On Dec 2, 9:59 am, Peter Kasting <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 8:06 AM, PaulTopping <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > As far as I know, NPAPI requires that > > the amount of space the equation takes up on a page be known in > > advance, rather than be calculated at run-time to be dependent on the > > MathML content. There is no support for baseline alignment of the > > equation with the surrounding text. The rendering can't adapt to the > > font and point size of the surrounding text, an absoluter requirement > > for math. There is no connection to accessibility. > > It does indeed sound like you would be best served by direct renderer > support.
Yes, the point of my original post. > Authors are not > > > interested in writing separate MathML files. With a typical technical > > paper containing hundreds of equations, it very quickly becomes a > > nightmare. > > I suspect debate about the best form of markup for equations is beyond the > scope of this list (and more in-scope for HTML5 and similar lists). I think > Darin was merely trying to help you accomplish as much of your goal as > possible within the current landscape. Sure, and as I said, that is old territory. It was not my intent to come across as negative with respect to Darin's comments. Just that it was going in a direction that had not much to do with my original post and is stuff that has been hashed out for a decade. > MathML is not such a niche thing. > > OK. > > > The code to render both visually and > > aurally is available. It just needs the browser makers to support the > > right kind of glue (ie, plugin APIs). > > As far as I can tell, supporting plugin APIs at this low of a level is > required for _your business model_, not for any arbitrary MathML > implementation in principle. That's fine; I have no problem with you > wanting to write a closed-source plugin for MathML support. But given that > it doesn't overlap much with the needs of most of the other browser > features, fixes, and enhancements that users and authors call for, the > perceived benefits of such a plugin framework will be low. I suspect it > will not happen unless some of your engineers write patches to support it; > if the patches are viewed to provide more benefit than cost (in terms of > code complexity, maintenance, performance effect, etc.), the browser vendors > will take them. Actually, we give our MathPlayer plugin away for free, though I realize that this does not negate your point about our business model. However, I think the world would come up with other uses for a more capable plugin model. It was my hope that others would read this and think of problems it might solve. SVG support could be done this way, as I suggested. In general, I think it leads to a more modular approach to browser architecture. It would also provide more scope for 3rd party enhancement. As many have noted, the "build a platform and they will come" philosophy has a lot of power. IMHO, the lack of such a plugin mechanism is the reason why WebKit doesn't have MathML support. It seems like a small price to get it but that's just me. My company does not have the resources to make changes to the browsers. More importantly, the low-level support needed to make it happen requires a committment on the part of the insiders within the browser development community. My original posting was intended to garner that committment, or at least see it discussed. It appears to have failed. > For future reference, you may want to bring things up on the webkit-dev > mailing list, since that's more appropriate for discussion of the WebKit > rendering engine Chromium uses. That discussion was had a couple of years ago, as I mentioned. It seems that community has two choices: - Wait around for some open source team to implement MathML within WebKit. - Create a plugin mechanism powerful enough to enable both open and closed source developers to implement MathML support within WebKit. My intent was to present those choices and push for the latter. Paul > PK --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chromium-dev" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
