Re: Unitless maxsize and minsize in mo

On 01/08/2012 10:51 AM, Frédéric WANG wrote:
> Another message on unitless attribute values.
>
> Again the description in chapter 2:
>
> "The default value, or how it is obtained, is listed in the table of attributes
> for each element. (See also Section 2.1.5.4 Default values of attributes.) A
> number without a unit is intepreted as a multiple of the default value. This
> form is primarily for backward compatibility and should be avoided, prefering
> explicit units for clarity. "
>
> does not seem to apply to maxsize/minsize whose default values are infinite/1em:
>
> "These two attributes are given as multipliers of the operator's normal size in
> the direction or directions of stretching, or as absolute sizes using units"
>
> BTW, the default value of minsize was "1" in MathML2. "1em" refersto the current
> font size, which I think is not necessarly the unstretched size of the operator.

Indeed; we went a bit too far in taking minsize & maxsize to
be just lengths; it breaks compatibility with MathML 2
and loses a useful behavior.  We are in the process of reformulating
them as number | length (or probably better
   number | number% | length
), such that a unitless number is
interpreted as a multiple of the natural size of the symbol
(and then the default minsize would again be 1, _not_ "1em"
which is, as you say, is an awkward size).

Thanks for reporting this;
bruce

Received on Tuesday, 24 January 2012 08:35:14 UTC