Talk:MathML

MathML to Java

Does anyone know if there's a suite out there that can read MathML into Java, so that one can use it to define equations that will be executed elsewhere? SMK —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.13.90.2 (talk) 03:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on one at the moment, which converts content mathml into the Jep package, which can then be evaluated in Java. Also see The W3C MathML software list. Email me if interested. --Salix alba (talk) 12:21, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed advertising

The 20:24, 12 November 2005 edit by 80.119.198.135 added a link to a program called EditX, claiming it to be a MathML editor. It's been left alone by all other editors since. However, it is not of particular importance with regard to MathML; it's merely a generic XML editor, of which there are dozens of others which are not mentioned on this page. Also, if you look at the user's other contributions, every single one is just adding a link to EditX on some XML-related pages. Clearly this is just shameless advertising, so I've removed the link, and similar ones on those other contributed pages, since I believe that 80.119.198.135 was just self-promoting. Crispy 12:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Shameless plug

There is currently a project underway to get MathML support into Wikipedia.

It's not as easy as it sounds, but then life wasn't meant to be easy.

Learn more at m:Blahtex.

Dmharvey Talk 21:03, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Bloated?

I don't think that it is fair that the only thing you tell in syntax is that it is bloated and start with LaTeX example. --Etu

Well no it isnt, however that is one of the things people talk about when they criticise/compliment the language, do add some other examples of how MathML is better than others or such. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 05:37, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)

I think it is totally fair. LaTeX and MathML are both trying to do the same, that is to convert standard mathematical notation into machine intepretable form. (La)TeX is pretty much the standard in this business, so when re-inventing the wheel all comparisons should be done against that. -- 212.213.204.99 22:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be mentioned that it is assumed an editor is used in creating a MathML document; unlike latex, it's not meant to be easy to code with just a text editor. (Although obviously, that's still possible, just a lot more work. ^_^ )--Starwed 20:12, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

That indeed was the assumption. However we can now say (in 2009) that it was a false assumption. Few editors exist. None exist that work well and are used by significant numbers of mathematicians. Conversion from LaTeX has turned out to be very difficult because of MATHML's limitations and the requirement that every symbol be assigned a type. The authors of MATHML failed to comprehend that it was vitally important for a mathematical scripting language to be humanly editable. Mathematicians, having become used to the speed and ease of typing mathematics directly in LaTeX, simply will not tolerate being required to pick and poke things out through a bunch of drop down menus in a clunky WYSIWYG. Using these kinds of editors for mathematics is extremely slow and very frustrating. The designers of MATHML made many false assumptions; that conversion from LaTeX would be easy; that editors would quickly become available; that XML was a good structure for the purpose; that human read-and-writability was unimportant; and that it was important to write a syntactic description (contentMATHML) rather than just a markup language. All these false assumptions have resulted in the horror that is MATHML today. Many mathematicians like myself have come to hate MATHML which we regard as a failed standard which destroyed our chance of having workable native mathematical markup on the web and which has poisoned discussion of mathematical markup ever since. My personal opinion is that we should scrap it and start over.Hawthorn (talk) 01:14, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

hmm if anyone gets this, i am interested in fixing up a very interesting idea whereby all steps to solving a mathematical problem are outputted in a format such as this mathml, with highlighting between steps to show changes/important points and explanations to go along with this. This unfortunately turns a one page question into 40, so I propose to allow for a method of being able to close specific steps like a tree structure.(this would also work to advantage if a problem could be solved two ways, let the user decide which way needs to be looked into). with the ability to close all of a specific operation in the solution, and the ability to allow it to come out again. it could also be paired with an open source problem generator, and solver. --MikeMike

I am sorry being so sceptic, but I think that idea is flawed by design. Some mathematical solving steps completely re-arrange (or should I say, rewrite) the MathML tree. Or perhaps I just misunderstood your intentions? -- 212.213.204.99 22:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Your idea is doable with existing technology, such as that available on WP. This talk page is probably not the ideal place to promote your idea, however, especially if you are looking for feedback on how to implement this. dr.ef.tymac 06:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

View in Mozilla

If you want to view how MathML works in Mozilla, you should add some XML syntax before the MathML code, and certainly you have to save it with the file extension ".xml".

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1 plus MathML 2.0//EN"
 "http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML2/dtd/xhtml-math11-f.dtd"
 [ <!ENTITY mathml "http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> ] >
<body>
<math xmlns="&mathml;">
<mrow>
  <mi>x</mi>
  <mo>=</mo>
  <mfrac>
    <mrow>
      <mrow>
        <mo>-</mo>
        <mi>b</mi>
      </mrow>
      <mo>±</mo>
      <msqrt>
        <mrow>
          <msup>
            <mi>b</mi>
            <mn>2</mn>
          </msup>
          <mo>-</mo>
          <mrow>
            <mn>4</mn>
            <mo>⁢</mo>
            <mi>a</mi>
            <mo>⁢</mo>
            <mi>c</mi>
          </mrow>
        </mrow>
      </msqrt>
    </mrow>
    <mrow>
      <mn>2</mn>
      <mo>⁢</mo>
      <mi>a</mi>
    </mrow>
  </mfrac>
</mrow>
</math>
</body>

If I visit the page http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/doku.php?id=rdoc:stats:quantile , mozilla firefox complains about missing MathML fonts. I would be happy if someone could include useful information on MathML fonts in this MathML page. --Gaborgulya 15:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

MathML in Wikipedia

What is the state of MathML in Wikipedia? Setting Preferences/Math to MathML seems to change nothing, the formulas are still displayed as images. --Hhielscher 18:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

agreed. Update anyone? Widefox 13:49, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

example at [1] Widefox 13:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Last I heard, there was no support for MathML in WP, the reason presumably being that the majority of users don't have a browser that supports it. Someone produced a plugin that would have supported it, but nobody working on Mediawiki was interested in accepting the plugin.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 13:58, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The other reason of course is that MATHML is not humanly editable. For a wiki it is vitally important that humans be able to easily edit the content. Hawthorn (talk) 01:19, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

IE7?

Is there any information about whether MS has any plans to include MathML support by default in any upcoming version of IE, such as IE 7.x?--24.52.254.62 02:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC) --From the blog post, there seems to be no support yet in IE7 but possible for future versions --Jutiphan 05:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Anonyous Contribution of 9/1/2007

Unfotunately, I misinterpreted the cookies in my browser, so my contribution was anonymous. MichaelKohlhase 13:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

WebEQ

Don't know if it's suitable for inclusion, but there is a Java piece of software called WebEQ which renders MathML in a browser and has a WYSIWYG editor that can write the MathML for you.

Mediawiki extension with MathML support

I know it is not about the article but can help who need it (like me): I've made a extension to mediawiki. Here is the link: ASCIIMathML4Wiki SSPecter ^☎|✉ ♠ _{01:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)}.

MathML and OpenMath

Hi Salix alba,
I think the example you provided for OpenMath is not quite up to date. Google tells me that it is from the "MathML Handbook", but in the meantime some things have changed. As far as I know, the official location of the Legendre polynomial is now .../cd/orthpoly1#legendreP, but actually I'd rather reuse an example from the MathML 2 specification, e.g. this one. Anyway, expect more changes soon. Content MathML and OpenMath will become fully compatible, just differing in syntax, with the upcoming versions 3. In any case, great that you help to strengthen the representation of OpenMath on Wikipedia! If you are interested in further details, feel free to subscribe to the OpenMath mailing lists:

• http://openmath.org/mailman/listinfo/om (general)
• http://openmath.org/mailman/listinfo/om3 (preparation of OpenMath 3)

BTW, what are you using OpenMath for? Cheers, Langec (talk) 01:16, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

OK fixed the link to point to orthpoly1#legendreP. I'm working on an Java equation parser Jep which now features MathML inport/export[2]. Allowing csymbol elements has come into that.--Salix (talk): 07:14, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

html 5

Html 5 allows inline mathml in non-xml (i.e., non-xhtml 5) documents. The article should be updated to describe this. Currently, the article describes mathml as a purely xml-based technology.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 14:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)