RE: [EXTERNAL] Deprecate maction?

My blog post Editing Math using MathML for Speech | Microsoft Docs<https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/murrays/editing-math-using-mathml-for-speech> describes how <maction> could be used in generating math speech for editing math. Most MathML usage concentrates on math display, speech, braille, or computation. But creating technical documents involves editing math, so it's worthwhile for MathML to be usable for editing. In the post, <maction> is used to produce the speech for the math at the insertion point. A related post MathML and OMML User Selection Attributes - Math in Office (microsoft.com)<https://devblogs.microsoft.com/math-in-office/mathml-and-omml-user-selection-attributes/> defines selection attributes that reveal the user selection within a math zone.

Thanks,
Murray

From: Paul Libbrecht <paul@hoplahup.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2022 5:28 AM
To: www-math@w3.org
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Deprecate maction?


Dear WWW-Math mailing-list,

Within the W3C-Math-Working-Group, we have as charter to revise what was proposed in MathML3 to make it current and sharper-readable. Among the elements who appear to be candidate for a deprecation process are the maction element.

The MathML3 (current) spec says<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FTR%2FMathML%2Fchapter3.html%23presm.maction&data=05%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7Cfa3e98c7537e4341962608da3d80fa50%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637889921444449898%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=CrnkAi3fXk14UL3qylLdFyS7F2e%2B9m5FDBEBr1sIeH8%3D&reserved=0> that maction can be used to mark a sub-expression so that interactions of particular types can happen: toggle (switch between alternatives), statusline (show in the status-line) and tooltip (show a tooltip on top), and input (show a textfield).

It appeared to us that neither statusline nor tooltip are current and that toggle is likely of little use. Is maybe input too?
All of this can be performed in a more browser- and user-relevant fashion using javascript listeners, albeit in a less declarative fashion.

I would like, thus, to suggest to enter maction into a deprecation process: it would make this element valid (but deprecated) in MathML 4 and it would be removed in MathML 5.

What do people on this list think of this proposal?
If you have other uses of maction, is this going to be a problem and can you describe the use that you make?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Paul

PS: implementations I know of include Safari and Firefox: they can be checked in the MathML3 test-suite: highlight<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FMath%2Ftestsuite%2Fbuild%2Fmain%2FPresentation%2FDynamicExpressions%2Fmaction%2FmactionBhigh1-full.xhtml&data=05%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7Cfa3e98c7537e4341962608da3d80fa50%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637889921444449898%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=cDizZj90IFnsZ0I3WyYvsgGGYcHzDq7cIaChC8PdN78%3D&reserved=0>, statusline<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FMath%2Ftestsuite%2Fbuild%2Fmain%2FPresentation%2FDynamicExpressions%2Fmaction%2FmactionBstatus1-full.xhtml&data=05%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7Cfa3e98c7537e4341962608da3d80fa50%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637889921444449898%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=G%2FraNh1R5fFBp%2FBYLFXanjAywzaT8NZUBaFN3CqtiZQ%3D&reserved=0>, toggle<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FMath%2Ftestsuite%2Fbuild%2Fmain%2FPresentation%2FDynamicExpressions%2Fmaction%2FmactionBtoggle1-full.xhtml&data=05%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7Cfa3e98c7537e4341962608da3d80fa50%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637889921444449898%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=vuiLXE319U5%2FZJ7VATSqYtJWvJA%2Bkh%2BKmJRh%2FOTmyA0%3D&reserved=0>, tooltip<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FMath%2Ftestsuite%2Fbuild%2Fmain%2FPresentation%2FDynamicExpressions%2Fmaction%2FmactionBtooltip1-full.xhtml&data=05%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7Cfa3e98c7537e4341962608da3d80fa50%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637889921444449898%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=GSTy6OHwBE%2B4Dubmd5rVE7fztfV7c82rCCXKXitDKmQ%3D&reserved=0>.