Re: MathML - and action 1494.

Plug-ins are not necessary o use math on iOS and OS X. MathML has been supported natively for some time (~2y?) using VoiceOver in Safari (any web content) or iBooks (EPUB and iBA)…

Spacial touch- and interact-based formula exploration, Nemeth Braille output, etc. I’ll see if I can find a video demo to link. 

James


> On Aug 11, 2014, at 8:25 AM, Sean J Keegan <skeegan@stanford.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> Janina writes:
>> To my mind, "any screen reader" would need to cover multiple OS, OS X as
>> well as IOS, Linux as well as Android.
>> Where is this API published, do you know. What's its licensing?
> 
> Right now it is Windows only and Neil Soiffer would be the person to speak with regarding the API and any licensing restrictions. This is still beta development, so I suspect Design Science may not have many answers right now (I have been waiting for clarification myself).
> 
> Take care,
> Sean
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net>
> To: "Greg Kraus" <gdkraus@ncsu.edu>
> Cc: "John Foliot" <john@foliot.ca>, "James Craig" <jcraig@apple.com>, "Richard Schwerdtfeger" <schwer@us.ibm.com>, cooper@w3.org, "PF" <public-pfwg@w3.org>, "Sean J Keegan" <skeegan@stanford.edu>
> Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 6:52:14 AM
> Subject: Re: MathML - and action 1494.
> 
> Very interesting and encouraging news, thanks!  Just a quick nit for
> clarification...
> 
> Greg Kraus writes:
>> I actually just got back from a conference where I got to see some of
>> the technologies in development to make math accessible, and I was
>> very impressed.
>> ...
>> The future was what was really exciting. DesignScience has a
>> development version of MathPlayer that can work with any screen
>> reader, as long as the screen reader calls the MathPlayer API. NVDA
>> already has this functionality incorporated into a development branch.
> 
> 
> To my mind, "any screen reader" would need to cover multiple OS, OS X as
> well as IOS, Linux as well as Android.
> 
> Where is this API published, do you know. What's its licensing?
> 
> Janina
> 
>> The end result was that NVDA in FF was able to fully interact with
>> MathML. Additionally, math stored in PDFs was also able to work with
>> NVDA. That's something that has never been a possibility before, to my
>> knowledge.
>> 
>> The other new major feature in the development version of MathPlayer
>> is the ability to allow screen readers the ability to interact with
>> the math expressions in much more meaningful ways than has ever been
>> possible before. Screen readers users can zoom in and out on different
>> parts of the expression to concentrate on different parts. They can
>> leave placeholders in different parts of the equation to jump from
>> section to section. They also have more options for navigating through
>> an equation - reading by individual term, reading by logical groupings
>> (e.g. use the plus and minus signs as sectional markers to read only
>> one term at a time).
>> 
>> This new MathPlayer is not limited to screen readers. It can work with
>> literacy software too. So the current state of math accessibility is
>> not great. If Design Science ultimately makes their new version
>> available, and if NVDA (or VoiceOver - nudge, nudge) incorporates the
>> functionality into their production release, math accessibility will
>> take a huge leap forward.
>> 
>> Greg
>> --
>> Greg Kraus
>> University IT Accessibility Coordinator
>> NC State University
>> 919.513.4087
>> gdkraus@ncsu.edu
>> http://go.ncsu.edu/itaccess
>> 
>> 
>>> On Sun, Aug 10, 2014 at 9:00 PM, John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> wrote:
>>> James Craig wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Furthermore, much has changed in the last half a decade since
>>>> this text was written. The native implementations of accessible
>>>> MathML are vastly superior to plain text approximations of Math
>>>> equations, even allowing spacial exploration of equations, and
>>>> Nemeth Braille output. All modern but unsupported browsers can
>>>> be polyfilled to include support with libraries like MathJax.
>>> 
>>> James, I wish I could share your optimism. As recently as May of this year,
>>> the reports I received from my contacts in the academic world suggest that the
>>> support you are hoping for is far less robust than you may think. I urge you
>>> to read all of the comments appended to my HTML5/a11y-TF note:
>>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-a11y/2014May/0090.html
>>> 
>>> I further recall that a number of EDU representatives at CSUN this spring were
>>> lamenting the fact that support appeared to be going backward, not forward;
>>> with Google backing out of Chrome support, and non-existent support in IE11
>>> they were quiet upset as I recall. Frankly today, it appears that to provide
>>> real math support at the EDU level, institutions are resorting to recreating
>>> the content in MS Word or Daisy:
>>> 
>>>        "To make HMTL-based math accessible requires the use of MathPlayer
>>> from DesignScience. MathPlayer requires IE 9 or less and will not work IE
>>> 11. They say it partially works with IE 10. Without MathPlayer the other two
>>> options for consuming accessible math are either converting to a DAISY
>>> format or MS Word." (G. Kraus 5/7/14)
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Mainstream and accessibility support for MathML is only getting
>>>> better, and I think it's fine to acknowledge that progress in a
>>>> yet-to-be-written non-normative note.
>>> 
>>> I have no issue with noting that MathML is a future-forward technique, but
>>> non-normatively we should also acknowledge that current support is, at best,
>>> weak. As such, the same non-normative document should also include other,
>>> alternative means of achieving accessibility support, which I believe is what
>>> Rich was suggesting, and is certainly what I am suggesting.
>>> 
>>> JF
> 
> -- 
> 
> Janina Sajka,    Phone:    +1.443.300.2200
>            sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
>        Email:    janina@rednote.net
> 
> Linux Foundation Fellow
> Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:    http://a11y.org
> 
> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> Chair,    Protocols & Formats    http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
>    Indie UI            http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
>

Received on Monday, 11 August 2014 16:26:06 UTC