[uf-new] an equation/MathML/TeX microformat?

[Paul Topping]

The problem has nothing to do with improving display. As I said, that
will be via an image such as a GIF or PNG. The microformat is solely for
the purpose of associating a MathML or TeX representation with the
image. As with other microformats, normal HTML content is what the user
sees while software sees structured, useful data.

Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: microformats-new-bounces at microformats.org [mailto:microformats-
> new-bounces at microformats.org] On Behalf Of Jeff McNeill
> Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 8:52 PM
> To: For discussion of new microformats.
> Subject: Re: [uf-new] an equation/MathML/TeX microformat?
> 
> Aloha Paul, et al,
> 
> Microformats won't fix any display problems that folks have, but could
> help with say the problem of searching for a given formula across
> semantically marked up content.
> 
> However, since the problem to be solved seems to be rendering the math
> visually, with a variety of ways of doing that, would a microformat
> require all the formulations (aka mathml, texvc, mimetex) to provide
> support for yet another markup?
> 
> (Paul, I recall your comments on my blog entry trying to implement
> just such rendering on a mediawiki install
>
http://jeffmcneill.com/2007/01/24/mathml-tex-latex-texvc-mimetex-oh-my/
> )
> 
> You are right, it is a mess. Not sure how microformats could help,
> though.
> 
> --
> Sincerely,
> Jeff McNeill
> http://jeffmcneill.com/
> 
> 
> On 10/25/07, Paul Topping <pault at dessci.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm trying to determine whether microformats is the right venue for
> > developing a standard math representation within HTML.
> >
> > Back in '98, many of us involved with the W3C's MathML standard had
> > hopes of it being widely supported within most browsers in a few
> years.
> > That has sort of happened. MathML is supported natively within
Firefox
> > but users experience font problems and it only works if pages are
> XHMTL,
> > rather than HTML. My company's free MathPlayer plugin makes MathML
> work
> > in Internet Explorer. MathML support is still missing from Safari,
> > Opera, and other browsers. People interested in publishing math on
the
> > web still find serving up pages as XHTML challenging (getting the
MIME
> > type right, etc.). Some websites, blogs, and wikis convert TeX or
> LaTeX
> > to images on the server to handle equations in content. Quite
frankly,
> > the space is a mess.
> >
> > Regardless of whether the math is represented using MathML, TeX,
> LaTeX,
> > or some other notation, it is important to expose the mathematical
> > structure behind the equation to the client in order to support
> > accessibility (ie, allow screen readers to speak the math) and
> > interoperability (eg, allow users to copy equations from pages into
> > Mathematica, MS Word docs, MathType, or new pages). What is needed
is
> a
> > consistent way to associate an underlying math representation with
its
> > visual representation regardless of whether it is a GIF or PNG image
> or
> > MathML formatted by the browser (or a browser plugin).
> >
> > This seems like a job for a microformat but I must admit that I have
> > limited knowledge of the microformat philosophy. On one hand,
> > microformats embed semantic representations in HTML in a practical
but
> > rigorous way. On the other hand, in most (all?) microformats the
> > representation is visible in the browser. In the kind of
> representation
> > I'm imagining, the user won't actually see the actual MathML or TeX
> code
> > in the browser window.
> >
> > Thoughts? Is microformats the right place for this kind of thing?
> >
> > Paul Topping
> > Design Science, Inc.
> > www.dessci.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > microformats-new mailing list
> > microformats-new at microformats.org
> > http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-new
> >
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