Re: [techs] When MathML is not supported, providing alternatives

Forwarded with permission:

>From: Jacques Distler <distler commercial-at golem.ph.utexas.edu>
>Subject: Re: [techs] When MathML is not supported, providing 
>alternatives (fwd)
>Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 21:39:08 -0600
>
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>On Jan 6, 2005, at 4:13 PM, Joe Clark wrote:
>
>>[techs] When MathML is not supported, providing alternatives
>
>Alternatives?
>
>The WCAG is going to recommend "fallback" to a GIF image?! That 
>cannot *possibly* be considered an accessible alternative.
>
>Not that there *exists* an accessible alternative, but what's the 
>point in recommending an inaccessible one? Just so you can have the 
>warm, fuzzy feeling of having offered an alternative?
>
>>Next question: which combinations of assistive technology and user 
>>agent support MathML?
>
>All Gecko-based browsers except Camino.
>IE 6  with the MathPlayer 2.0 plugin.
>
>The latter has rudimentary screen-reader support to "read" the 
>MathML equations.
>
>     http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/tech/accessibility.htm
>
>(T.V. Raman is the author of Aster -- which reads LaTeX equations -- 
>and of EmacsSpeak. You might think he would have put his two famous 
>software projects together and produced a version of EmacsSpeak that 
>reads MathML. But you'd be wrong, apparently.)
>
>Jacques
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Received on Monday, 10 January 2005 23:06:21 UTC