Re: request for comments HTML WG comments to MathML WG

On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:15:23 +0100, Shelley Powers  
<shelley.just@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> MathML entities have now been moved to a separate document. These
>>> entities will not be available with MathML embedded in HTML, served as
>>> either HTML or XHTML, because there is no doctype.
>>
>> They will work in HTML because the HTML5 parser supports them  
>> regardless of
>> doctype.
>>
>
> These are not part of the HTML4 specification, which is what MathML
> references.

Ah. Referencing HTML4 seems useless since HTML4 doesn't support embedding  
MathML inline.


> And I don't see them as part of the HTML5 specification.

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/named-character-references.html#named-character-references


>> They work in XHTML if you have a special doctype and your browser knows
>> about that doctype (which Firefox does but Safari and Opera don't
>> currently).
>>
>
> Again, I was focused on XHTML5, not previous versions of XHTML.

The special doctype can be used in XHTML5.


> Yes,
> there is a doctype that will work with MathML, but I don't believe it
> references all of the MathML 3.0 entities.

Ah. I guess it should be updated to include the latest set of entities.  
(Minting a new FPI for MathML 3.0 seems bad since it will break compat  
with shipped Firefox.)


>>> [4]
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-MathML3-20090924/chapter6.html#interf.html
>>
>> This says:
>>
>> "To fully integrate MathML into XHTML, it should be possible not only to
>> embed MathML in XHTML, as described in Section 6.2.1 Recognizing MathML  
>> in
>> XML, but also to embed XHTML in MathML. However, the problem of  
>> supporting
>> XHTML in MathML presents many difficulties. Therefore, at present, the
>> MathML specification does not allow XHTML elements within a MathML
>> expression, although this situation may be subject to change in a future
>> revision of MathML."
>>
>> What are the difficulties?
>>
>> The HTML5 parser supports HTML and SVG in <mi>, <mo>, <mn>, <ms>,  
>> <mtext>
>> and SVG in <annotation-xml>. XHTML and SVG in MathML in these places  
>> works
>> fine in Firefox and Opera today when using application/xhtml+xml.
>>
>> I think it would be good if MathML allowed at least what is expressible  
>> in
>> text/html.
>>
>
> I'll add this as comment. Note, though, that the MathML 3.0 document
> references HTML4 and older XHTML versions, but not HTML5.
>
> I'll most likely add the lack of reference to HTML5 as another comment.

Ok.

It references XHTML 1.0, which does not allow embedded MathML.

-- 
Simon Pieters
Opera Software

Received on Thursday, 5 November 2009 13:27:03 UTC