[whatwg] Mathematics in HTML5

[juanrgonzaleza at canonicalscience.com]

"White Lynx" wrote:
>
> The difference between fractions and the rest of proposal is that markup
>  for fractions is the same across many DTDs and it is hard to imagine
> something different (only W3C can). Thus markup for fractions is more or
> less unique. In the rest of proposal uniqueness it is not so obvious,
> but basically it is still there.

I mean, once you cheaply implement the generic construct

<content-tag>
<tag1>aaaa</tag1>
<tag2>bbbb</tag2>
</content-tag>

for fractions in HTML5 as appears that all of us here achieve consensus
(including one from Mozilla Team) the implementation of the *same*
construct for sup-sub and under-over is trivial since only real changes
are on the stylesheet rules (e.g. no line for tag1 etc.), and could be
done if developers and authors agree. I would find it good.

I assume that authors agree. Therefore, now is matter for developers, they
have the last word.

Michel Fortin wrote:
> ... 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...

and even with so one tiny implementation, rendering could be improved
easily. For instance using a % vertical align rule firefox 1.0 is able to
render fractions also with denominators of arbitrary size including nested
fractions as that in the MathML test suite.

Henri Sivonen wrote:
>
> On Jun 20, 2006, at 15:26, <juanrgonzaleza at canonicalscience.com> wrote:
>
>> However, it look better that via native
>> MathML support browsers (without downloading and installing special
>> fonts).
>
> Comparing anything to a MathML implementation without giving the
> MathML impl the fonts it needs is totally bogus.

Then you are not reading this mailing list during last weeks since
rendering problems remain even using special fonts in Mozilla.

>> Whereas George approach will work for any font you desire you
>
> It doesn't "work". The result is ugly! We are supposed to marvel the
> clothes, but the emperor is naked.

No. Many people is displaying math without MathML and find it *nice*. Ugly
is a subjective word. Moreover, wait a few days until I can update
canonical science today and participate in the game. If CSS approach looks
so ugly you would be able to differentiate formulas constructed via CSS
and via MathML, no?

>> Developers prefer another couple of CSS rules rather than begin   from
>> zero
>> with a unfriendly spec (MathML).
>
> Developers? Gecko is already well past zero with MathML.

A Mozilla guy has expressed interest in this approach. Developers from
MSIE and Opera may prefer (I suspect) “another couple of CSS rules rather
than begin from zero with a unfriendly spec (MathML)”.

>> specially in next Tim Bray semantic web,
>
> I think you confuse Tim Bray and Tim B-L.

Yes I did, even if Tim Bray is also evagelizing about RDF and all that stuff.


P.S: XSL-FO  ;-)

Juan R.

Center for CANONICAL |SCIENCE)