Re: Exploring new vocabularies for HTML

Henri Sivonen wrote:
> On Mar 31, 2008, at 20:17, Bruce Miller wrote:
>> So, Classic MathML, provided it didn't use namespace prefixes, I 
>> assume, would be valid to embed in HTML5?
> 
> I consider that a requirement (at least when there are no OpenMath 
> annotation-xml subtrees).
> 
>> Are you referring to the exporting of MathML as XML
>> a not-necessarily-mandated "UI feature" ?
>> That seems really bad to me.
> 
> In general, UI is where HTML5 allows browser-vendors to innovate freely. 
> Firefox already has View MathML Source in the context menu, so I 
> wouldn't be too worried.
> 
>> Besides, if, as you say, MathML as XML would be allowed in HTML5, 
>> there'd be no need for a browser to export the HTML5 serialization.
> 
> This already came up in the SVG discussion. Even if you allow copying 
> and pasting (unprefixed) MathML or SVG XML source into text/html, you 
> still need an HTML5 parser and an XML serializer to extract 
> MathML-in-text/html or SVG-in-text/html from the Web into XML-only apps 
> *in the general case*, because someone out there *will* produce markup 
> that parses as HTML5 but not as XML.
> 
> If you refuse to use an HTML5 parser either in the browser, as a 
> standalone tool or integrated into an importing editor, HTML authors 
> have a very simple copy protection mechanism to use against you. :-)
> 
> The mistake with insisting on the syntax looking like XML in order to 
> enable reuse is the expectation that HTML authors will cooperate with 
> you. They won't--either accidentally or deliberately.

No, I'm not insisting that, at all.
Perhaps I haven't been clear, or I'm misunderstanding you.

I'm conceding that an HTML5 browser would accept a range
of MathML/SVG syntaxes from strict XML (so long as no namespace prefixes)
at one end, to the lax html-like syntax at the other end.
And, that authors would do... well, what authors do.

My concern was that the browser, after parsing whatever form
into a DOM, would be required (or _very_ strongly encouraged)
to allow exporting that DOM as XML.   Then, _any_ MathML (ditto SVG)
application could use the result, including old, strict MathML
applications on the one hand, to HTML5 browsers on the other.


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

Received on Monday, 31 March 2008 19:15:57 UTC