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

My apologies if you haven't gotten a response from our text support group
yet.  They pride themselves on response times, but we just released a new
version of MathType (or main product) and they have gotten lots of
questions about that.

The next release of MathPlayer (MathPlayer 3, PR2 in a few weeks?) uses a
fully accessible control panel instead of the context menu for making
settings.  The context menu is surprisingly difficult to use for people
using screen readers.

MathPlayer does have a COM API -- it is how AT interfaces with MathPlayer.
You can get base level functionality by making MSAA calls, but much better
functionality (including prosody support) by calling the enhanced
interfaces for math.  The next version makes use of third party braille
translators, so you can also get Nemeth and other braille math codes back.
If you want the API, let me know and I'll send it to you.

In addition to Windows native support, we will be experimenting with a
cloud service this summer.  There are lots of details (both technical and
business) we need to work out about that, so I don't think it will be ready
until next summer, although maybe we'll have some betas out earlier.

Neil Soiffer
Senior Scientist
Design Science, Inc.
www.dessci.com
~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor ~




On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 6:19 AM, Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Neil,
>
> thanks for the information. Great to hear that MathPlayer support will be
> extended beyond IE. Does this mean there will also be other OS's supported?
>
> I have been testing MathPlayer, I sent an email to your company a week or
> so ago as one of the limitations encountered was not being able to access
> the context menu with the keyboard, but have not had any reply as yet.
>
> Does MathPlayer have a scriptable API? So for example the text string
> version of math could be displayed as text? Also providing the ability to
> activate the context menu via scripting?
>
> best regards
> Stevef
>
>
>
>
> On 7 June 2012 15:42, Neil Soiffer <NeilS@dessci.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Steve,
>>>
>>> Do you know of any standards for the reading of math as a linear stream
>>> of words?  In the meantime, before Peter's MathJax extension is ready, I
>>> would like to just add some aria-label="" attributes manually to the
>>> MathML in the SVG spec.  I could take a guess at what is an appropriate
>>> reading for the formulae, but if there's a standard or guide for
>>> producing this I'd like to follow it.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Cameron
>>>
>>>
>> There isn't a standard way to speak math.  The way math is spoken varies
>> considerably by region, subject area, and expertise level. When speaking
>> math for people with disabilities, it varies depending on the vision
>> disability.  For example, for those who are blind (and aren't experts in
>> the subject matter), you need to be unambigous about what is spoken and
>> "mark" the beginning and end of fractions, scripts, etc.  E.g., "start
>> fraction a+1 over 2 end fraction".  But for someone with a vision-related
>> learning disability such as dyslexia, those extra words are verbal
>> "clutter" and make it harder to understand the math, not easier.
>>
>> Generating the speech you want to hear is much better done at the time of
>> "rendering", not predetermined.  In addition to those benefits, you will
>> also be able to navigate the speech when it is generated from MathML as
>> opposed to when it is given as a string of text.  You should only use
>> aria-label as a fall back in case there is no "active" math reader.
>>
>> My company makes MathPlayer, a free plug-in to IE that renders math
>> visually and can generate a string of text to be spoken.  It works with
>> most AT out there, but is currently limited to IE.  That limitation will be
>> gone before the end of the year (at least according to our plans...).  You
>> can try it out by downloading it from:
>> http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/download.htm
>>
>> MathPlayer 3 PR1 version has most of the options I've mentioned except
>> for navigation (we're working on that).  It supports both the MathSpeak
>> style of speech (good for people who know the Nemeth braille math code) and
>> another more natural style.  We're working on yet a third style.
>>
>> I hope this info helps,
>>
>> Neil Soiffer
>> Senior Scientist
>> Design Science, Inc.
>> www.dessci.com
>> ~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor ~
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> 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
>
>
>