MathML

Abhishek Reddy's picture

He has: 3,348 posts

Joined: Jul 2001

Anybody have any experience with it?

I'm reading up on it at W3C right now, but I don't quite get it. *gee, how time flies... it's 3.51am already* Sticking out tongue

How does it work? What kind of browser support does it need or have? Any useful links? Wink

Thanks. Smiling

Suzanne's picture

She has: 5,507 posts

Joined: Feb 2000

Absolutely no experience whatsoever. How's that? Wink

I'd assume (from reading) that it's related to folks who use the web for posting math issues and equations. Or who publish such things.

http://www.w3.org/Math/XSL/pmathml2.xml

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

How many sites do you do that need to include maths symbols & calculations like this??

Here is one article on it http://tech.irt.org/articles/js081

Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....

Abhishek Reddy's picture

He has: 3,348 posts

Joined: Jul 2001

Thanks for the link, Suzanne. Smiling

Looks like IE6 supports MML. O6 and NS6 don't show it right. Sad

I have some content on two subjects - math and chemistry (high school stuff) - that I'd like to make websites on, as a learning aid for students. Seems like MathML would be perfect for presenting the content. I won't have to make .gifs for each and every equation or expression. Smiling

If anyone else is interested, I thought of using PHP/GD, but writing an application for that could turn out to be bulky and it isn't portable. Sad

Edit: Thanks for posting that link too, Julia... something in simple English, at last... Smiling

They have: 447 posts

Joined: Oct 1999

a gd app is a good idea, although like you said it would take time. i have a (tiny) bit of spare time for a pet project and this sounds interesting. if you wouldnt mind, give me some specifics of what it needs to do (i havnt read the mathml docs yet, that may explain it all)

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Quote: Originally posted by The Webmistress
How many sites do you do that need to include maths symbols & calculations like this??

From a University - lots! A co-worker of mine developed a flash application to do math equations (mainly for assignment submission). I really have no idea how it works though. Math ML will be highly useful to the academic community when it becomes available. It will open up the web to areas of study that were previously unable to take advantage of it in its full form.

Abhishek Reddy's picture

He has: 3,348 posts

Joined: Jul 2001

ROB, thanks. Smiling

I've decided to go with MathML - IE6 supports it, and that's the browser used most widely at my school. If other institutions want to use my stuff, then they're welcome crawl out of their NS4 caves and get a worthwhile standards-compliant browser. I'm sure by the time I'm done with this, the next release of Mozilla will support MathML (or does the current support it already? I think I forgot). Wink

Anyway, the key here is portability. Teachers will want to view and print these docs from anywhere in school, at computers both on and off the network. Students too will want to look at these at ease from home computers, and not have to wait on a server and use internet time. A good deal of learning material will be lost if it wasn't easy to access.

Also, the more I read on MML, the more convinced I am that a GD app will be nowhere near as flexible as MML. I think it's worth the wait/upgrade for better support. Smiling

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