# RE: [MathML4] Multiple Formats for Presentation and Semantics

Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 14:21:21 +0000
To: Stephen Watt <smwatt@gmail.com>

Message-ID: <SN6PR01MB46389C14937DDC523CE6DFC2C57A0@SN6PR01MB4638.prod.exchangelabs.com>
Math Working Group,
MathML Refresh Community Group,
Stephen Watt,

Thank you.

I recently had an idea that we could also include metadata with respect to mathematics expressions. Here is a fuller sketch:

<math id="...">
<presentation>
<annotation-xml id="..." encoding="application/xhtml+xml">...</annotation-xml>
<annotation-xml id="..." encoding="application/svg+xml">...</annotation-xml>
<annotation id="..." encoding="image/png" src="data:..." />
<annotation-xml id="..." encoding="MathML-Presentation">...</annotation-xml>
</presentation>
<semantics>
<annotation-xml id="..." encoding="application/openmath+xml">...</annotation-xml>
<annotation-xml id="..." encoding="MathML-Content">...</annotation-xml>
</semantics>
<annotation-xml encoding="application/rdf+xml">...</annotation-xml>
<annotation encoding="application/json+ld">...</annotation>
[/itex]

Presentation – This variety of data pertains to the presentation or display of a mathematics expression.

Semantics – This variety of data pertains to the semantics or meaning of a mathematics expression.

Metadata – This variety of data describes or is about a mathematics expression. Metadata could describe authorship, provenance or include any other data which may be desirable to accompany a mathematics expression across clipboarding scenarios. Metadata could also describe or be about a mathematics expression’s presentational or semantic annotations; for example, metadata could indicate which annotations were derived or generated from which others and could indicate the generator software component (e.g. MathJax).

Best regards,

________________________________
From: Stephen Watt <smwatt@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2019 6:49:17 AM
Cc: www-math@w3.org; public-mathml4@w3.org
Subject: Re: [MathML4] Multiple Formats for Presentation and Semantics

This is an interesting idea.   Previously, I had been thinking of multiple presentation alternatives for notational choices (rather than supported protocols).   This would be important, for example, in pulling together modules for a course or a book, where the notational styles of the collections differed.   At the time, XSL seemed to offer a sufficient solution, but there is no reason that mathml with pre-generated notational choices couldn't be served.

Stephen

Math Working Group,
MathML Refresh Community Group,

I would like to present an idea for discussion for MathML4. The idea is based upon the approaches to mathematical semantics from MathML3. The idea is to include in MathML4 a means of providing multiple presentational formats.

$<presentation> <annotation-xml encoding="application/xhtml+xml">...</annotation-xml> <annotation-xml encoding="application/svg+xml">...</annotation-xml> <annotation encoding="image/png" src="data:..." /> <annotation-xml encoding="MathML-Presentation">...</annotation-xml> </presentation> <semantics> <annotation-xml encoding="application/openmath+xml">...</annotation-xml> <annotation-xml encoding="MathML-Content">...</annotation-xml> </semantics>$

With such mathematical markup, browsers could, in a manner similar to MathJax, provide users with configuration to indicate which formats to display when multiple presentational formats are available.

Topics to consider would include the clipboarding of mathematical elements and of hypertext containing mathematics.

Topics to consider would also include interoperation with MathJax. MathJax could populate the presentational options available in <presentation> elements. Interestingly, the document object model resulting from MathJax processing could resemble the document object model had multiple presentational formats been provided.

I look forward to discussing these and other ideas for MathML4.

Best regards,