Re: Agenda for Monday April 1st

> I've read the minutes of the last few meetings and Dave's 
> proposal. Here are some comments.

Thanks for your interesting comments on characters set extensions and
automatic numbering. The ability to skip/resume numbering seems fine,
but the derived numbers (1 -> 1') may be something we would restrict
to backwards references.

> 3. "HTML-Math is intended to allow ... as well as rendering to
> graphical bitmapped displays." What about rendering to paper??

Good point.

> 4. "There are hundreds of symbols in use in mathematics." For those
> of you who think this is covered by Unicode, Computer Modern fonts and
> the AMS fonts (although the latter *are* very useful), should study
> pages 47-50 of the following document
> 
>     ftp://ftp.elsevier.nl/pub/sgml/artdoc.ps.gz

Thanks for the pointer. Wolfram have previously pointed out the
same issue. The Web is moving to supporting downloadable subsets
of fonts using TrueType, Type 1 and Bitstreams TrueDoc. This should
make it practical to provide generic fonts that cover most peoples
needs plus downloads for missing glyphs.

> This will also solve legal problems with embedding fonts or parts
> of fonts in PDF files.

The font community is working on solutions to this for use with the
Web, and HTML-Math can ride on the back of this.

> 5. Superiors/inferiors: I think we should add something about
> vertical position of inferiors in mathematics and chemistry (these
> differ, as some of you may know).

Fine.

> 6. In the list of layout idioms I believe there is at least
> one missing, namely an arrow that adjusts its width to the text
> appearing above or below it. This is used in chemical formulas, and
> is different from an arrow or brace AS ORNAMENT, that adjusts its width
> to the text underneath it. Examples of both:
> 
>     \widebrace{a b c ... x y z} (the brace is the ornament)
> 
>            catalyst 
>       A  -----------> B         (the text above the arrow is the ornament)

The list on the page isn't intended to be complete.  Wolfram are sending
a list of suggested schema for this that in turn were inspired by Knuth's
work with TeX.

> 7. In example 2 a lot of reserved words occur: from, to, of. How
> do you get these words as normal words in the text (in roman)?

In our recent discussions on operator precedence notations, we have talked
about the merits of lexical differentation of operators and identifiers
e.g. by a preceding "\" character, but this isn't decided at this point.
There is an agreed need however to switch into a text mode within
math expressions as can be done in TeX with \mbox{normal text}

> 8. What about coding fractions: are we going to follow LaTeX and most
> SGML DTD's and use something like (fraction (numerator ...)
> (denominator ...)) or are we copying the horrible TeX construct
> (... over ...)? I've been asked by people on the LaTeX3 development
> team to express a strong preference for the former, and a strong
> dislike for \over!

Can you justify the value judgement "horrible" here?
Why do the LaTeX3 development team feel this way?

> That's it. I'll try to monitor the corner designated to our group
> on www.w3.org, although the password Dave gave me doesn't work!  :-)

I have put Karen MacArthur <kmm@w3.org> onto fixing this for you.

> If Dave can let me know several days in advance when a telephone
> conference occurs (on Monday evenings) I can try to attend. But
> there will be Mondays on which I am not at home from 7 pm to midnight
> (that's 12 noon to 5 pm EST, since we're in daylight saving time
> as of last weekend).

The meetings are held weekly although there will be weeks when it
is cancelled.

-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> tel: +1 (617) 258 5741 fax: +1 (617) 258 8682
   World Wide Web Consortium, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139
   url = http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett