Re: [Filter Effects][css3-transforms] Using MathML for formulas

I haven't seen any replies from the W3C people.

Chris, who would we ask about this?

Rik

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Paul Topping <pault@dessci.com> wrote:

> While you certainly can take your own copy of MathJax as it is open
> source, the MathJax Consortium does maintain a CDN that many of its users
> point their pages at. You can refer to a fixed version of MathJax in order
> to control when to move to a new version and to test it on your own content
> before going live.****
>
> ** **
>
> Paul****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* Rik Cabanier [mailto:cabanier@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Monday, April 23, 2012 3:56 PM
> *To:* Dirk Schulze
> *Cc:* Paul Topping; public-fx@w3.org
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Filter Effects][css3-transforms] Using MathML for formulas
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 2:44 PM, Dirk Schulze <dschulze@adobe.com> wrote:*
> ***
>
>
> On Apr 23, 2012, at 2:29 PM, Paul Topping wrote:
>
> > I'm confused. What script and demo site are you referring to? What does
> > the popup say?****
>
> http://www.mathjax.org/demos/ tested on IE 9 without MathPlayer plugin.***
> *
>
>
> >
> > MathJax is very configurable, by the way. I understand about your
> > reluctance to having a W3C spec require JavaScript but, IMHO, one can't
> > do much on the web these days without JS enabled. How many people really
> > run with JS disabled these days anyway?****
>
> I totally agree. But something that applies to general websites doesn't
> necessarily apply to specifications. Some specifications are still written
> in pure ASCII text, just to provide long term achievement (not at W3C). And
> JavaScript seems to be one of the things that belong to this kind of
> category that might make it harder to provide long term achievement. I am
> not sure if the W3C has any preferences to this topic. However MathJax
> might be different, since the content does not necessarily rely on the JS
> library.****
>
> ** **
>
> It would be good to know what the W3C policy is.****
>
> Obviously, we would have to use our own snapshot of MathJax so we can be
> sure that there are no breaking changes.****
>
> ** **
>
> It would make our lives easier and the specs prettier.****
>
> ** **
>
> Rik ****
>
>  ****
>
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Dirk Schulze [mailto:dschulze@adobe.com]
> >> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 2:23 PM
> >> To: Paul Topping
> >> Cc: Rik Cabanier; public-fx@w3.org
> >> Subject: Re: [Filter Effects][css3-transforms] Using MathML for
> >> formulas
> >>
> >>
> >> On Apr 23, 2012, at 2:04 PM, Paul Topping wrote:
> >>
> >>> Screen readers work with MathPlayer, the IE plugin that my company
> >> gives
> >>> away for free. (I could not tell you which ones and which versions
> >>> work.) If MathPlayer is installed, IE uses it to display MathML and
> >>> screen readers use it to turn math into text to be spoken. If the
> >> page
> >>> uses MathJax, and MathJax detects IE+MathPlayer, it defers to
> >> MathPlayer
> >>> to display the math and screen readers will work fine on the math.
> >>
> >> I know MathPlayer. I just checked MathJax on IE. The problem is that
> >> the script suggest that the MathPlayer plugin is needed to display the
> >> formulas on the demo site, even if that is obviously not the case! As
> >> much as I like MathPlayer and the output of MathJax, this behavior
> >> seems not to be applicable for a specification of the W3C. It is
> >> strange that I didn't get a popup on the main page of the project on
> >> the first load. So it looks like this popup can be blocked (without
> >> changes to the code itself)?
> >>
> >> Greetings,
> >> Dirk
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Paul
> >>>
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: Dirk Schulze [mailto:dschulze@adobe.com]
> >>>> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 1:54 PM
> >>>> To: Paul Topping
> >>>> Cc: Rik Cabanier; public-fx@w3.org
> >>>> Subject: Re: [Filter Effects][css3-transforms] Using MathML for
> >>>> formulas
> >>>>
> >>>> I would like to know more about MathJax before I come to a
> >> conclusion
> >>>> for my self. MathJax is a Javascript library. Content in
> >>> specifications
> >>>> should not rely on JS at all in my eyes.
> >>>>
> >>>> But if I understood it correctly, than you can add formulas in pure
> >>>> MathML and the library would take care about the rendering? It
> > would
> >>>> still mean that you cannot read the specification on disabled
> >>>> JavaScript and missing MathML support.
> >>>>
> >>>> Is there a benefit to the idea of Aryeh to use CSS and check for
> > the
> >>>> MathML namespace? My priority is the accessibility. If we can use
> >> pure
> >>>> MathML, the specs might be more accessible. The problem with
> > Aryeh's
> >>>> solution is, that current screenreader don't inspect elements which
> >>> are
> >>>> not displayed on the screen (e.g display:none). Therefore, on IE
> > the
> >>>> MathML code wouldn't be accessible for screen reader users since
> > the
> >>>> code does not get displayed. Would that be different with MathJax?
> >>>>
> >>>> Greetings,
> >>>> Dirk
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Apr 23, 2012, at 1:31 PM, Paul Topping wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> It is not as fast as if MathML were supported directly in the
> >>> browser
> >>>> but JavaScript performance is getting faster all the time. It also
> >>>> depends a lot on what browser you are talking about and what
> > device.
> >>> It
> >>>> is very fast in IE with MathPlayer installed as it defers to
> >>> MathPlayer
> >>>> to draw the MathML. It is much slower on an iPhone, for example.
> >> Best
> >>>> thing to do is try it on a sample page. There are also links to
> >> other
> >>>> sites that use MathJax listed on the MathJax site. You might find
> >> some
> >>>> analogous content.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Paul
> >>>>>
> >>>>> From: Rik Cabanier [mailto:cabanier@gmail.com]
> >>>>> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 1:26 PM
> >>>>> To: Paul Topping
> >>>>> Cc: public-fx@w3.org
> >>>>> Subject: Re: [Filter Effects][css3-transforms] Using MathML for
> >>>> formulas
> >>>>>
> >>>>> This is great! Thanks for pointing this out.
> >>>>> Do you know if the performance is good? Some spec pages are quite
> >>>> long and I think mathjax has to process all the text.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Rik
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Paul Topping <pault@dessci.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>> You may be interested in the MathJax project (www.mathjax.org). It
> >>> is
> >>>> an
> >>>>> open source JavaScript engine for displaying MathML and LaTeX
> >>>> equations
> >>>>> in all modern web browsers and ebook readers. It essentially fills
> >>>> the
> >>>>> gaps in browser support of MathML.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Paul Topping
> >>>>> Design Science, Inc.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>
> >****
>
> ** **
>