Re: MathML-in-HTML5

I am all for for MathML-in-HTML5, retaining the <math> syntax as we have 
come to know and enjoy it. But what I gather so far is that 
IE+MathPlayer only supports prefixed tags, with the prefix declared in 
the <html>. (If I understand it correctly, it doesn't even work with 
<math xmlns="mathml-namespace">...</math> when served as text/html. Do 
clarify if this isn't the case.) I also gather that MathPlayer can't do 
much about this, as IE only hands them the MathML-island, right?

Hence, either I go off and add support for the plain <math>...</math>, 
which will only work in Mozilla out-of-the-box and wouldn't be quite an 
overture to IE+MathPlayer (without yet again content negotiation or some 
JS trickeries by authors), or to get seamless interoperability, HTML5 
may need a provision for prefixed tags (at least in the case of MathML), 
and this is where we have got so far in the discussion.

The starting patch that I indicated in the opening already supports 
prefixed tags, i.e., <html xmlns:m="mathml-namespace">, with
<m:math>...</m:math> in the document,

as well as the typical

<math xmlns="mathml-namespace">...</math>
with no need for a declaration in the <html> tag.
---
RBS

On 11/10/2006 7:26 AM, Ian Hickson wrote:

> On Fri, 6 Oct 2006, White Lynx wrote:
> 
>>What we say is that having two versions of MathML will not help us to 
>>consolidate efforts, instead it will dissipate already small resources 
>>that we have today.
> 
> 
> The proposal doesn't create a new version of MathML, it just provides a 
> new way of serialising MathML content, and generating a DOM from that 
> content (deserialising it). The MathML language is left intact -- the DOM 
> is the same, the rules for processing the DOM are the same, and the 
> semantics for such a DOM are the same.
> 
> 
> 
>>For example your proposal breaks compatibility with MSIE/MathPlayer, 
>>compatibility which was achived only recently, it took several years for 
>>them to recognize application/xhtml+xml and give people opportunity to 
>>serve the same markup to Mozilla and MSIE.
> 
> 
> That will continue to work and continue to be just as conformant. The 
> proposal just seems to be adding a new serialisation/deserialisation 
> format, it doesn't stop people from using XHTML.
> 
> 
> Anyway, I'm not the one you have to convince. If you don't want Roger to 
> experiment, convince him, not me. I'm just looking for implementation 
> experience so that, going forward, I can make educated decisions.
>

Received on Wednesday, 11 October 2006 08:32:28 UTC