Re: auto-boxing

Paul,

I don't think I understand your issue:

   - If the MathML generated by the new expression is wrong, that is simply
   a bug.
   - If you are saying that you don't like the way Word's editor or some
   other editor works with selection/copy/paste, that's a UI issue and is
   independent of MathML. Some editors might only allow certain edits, and
   others might be more free. E.g., Mathematica's editor (full disclosure, I
   wrote that one) is completely freeform wrt to linear notations. It seems
   that Word's editor won't allow selection of part of the interior of parens
   that extends beyond the parens; that's not a MathML limitation and might be
   considered a feature by some (only allow syntactically meaningful
   selections?)

I think a simple way to break up the first expr is to select all of it,
copy/paste it to the right and then delete the contents of parens as
appropriate. Seems pretty easy and quick. Then add a '2' in front of the
'5's (could have done this first and saved inserting a char). Of course,
everyone's editing style differs.

In the end, I'm not clear why this is a MathML issue but I am likely
misunderstanding your issue.

    Neil


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On Fri, Jul 9, 2021 at 8:28 AM Paul Libbrecht <paul@hoplahup.net> wrote:

> Hello dear list,
>
> I had a funny demo yesterday in my lecture.
>
> I had input the following in Word: P(T<-t∨T>t)=0.05:
>
> However, a colleague that watched indicated I should rather split the
> probability measures in two which I started:
>
> Splitting the formula by using cut and paste was not possible anymore,
> because an automatic box (an mrow I assume) had appeared inside the first
> bracket. Only partial cut and paste was possible.
>
> So it was easier to re-input the whole or abandon the change; I chose the
> second ;-). Word has influenced my mathematical discourse!.
>
> A few discussions around intents seem to imply that these boxes are a
> natural requirement which is understandable from the perspective of a
> navigation through the formula or read-aloud or a selection-aware
> presentation_. I would like to agree with that but this implies that some
> boxes will bother the mathematical discourse.
>
> I believe that similar issues are met in other environments (in particular
> TeXmacs has very deep box-nesting.
>
>    - Should users expect “box manipulations” so that the boxes become
>    correct?
>    - Should they be told to care?
>    - Are there situations where boxes would overlap?
>
> paul
>