[whatwg] Vulgar fractions

[Ian Hickson]

On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Øistein E. Andersen wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> > Since HTML5 supports MathML natively now, it seems that MathML is the 
> > solution to use here.
> 
> There does not seem to be any real support for vulgar fractions in 
> MathML (neither as specified nor as currently implemented).  I agree 
> that adding such support to MathML might make more sense than adding 
> another way of encoding fractions to HTML proper, though, — *if* mark-up 
> is needed — despite limited use of vulgar fractions in mathematics.

On Wed, 3 Jun 2009, Jonas Sicking wrote:
> 
> Actually, it seems to me that the best solution is for browsers to 
> support the unicode fraction slash [U+2044], unless that has too bad 
> performance problems.
> 
> Øistein: Have you talked to any browser vendor to see if there's a 
> reason they don't support this yet? At least firefox supports ligatures 
> these days which is somewhat similar.
> 
> But ultimately I agree, since we support MathML, it seems like a 
> solution should live there if a markup solution is needed.

On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Øistein E. Andersen wrote:
> 
> I have not approached any browser makers yet, and I am not aware of any 
> good reason for not supporting the fraction slash. Now, you are 
> obviously aware of the issue and presumably in a situation to follow it 
> up. Let me know if there is anything I can do to make it more likely for 
> this feature to be considered for addition to Firefox (apart from 
> actually implementing it myself).

Based on the above, I've not added anything to HTML5. I recommend 
following up on this with browser vendors, the Unicode consortium, or the 
MathML working group, as appopriate.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'