> Liam
>> 
>> --
>> Liam Quin, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/ <http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/>
>> Staff contact for Verifiable Claims WG, XQuery WG
>> 
>> Web slave for http://www.fromoldbooks.org/ <http://www.fromoldbooks.org/>
>> 
>> 
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C 
Publishing@W3C Technical Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ <http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/>
mobile: +31-641044153
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704 <http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704>