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

[Paul Topping]

What you suggest is close to what I'm looking for but lacks declaration
of the kind of data the image/linked data bundle represents. Software
working with the page would have to fetch the linked-to MathML or TeX
and examine it to know it was an equation. As I understand it, what a
microformat does is more than just hold the data, it declares a
datatype. 

Also, I want to put the MathML or TeX in the page, not in separate
documents. Typical pages with math in them might have dozens of
equations. Having their representation in separate files is inefficient
but perhaps the biggest problem is that it makes authoring a lot more
tedious as lots of small files have to be managed. 

Paul Topping
Design Science, Inc.
www.dessci.com
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: microformats-new-bounces at microformats.org [mailto:microformats-
> new-bounces at microformats.org] On Behalf Of Christopher St John
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 7:34 AM
> To: For discussion of new microformats.
> Subject: Re: [uf-new] an equation/MathML/TeX microformat?
> 
> On 10/26/07, Paul Topping <pault at dessci.com> wrote:
> > 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.
> >
> 
> To restate the hopefully obvious, just in case:
> 
> You just want to say "this png image of an equation you're looking at
> is associated with the (MathML | TeX | Etc) ( at the end of this link
|
> embedded
> here in the document)"
> 
> How would you do it now, without microformats? Something along the
> lines of:
> 
>  <a href="some_mathml.xml"><img src="some_math.png"></a>
> 
> with maybe a "class" or "rel" or something in there to tie them
together
> a bit tighter?
> 
> Would "the rendering fallback for this MathML is this png image" get
you
> the same effect? In which case you're maybe looking at the standard
> <object> tag mechanism, but that gets you some (hopefully fading)
> issues on certain browsers. But do the semantics of <object> fallbacks
> match what you want to do?
> 
> Have you read through the existing microformats in detail checking to
> see how similiar sorts of problems have been solved before? Not sure
if
> there's anything exactly applicable, but it's probably worth a shot.
> 
> -cks
> 
> --
> Christopher St. John
> http://artofsystems.blogspot.com
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