[Om-announce] New MathML working drafts

David Carlisle davidc at nag.co.uk
Wed May 2 12:37:09 CEST 2007


Announcement as posted to the www-math at w3.org list

David




================


The W3C Math WG is pleased to be able to point to the publication
by the W3C of its initial First Public Working Drafts.  They are

Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML3/

A MathML for CSS  Profile
http://www.w3.org/TR/mathml-for-css/

The Abstract and Status sections of the drafts are reproduced below.
These documents are very much at the FPWD stage.  The Math WG hopes to
be able to publish refinements of them in line with the W3C heart- 
beat process
requirements.  There is a description of some considerations underlying
this work in the W3C Math WG's public Roadmap.

Feedback should be sent to this W3C Public Math Mailing List.



        Patrick and Robert  (W3C Math WG co-chairs)


==========
MathML 3.0

Abstract

This specification defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or  
MathML. MathML is an XML application for describing mathematical  
notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of  
MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed  
on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality  
for text.

This specification of the markup language MathML is intended  
primarily for a readership consisting of those who will be developing  
or implementing renderers or editors using it, or software that will  
communicate using MathML as a protocol for input or output. It is not  
a User's Guide but rather a reference document.

MathML can be used to encode both mathematical notation and  
mathematical content. About thirty-five of the MathML tags describe  
abstract notational structures, while another about one hundred and  
seventy provide a way of unambiguously specifying the intended  
meaning of an expression. Additional chapters discuss how the MathML  
content and presentation elements interact, and how MathML renderers  
might be implemented and should interact with browsers. Finally, this  
document addresses the issue of special characters used for  
mathematics, their handling in MathML, their presence in Unicode, and  
their relation to fonts.

While MathML is human-readable, in all but the simplest cases,  
authors use equation editors, conversion programs, and other  
specialized software tools to generate MathML. Several versions of  
such MathML tools exist, and more, both freely available software and  
commercial products, are under development.

Status of this Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its  
publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of  
current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical  
report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http:// 
www.w3.org/TR/.

This document is a W3C First Public Working Draft produced by the W3C  
Math Working Group as part of the W3C Math Activity. The goals of the  
W3C Math Working Group are discussed in the W3C Math WG Charter  
(revised July 2006). A list of participants in the W3C Math Working  
Group is available.

This First Public Working Draft must be viewed as a work in progress,  
and not yet suitable for reference. It specifies a new version of the  
the Mathematical Markup Language, MathML 3.0 [mathml] which is at  
present under active development. The Math WG hopes this outline  
draft will permit informed feedback on this most important part of  
its work. There is a description of some considerations underlying  
this work in the W3C Math WG's public Roadmap [roadmap]. Feedback  
should be sent to the Public W3C Math mailing list .

The MathML 2.0 (Second Edition) specification has been a W3C  
Recommendation since 2001. During the period since its  
recommendation, a W3C Math Interest Group collected the experience  
with the deployment of MathML and identified issues with MathML that  
might be ameliorated. The rechartering af a Math Working Group allows  
the revision to MathML 3.0 in the light of that experience, of other  
comments on the markup language, and of recent changes in  
specifications of the W3C and in the technological context. MathML  
3.0 does not signal any change in the overall design of MathML.  
However, the specification document will be almost completely  
rewritten to provide a coherent whole containing corrections to all  
the known errata and clarifications of issues that proved problematic  
and additions made. Throughout pains are being taken to distinguish  
the normative and non-normative aspects.

Public discussion of MathML and issues of support through the W3C for  
mathematics on the Web takes place on the public mailing list of the  
Math Working Group (list archives). To subscribe send an email to www- 
math-request at w3.org with the word subscribe in the subject line.

Please report errors in this document to www-math at w3.org.

Patent disclosures relevant to this specification may be found on the  
Math Working Group's patent disclosure page.

The basic structure of this document is the same as that of the  
earlier MathML 2.0 Recommendation [MathML2]. MathML 2.0 itself was a  
revision of the earlier W3C Recommendation MathML 1.01 [MathML1];  
MathML 3.0 itself is a revision of the W3C Recommendation MathML 2.0.  
It differs from it in that all chapters will have been updated, some  
new elements and attributes are being added and some have been  
deprecated.

Chapters 1 and 2, which are introductory material, have yet to be  
revised to reflect the changes elsewhere in the document, and in the  
rapidly evolving Web environment.
Chapters 3, on presentation-oriented markup, is being extended to  
describe new functionalities added as well as smaller improvements of  
material already proposed. As a result of concerns for support of  
high-quality typesetting and for the relationship with CSS the  
element mpadded has been revised, and the maction remains under  
discussion for possible deprecation. As a result of earlier work, as  
recorded in the W3C Note Arabic mathematical notation, the  
relationship with bidirectional text is being clarified. In addition,  
some adjustments that have proven necessary for easy markup of  
elementary school mathematics have been made.
Chapters 4, on content-oriented markup, has been completely  
regenerated. The actual content is unchanged in essence, except for a  
number of elements the addition of which seemed natural, such as some  
for use in statistics. The text of this chapter is now generated by  
filtered extraction from XML content dictionaries written in  
accordance with OpenMath. The advantages of this method include a  
level of consistency in interpretation that the previous version  
perhaps did not achieve, automatic generation of some useful and  
informative tabulations, and a guarantee of alignment with the basic  
part of OpenMath that the community will appreciate.
Chapter 5 will be newly written to reflect changes in the technology  
available. Chapter 6 has been rewritten and reorganized to reflect  
the new situation in regard to Unicode. It is expected that some new  
ancillary tables will be provided that reflect requests the WG has  
received. Chapter 7 needs revision yet again since Web technology has  
changed again.
Chapter 8 on the DOM and the associated appendices D and E for  
detailed listings will be revised further as proves necessary. For  
instance, the DTD is already implicated as a result of the profile  
MathML for CSS that the WG is preparing; that is also a new FPWD.
<<<



======

MathML for CSS


Abstract

This document describes a profile of MathML 3.0 designed for ease of  
formatting with Cascading Style Sheets.

Status of this Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its  
publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of  
current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical  
report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http:// 
www.w3.org/TR/.

This document is a W3C First Public Working Draft produced by the W3C  
Math Working Group as part of W3C Math Activity. The goals of the W3C  
Math Working Group are discussed in the W3C Math WG Charter. The  
authors of this document are the W3C Math Working Group members.

This First Public Working Draft must be viewed as a work in progress,  
and not yet suitable for reference. It specifies a profile of a  
specification, MathML 3.0, which is itself under development, and is  
intended to accord with CSS 3, which is also under active  
development. The Math WG hopes this outline draft will permit  
informed feedback on this part of its work, although only a few of  
the elements show a full discussion of their special properties in  
connection with CSS. There is also a short description of some  
considerations underlying this work in the W3C Math WG's public  
Roadmap. Feedback should be sent to the Public W3C Math mailing list .

<<<







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