Re: [Filter Effects][css3-transforms] Using MathML for formulas

Folks:

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this.  I have been out  
of the country for a little over a week, and have very poor computer  
access during my travels.  But I'm back now and will be trying to  
catch up over the next few days on the messages from when I was away.

> I was pointed to your email [1] by david carlisle and your Tex  
> converter [2] by Peter Krautzberger as I have been looking into  
> accessible math in order to provide some practical guidnace to  
> clients on publsihing math content on the web.   One of the issues I  
> have come to understand in regards to presentation of math to AT  
> users is that MathML is only intelligible to a subset of screen  
> readers even when using IE + MathPlayer.  Your experimental speech  
> output would be very useful for providing a text translation of  
> MathML to users of other AT, browsers and OS's.

Yes, I think you are right that the current IE+MathPlayer situation  
only works well, with a subset of the available screen readers, and  
that the approach I prototyped would work with a wider range of  
browsers, screen readers, and OS's.

> I would urge you to consider providing a similar converter for MathML

The actual math-to-speech is being done from the underlying MathML  
that is MathJax's internal format.  The fact that the lab you link to  
uses TeX as the input language is just because that is easier to type,  
in general.  It could just as easily have used MathML input (or  
ASCIIMath input).  That is just a function of the example page, which  
was set up to use MathJax's TeX input jax.

> also intergration into MathJax would be great!

This is one of the areas I would like to work on, and it is on the  
list of things we hope to develop further.  Of course, it is possible  
to treat this as an extension to MathJax (as the sample page does) and  
so this functionality could be used prior to it becoming an official  
component of MathJax itself.

> Please keep up the good work.

Thanks for your support.

Davide



> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-fx/2012AprJun/0126.html
> [2] http://www.math.union.edu/locate/Cervone/transfer/mathjax/speech-lab.html
> -- 
> with regards
>
> Steve Faulkner
> Technical Director - TPG
>
> www.paciellogroup.com | www.HTML5accessibility.com | www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner
> HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives -  
> dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/
> Web Accessibility Toolbar - www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html
>