Re: specialized scripts as alternate text

Hi Paul,

    First note that even if Amaya was one of the first tool able to 
display XHTML+MathML+SVG pages, recent versions of Firefox/Opera also 
have this feature. Current browsers are generally able to display SVG 
images (the main exception is Internet Explorer).

    There are basically two reasons why your suggestion can not be applied:
- "alt" is supposed to be used for short description of an image, not to 
contain fragment of XML code.
- SVG and MathML have been designed to prevent the use of images and 
hence get better quality when displayed/printed, improve accessibility 
(screen readers can read MathML [1] and textual info in SVG), allow to 
magnify the image/formula and many other benefices...

Fred

[1] http://www.daisy.org/projects/mathml/
> About the use of specialized XML standards, such as MathML, SVG, etc., 
> this is a marvelous feature of Amaya, apart from its double function 
> of composer / browser.
> But let's suppose to include these specialized scripts in our pages 
> and the remote viewer has not this standards implemented in the 
> browser / reader (explorer, Firefox, etc.).
> So it could be possible to render SVG, MathML formulas as images (e.g. 
> jpeg) and include them into XML pages.
> Anyway this solution would lose information and the composer would 
> need to keep an extra (original) XML version with MathML scripts 
> inside instead of the images.
>
> So my suggestion is:
> *why not to include the specialized scripts as alternate text of the 
> image rendered from the scripts* (this would be done, for example, 
> during generation of X-html from XML files) and instruct in some way 
> Amaya to interpret the content from the alternate text? *Or, as 
> opposite concept, to use an 'alternate image' as secondary way to load 
> the content* for browsers which have not the capability to interpret 
> the primary XML sub-script.
>
> This would allow also to 'update' image content on the fly using the 
> original files without information loss.
>
> Thanks and regards,
> Paul Netsaver

Received on Thursday, 23 October 2008 21:06:23 UTC