Re: MathML and CSS

Two points related to content MathML.

1.  "Doing just enough" could include using a functional notation for 
content MathML.
The place where you get into trouble in trying to do content MathML 
right now with CSS is in the
tree re-structuring and this would allow you to avoid that.

We start with  writing out content expressions in parsable formats like 
int( bvar(x) , sin(x) ),  or   plus(a,b,c)  .  (basically writing things 
in a functional notation) then Content MathML is not totally abandoned
Then, as you add CSS functionality that allows you to restructure the 
expression tree,
you can go for something better. The key point is that the semantics 
would need not be lost
even from the word go.

And of course, while we are waiting for the ability to re-structure 
trees, we still have the choice to do that 
restructuring server side using XSLT or the like...

2.  Even if CSS can't handle content MathML at all, it needs to be able 
to "choose" a presentation out of
the semantics tag and NOT display all the others.  We need to be sure 
that the parts of the semantics expression
that need to be invisible are easily configured to be so.

Stan Devitt

Paul Libbrecht wrote:

>
>
> On 14-May-04, at 07:04 Uhr, Bruce Miller wrote:
>
>> (b2) to do just enough that mathematics can be presented, but that 
>> some/most MathML would have to be simplified before CSS stylesheets 
>> could describe it's presentation?
>
>
> This approach is seducing, it lets  presentation-process-developers 
> hope for the ability to as much dynamic-HTML with formulae than what 
> can be done (sort of) in current browsers.
>
> And at the same time, accepting this would at least mean we abandon 
> the content-side of MathML. Where would we find, then, such great 
> things as synchronized content and presentation subtrees ? (this 
> should all be XHTML, SVG, or other CSS-supporting-platfom).
>
> Moreover, the "mathematical" nature of the math subtrees would be 
> lost. This would mean that copy and paste would be even more random 
> and may be an issue for accessibility... unless content (semantic) 
> data would be made available.
>
> What can hosts of CSS (SVG, XHTML) offer for such embedding of 
> semantic content ?
>
> paul
>

Received on Sunday, 16 May 2004 11:14:05 UTC