Re: Whither MathML support?

On Wed, 2017-09-06 at 13:55 -0500, Ric Wright wrote:
> [...]
> * Given that the MathML spec seems to be, well, a bit stale (3.5
> years since
> last update) what is the long-term view of its viability?

My own opinion is that the most effective way forward is to drop
demands of every-little-bit-of-mathml-everywhere and instead for
publishers to demand support of specific mathematics rendering features
via CSS. For example, a CSS way to make built-up brackets (fences).
I don't see e.g. building full TeX support into Web browsers any time
soon, although with asm.js maybe it'll happen. But TeX was designed for
print, and making TeX mathematics accessible turns out to have its own
challenges too.

> * Given the difficulty of making it accessible, does it make sense to
> try
> and provide markup that is accessible

Yes.


>  or just throw in the towel

No.

Consider someone using readium to supply an epub3 textbook in the
educational sector where accessibility is required by legislation as
well as institutional rules.

>  [...] It is not easy to
> find
> examples of the use of MathML (and most are very old) which suggests
> that it is not widely used.
It's not widely shipped on the Web because browser support is so
pathetic. That doesn't mean it isn't used. But browsers don't see it as
a high priority I think primarily because not enough people ask them
for it.

It's a bit like vertical Japanese text - publishers simply weren't
putting it on the Web because the browser support was inadequate. When
the browser vendors became aware of this there was an increased push
for supporting vertical Japanese text.

Similarly Opera didn't support XSLT until Google Maps was released
requiring it.

The best way to improve browser support for MathML would be to give
them a business case for it. Bill Kasdorf's response is an example. If
scientific journals started publishing with native MathML and just
said, if your browser doesn't support enough of MathML here's a list of
ones that do, would that make a difference? I expect it might.

It might also help to be clear that MathML isn't only for research-
level mathematics and engineering but applies from elementary school
upwards. Or there's the sneaky approach of making a "profile" of MathML
called K12ML or even just MiddleSchoolMathMarkup (MSMM) and pushing
that... of course, it wouldn't leave much out!

But all this is about a sort of activism & doesn't answer the question
is is yes, I'd want to detect whether a book uses mathematics (e.g. via
a simple XPath query) and include a copy of MathML conditionally,
activate it only when needed. And include a message, "Loading
JavaScript support shim for missing browser support for equations" :-)

Liam


-- 
Liam Quin, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Staff contact for Verifiable Claims WG, SVG WG, XQuery WG

Web slave for http://www.fromoldbooks.org/

Received on Wednesday, 6 September 2017 21:01:20 UTC