[whatwg] Mathematics in HTML5

[Alexey Feldgendler]

On Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:21:50 +0700, James Graham <jg307 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>>> 2) Excellent typography.

>> Can you specify point 2?

> Not entirely because I am not sufficiently familiar with the details of  
> rendering mathematics. I will try to learn something so I can contribute  
> more.

Here is what I can add:

* perfectly kerned x/y style fractions (often poorly simulated in HTML as  
<sup>x</sup>/<sub>y</sub>)

* correct continuation of long fractions on the next line

* stacking of multiple over/underscripts

* stacking of multiple signs like tildes, arrows etc above variables

* stretching of tildes etc over complex expressions

* stretching of brackets and integrals around complex expressions

* matrices with cells of uniform size (as to accomodate for the largest  
expression found)

* nice embedding of inline formulae in paragraphs of text (without  
unnecessarily increasing line spacing)

>> So far people mentioned radicals and glyph shaping/kerning.

> Another obvious issue is stretchy characters like integral signs and  
> brackets. Is the CSS model poerful enough to allow for this? If not, the  
> mosel needs to improve.

TeX doesn't scale glyphs. It selects glyphs of different sizes, and for  
those that are larger than the larges glyphs available, it uses a pair of  
glyphs for the ends and fills the space between them with the third glyph  
(a line segment). But this approach is not possible in today's CSS, either.


-- 
Alexey Feldgendler <alexey at feldgendler.ru>
[ICQ: 115226275] http://feldgendler.livejournal.com