Re: request for comments HTML WG comments to MathML WG

On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:56:14 +0100, Shelley Powers  
<shelley.just@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Ah. Referencing HTML4 seems useless since HTML4 doesn't support  
>> embedding
>> MathML inline.
>>
>
> Color names are pulled from the HTML4 spec,

Hmm. Firefox seems to support SVG color keywords as well (but not the CSS2  
system colors).

Is there a reason MathML doesn't use css3-color SVG color keywords instead  
of HTML4 color keywords?


> and it's mentioned again
> in Chapter 6[1], with an unnamed aside to HTML5:
>
> "To be effective, MathML must work well with a wide variety of
> renderers, processors, translators and editors. This chapter raises
> some of the interface issues involved in generating and rendering
> MathML. Since MathML exists primarily to encode mathematics in Web
> documents, perhaps the most important interface issues relate to
> embedding MathML in [HTML4] and [XHTML], and in any newer HTML when it
> appears."
>
> So anything I comment on related to MathML in HTML, rather than XHTML,
> is somewhat moot, because the document just does not recognize MathML
> in anything but an XML-based syntax, such as SVG or XHTML.
>
> Speaking of which, there are new elements, and new constraints on
> structure. We may have to do our own updating in the HTML5 document,
> if we decide to reference MathML 3.0 instead of MathML 2.0. I didn't
> examine this aspect of the document.

I see there's a new element called <td> in the index. But the link goes to  
the definition of <mtd>. Is it a mistake?

The index lists my:color and my:background, but these don't seem to be  
actual attributes that MathML defines but just arbitrary namespaced  
attributes used as an example (it doesn't even say what the namespace is).  
Maybe these should be excluded from the index to avoid confusion.

As far as I can tell, there are no new elements or attributes that use  
uppercase characters and no new namespaced attributes, and no new  
conflicts with HTML element names. Thus, as far as I can tell, MathML 3.0  
should be supported by HTML5 without any change to HTML5.


>> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/named-character-references.html#named-character-references
>>
>
> I did not find some of the named entities listed in the MathML named
> entities draft in the entities given in the HTML5 draft.

The entities in HTML5 are generated from the same source as the entities  
in MathML 3.0. However, I think entities that expand to multiple  
characters are excluded from HTML5. I don't know why there are entities  
that expand to multiple characters and I don't know why they are excluded  
 from HTML5.


>> The special doctype can be used in XHTML5.
>>
>
> Oh, yes. Well, this is also another area of difference between the
> MathML document and HTML5.


>> 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.)
>>
>
> There are differences from both XHTML 1.0 and MathML 2.0, as shown in
> the new working draft [2].
>
> Would you like me to add this as a comment?

Sure. (It's not clear to me why we're not just cc-ing the MathML WG in  
this discussion.)

-- 
Simon Pieters
Opera Software

Received on Thursday, 5 November 2009 14:32:15 UTC