Re: MathML and CSS

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).

My initial fear in the (b1)-(b2) scale was implicitly defining a bastardized
subset of Presentation MathML, but some of the things that David & Robert
have pointed out give hope that enough can be done with XSLT and/or Javascript
to complete the coverage.

Even so, that doesn't hold much appeal if each author has to send some 
cleverly contrived stylesheets & scripts to each unique browser; that
seems negative progress!

It _is_ appealing if an UA implementer would feel compelled to add a few 
features to thier CSS implementation and supply thier _own_ meta-stylesheet 
that fills in the gaps for thier particular browser.  Then, authors simply
serve normal MathML and everything happens like it should.

[I wonder if Ian is listenning in, and what he thinks of the idea?]

> 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.

This could still be an issue depending on whether `cut and paste' would get
you the original MathML or the digested MathML.


-- 
bruce.miller@nist.gov
http://math.nist.gov/~BMiller/

Received on Monday, 17 May 2004 20:47:17 UTC