Comments on MathML Last Call Draft (cont'd)

Here are yet more comments on the MathML 2.0 Draft.
Hope they are of some use.

Pankaj Kamthan
--

3.3.4

"The list of allowed color names includes most of the commonest English 
color words, though not orange, brown, or pink, ..."

Is "commonest" a proper word? I didn't find it in the Webster's Dictionary.

It may be better to mention exact keyword color names. The list of 
keyword color names is: aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, lime, 
maroon, navy, olive, purple, red, silver, teal, white, and yellow. These 
16 colors are defined in HTML 4.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-
CSS2/refs.html#ref-HTML40). 

"... and also includes a number of less-common color words; see the 
reference for the complete list and the equivalent RGB values."

Which "less-common color words" and which reference?

It may be useful to mention that in addition to the above list of color 
keywords, users may specify keywords that correspond to the colors used 
by certain objects in the user's environment as specified in the section 
on system colors in CSS2 Specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-
CSS2/ui.html#system-colors).

"Note that the color name keywords are not case-sensitive, unlike most 
keywords in MathML attribute values."

Is mention of this really significant? Color names and their properties 
are beyond the scope of the MathML Specification. Document authors who 
use color names one way (lowercase) or the other (uppercase) (or even a 
mix) would continue to use it without affecting MathML conformance.

7.2.1

"A valid MathML expression ... given in the specifications of the MathML 
document."

A specific valid MathML expression would conform to one specification (and 
not specifications). It may be clearer if written as: "A valid MathML expression 
... given in this specification."

A.1

mathml2-qname-1.mod defines a parameter entity:

<!ENTITY % XLINK.xmlns.attrib
"xmlns:xlink %URI.datatype; #FIXED '%XLINK.xmlns;'"
>

that includes reference to another parameter entity URI.datatype. It 
seems that URI.datatype is not defined anywhere in the mathml2-qname-
1.mod 
module.

xhtml11-flat.dtd does declare that:

<!-- a Uniform Resource Identifier, see [URI] -->
<!ENTITY % URI.datatype "CDATA" >

It seems that Section B: MathML Qualified Names in mathml2-qname-1.mod 
and xhtml-math11-f.dtd are not identical. The difference starts at 
<!ENTITY % mglyph.qname "%MATHML.pfx;mglyph">.

mathml2-qname-1.mod:

<!ENTITY % mglyph.qname "%MATHML.pfx;mglyph">
<!ENTITY % sep.qname "%MATHML.pfx;sep">
...

xhtml-math11-f.dtd:

<!ENTITY % mglyph.qname "%MATHML.pfx;mglyph" >
<!ENTITY % integers.qname "%MATHML.pfx;integers" >
...

As an effect, the declaration of integers.qname (among others) is not 
included in mathml2-qname-1.mod (and hence in mathml2.dtd), even though 
mathml2.dtd has a reference to it. Thus, the DTD itself and documents 
based on it do not validate.

Appendix I 

Are all references "non-normative"? (But, as an example, MathML is based 
on XML syntax, a prerequisite to use MathML for a purpose such as 
authoring or implementation.)

For some references, such as, 

"Building 
Murray Altheim, Shane McCarron (editors) Building XHTML Modules 
World-Wide Web Consortium, January 2000. (http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-
building/)"

their exact status (W3C Note, Working Draft, ...) is not given (while 
for some others it is). 

"LieBos1996 
Lie, Hakon Wium and Bert Bos; Cascading Style Sheets, level 1, W3C 
Recommendation, 17 Dec 1996, http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/REC-
CSS1."

1. CSS1 revision (revised 11 Jan 1999) could be mentioned. 
2. Perhaps, reference to CSS2 (as an alternate to 1.) could be mentioned, if 
Math WG decides to base MathML on it.

Received on Wednesday, 3 May 2000 04:34:56 UTC