[whatwg] Mathematics in HTML5

[Michel Fortin]

Le 20 juin 2006 à 3:40, White Lynx a écrit :

> Yes. The same markup is used in ISO 12083, AAP Math DTD and most of  
> other DTDs
> that I have seen, modulo naming conventions this markup is:
> <fraction>
> <num>numerator</num>
> <den>numerator</den>
> </fraction>

That was what I had in mind. I used to prefer <frac> over <fraction>,  
but I'm not sure anymore, both would work with me.


>> I believe fractions can also be somewhat useful outside the realm of
>> mathematical formulas. And a fraction construct would encourage  
>> implementors to fix their inline-block and vertical alignment CSS  
>> bugs, opening the door to more CSS-based mathematical markup in  
>> the future.
>
> Very well. So at least add ISO 12083 fractions construction to HTML,
> it works in MSIE 6, Opera 9, Prince 5
> 	http://www.geocities.com/chavchan/frac/fractions.xml
>
> With one small bug fix it will work in Safari and PDFReactor, with  
> more complex but still one bug fix it will work in Mozilla too  
> (Gecko bug is expected to be fixed in near future). Fractions work  
> in XSL FO too, for instance Antenna XSL Formatter 4 can handle them  
> using fo:inline-container.

... and, by using custom stylesheets for these browsers, it can also  
work reasonably well in current versions of Gecko and Safari, both  
with unperfect but not-too-bad vertical alignement. The whole  
fraction would be vertically centered instead of having its bar  
aligned relative to the text baseline, which would give mostly the  
same result unless the numerator and the denominator have different  
heights. The only issue is how to feed them with a separate  
stylesheet...


Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://www.michelf.com/