Re: MathML and ImaginaryJ

Dear Scott,

You wrote:

> Is there expected to be support for replacing/overloading the
> presentation types for the content objects?  
> 
> i.e., can "ImaginaryI" be presented as "j" 
> 
> -- I'm a EE and we all use "j" for Sqrt[-1]


We do expect support for selecting between various presentations of
content objects like "ImaginaryI".  In fact there are several escape
hatches.  

One way would be to simply bind a different presentation to
a content object using a <semantics> element.  However, until there
are macros, this is a real pain. 

Similarly, ultimately, we are expecting MathML to be rendered natively
in browsers using XSL style sheets, which is really the right way to
do this.  However, that is also some years off.

A more immediate, but also implementation specific, work around is the
"other" attribute.  This is meant to provide implementors with a place
to put implementation specific flags like "engineering_style" or
whatever, that would tell a renderer to use j for &ImaginaryI;.  In
the draft (buried in section 4.3.3.2) we use the example of switching
between dots and primes for derivatives, and the i/j thing is similar.

I hope this is a satisfactory answer.

Yours,

Robert Miner


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Robert Miner                               http://www.geom.umn.edu
The Geometry Center                        phone: (612) 626-8313
HTML-Math WG co-chair                      fax:   (612) 625-8083
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Received on Monday, 12 January 1998 16:32:25 UTC