Re: MathML-in-HTML5

White Lynx said:

> It is clear that markup will be widely supported in Microsoft products and
> will play important role in STM publishing.

And others also. Begin to appear tools for Office XML before launching!

> But it is unclear what consequences we will get for web and webbrowsers,
> if it will be exported to XHTML+MathML or will appear in XHTML+OMML form
> (and either MathML or OMML will be supported by MSIE) then we can live
> with it, but if we just see bunch on WordML documents on web then it
> will be the end of normal "browsing experience" of any kind, as it
> will end up beyound the browser's scope and will be just passed to
> Office or plugins that handle WordML.

I read yesterday from Brian that Murray Sargent (the chief of OMML) is
joining to MathML 3. Why do not ask him directly?

> In this context it is vital to integrate MathML (actually both but we
> apparently have no control over OMML) into web environment, to avoid
> degeneration of web into bunch of WordML (well being XML based it is more
> manageable then PDF, but regardless this it is not the web format) files.

Agree.

> But under integration into web environment I mean integration in XML+CSS
> framework, today it is not the time to play with HTML tags, it will not
> give us any new functionality that could help us to be more competitive.

Agree also! The Roger/Ian experiment is based in the unproven claim that
mathematicians cannot use MathML is mass because is blocked in a XHTML
framework and XHTML is hard.

The main premise is that if MathML (current version) is introduced into
HTML, then MathML use would expand in exponential way.

When i ask by data on the claim, i never receive statistics, just beliefs
based in "i receive X mails saying how evil XHTML is".

Moreover, people can use MathML in HTML for years in _both_ Mozilla and MSIE.

In my previous post i link a HTML 4 strict page with MathML islands like

<math display='block' xmlns:m='http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML'>
 <m:mfrac>
  <m:mn>y</m:mn>
  <m:mi>x</m:mi>
 </m:mfrac>
</m:math>

or without prefix

<math display='block' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML'>
    <mrow>
      <msubsuP>
        <mo>&#8747;</mo>
        <mn>-1</mn>
        <mn>1</mn>
      </msubsuP>
    </mrow>
    <msqrt>
      <mrow>
        <mn>1</mn>
        <mo>-</mo>
        <msuP>
          <mi>x</mi>
          <mn>2</mn>
        </msuP>
      </mrow>
    </msqrt>
    <mi>d</mi>
    <mi>x</mi>
    <mo>=</mo>
    <mfrac>
      <mi>&#960;</mi>
      <mn>2</mn>
    </mfrac>
 </mrow>
</math>

and both are rendered in HTML 4! since HTML 5 claims backward
compatibility, we already got a way to publish MathML islands when you
cannot modify your server MIME.

The page proves that Mozilla can render MathML in HTML (even if Roger
claim the contrary in Mozilla page). MSIE also can render them. You can
apply styles change color of equations, size, mstyle also works, you can
transform an equation in a link...

I forgot explain there that final DOM is also a HTML+MathML DOM not XHTML
one since final DOM contains <hr> <br> and so on instead the XHTML forms.

You can render MathML 2 (and probably MathML 3 also), no need for <none>,
no need for new Ian's syntax, no need for changes in CSS layer, no need
for a fixed m prefix (I checked just now that Docbook mml: also works and
is rendered), no side autoclosing effects, no incompatibility with
MathPLayer etc.

Therefore, i see no rationale for the HTML 5 experiment. Just a waste of
time. Why all this time and discussion is not devoted to Mozilla bugs, CSS
inline blocks and tables, full formatting semantics, next STIX fonts not
dealed by current TeX engine, slow performance with medium size MathML
docs... one wait minutes before rendering.

Using the trick from Jipsen, some people who _cannot_ (e.g. free domains
in servers) use X(HT)ML can introduce MathML into HTML 4. It is probable
that script can be optimized and reduced in size.

This may be seen like a way to 'publish' mathml TODAY if you are limited
to MIME text/html. The trick works for both Mathplayer+MSIE and Mozilla.

The future way to publish would be a full XML framework (or better beyond
XML limits [e.g. ConciseXML]).


Juan R.

Center for CANONICAL |SCIENCE)

Received on Friday, 13 October 2006 10:06:22 UTC