Re: MathML and XML

Hello.

You inquired:

> Are we sure that mass market client tools are going to be supporting
> XML to the extent that we need?  Is it happening or not?

An important part of the reason that MathML is described as an
XML application reason is that this promises to be the dominant
extension mechanism supported widely by mass-market client tools.  It
is not guaranteed that we will get the XML support we need for math,
but we have a good shot.  MathML and RDF are being held up as
important XML test cases, and they are enjoying relatively high
visibility among the W3C membership in this capacity.  Certainly the
working groups responsible for MathML and RDF are actively working
with W3C to try to insure adequate XML in HTML support, perhaps as
soon as the 5.0 browser releases.

> And wasn't there talk of a "MathML plugin"?  Has that happened?
> If so, is there a mimetype for it?

Yes, there has been talk about a MathML plugin; the Windows PR2
release of IBM techexplorer has some MathML support, and I just got a
message saying the PR2 for some flavors of Unix is now out.  Dave
Ragget at HP also has a plugin that HP has offered to give away, but I
don't know if they are doing it yet.  The MIME type we have
tentatively agreed upon is "text/mathml".

> <Digression> Is there an enrolled mimetype to supersede
> "application/x-dvi", which, with the "/x-", still must be considered
> experimental?) </Digression>

Finally, I don't know if there is an enrolled mimetype for dvi.  I
would have thought someone would have registered it by now, but I
don't know very much about the process.

Robert Miner

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Robert Miner                               http://www.geom.umn.edu
The Geometry Center                        phone: (612) 626-8313
HTML-Math WG co-chair                      fax:   (612) 625-8083
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Received on Friday, 21 November 1997 16:26:12 UTC