Presentations delivered at the 2010 Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco previewed MathML support in MathJax, discussed ideas for copy and paste support. The slides for the talk are available at the links below.
In MathJax: a JavaScript-based engine for including TeX and MathML in HTML, lead MathJax programmer Davide Cervone presented an overview of the current development status, and gave a preview of MathML support. The online slides include an “interactive lab” where one can enter TeX or MathML code into a text area, and see the typeset results. The lab also illustrates MathJax’s ability to convert from TeX to MathML, and allows one to interactively experiment with various configuration options. Note that the incomplete MathML support demonstrated in Cervone’s talk is not included in the beta 1 release of MathJax, though it is now available in the development source available from SourceForge.
In MathType, Math Markup, and the Goal of Cut and Paste, project coordinator Robert Miner prognosticated about larger trends on the use of the Web for scientific communication. The argument runs that as technologies such as MathJax enable more people to easily use the Web for math and science communication, the need for easy reusability through copy and paste will grow. By using “smart agents” such as Design Science’s MathType editor that understand many equation formats, copy and paste is already possible in many cases today. Achieving natural copy and paste for equations displayed by MathJax presents some technical challenges, but solving them will also have benefits for accessibility, and other programmatic processing of online content.
Both talks were presented in the MAA Session on Publishing Mathematics on the Web organized by Thomas Leathrum, Bill Hammond, and Kyle Siegrist.
Very nice set of slides! Thanks for posting.
I’m particularly interested in the rendering of MathML (and eager to know when it will be available for download) so it was good to see the demo in the slides.
One thing – I see that in HTML the MathML is wrapped in tags. For XHTML is it possible to avoid this, and use directly within the document tree?
(Looks like the website removed the tags I type. I mean to say the MathML is enclosed in SCRIPT tags and, for XHTML, I’d like the directly inside the document without the script tags.)
Basic MathML support will probably appear in svn within a few weeks, and we will rebuild another distribution shortly after. Initially, it will just contain rendering support for the core constructs. Finishing off the more obscure MathML features will likely take several months.
It is not yet entirely clear what will be possible with eliminating script tag delimiters from around the MathML. There is a significant difference with the LaTeX situation, in that built-in browser parsers will process the MathML as unknown tags in various browser-dependent ways, whereas by and large, the browser parser leaves LaTeX code alone. Thus, without script delimiters, it is a matter of determining whether a preprocessor can reconstruct enough of the original markup from what is left over after the browser parser is finished with it. I’m optimistic, but a precise statement will have to await detailed, per browser investigations.
On the subject of XHTML, it is worth remembering that MathJax is primarily targeting HTML, not XHTML. However, I guess I’d like to understand what is motivating the question better. I certainly understand generating de facto XHTML for publication using XML tools like XSLT. However, the motivation for server the result with the XHTML mime type is less clear, since past experience suggests that mostly just introduces complexity and compatibility problems. If the motivation is merely to take advantage of native browser MathML rendering for XHTML (i.e. in FF) the current thinking is that MathJax could arrange for the math to be rendered in XHTML iframes, or whatever it takes, even though the document is served as HTML.
If you have concrete ideas or proposals, we should start a general discussion on the MathJax open discussion forum.
Robert,
As to handling XHTML+MathML without enclosing in tags there are at least three issues:
1. Standards compliance: see
http://www.w3.org/Math/XSL/
2. Eliminating the need for content providers to serve dual content, i.e., fast xhtml for browsers with native support of mathml and mathjaxed html for other browsers.
3. Related to (1), the ability of content providers to run structural validators on their content.
But just to be clear: the slides are great and Mathjax is great!
— Bill
What’s the equivalent of MathJax for input?
@David
What do you mean exactly? MathJax accepts TeX and MathML as input, but it’s not a solution for writing either of those.
Are you looking for a TeX or MathML editor?