Re: writing math in web browsers

Hi.

> I'm building a Q&A forum for an academic course in Applied Mathematics in 
> Tel-Hai collage, Israel.
> The forum runs on a Perl cgi software that creates HTML pages dynamically.
> I'd like to use MathML in there to enable students to write questions with 
> math signs. What should I do?

One possibility would be to use WebEQ components to hook in an
equation editor, and back-end MathML processing.  This isn't
completely trivial, but since you already developing the forum
software, it should be relatively easy for you.  

You can see a demo message board that I set up this way at

  http://www.webeq.com/technotes

That basic steps are to embed the WebEQ Input Control somewhere in
your UI to get the math from posting authors.  Then I use JavaScript to
submit the MathML generated by the Input Control along with the form
data.  The perl script that catches the data execs the WebEQ Equation
Server to convert the MathML into PNG images, and stores the images
and HTML in a database.  Of course, one could also sotre just the
MathML and do the image generation at the time of a page request
containing equations.

You can get a 30-day eval copy of WebEQ from 

  http://www.dessci.com/dl/webeq.stm

if you are interested in playing around with it.

--Robert

------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Miner                                    RobertM@dessci.com
MathML 2.0 Specification Co-editor                    651-223-2883
Design Science, Inc.   "How Science Communicates"   www.dessci.com
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Received on Thursday, 10 January 2002 12:24:48 UTC