Enabling Support for MathML in Chrome | Hacker News Reader

Enabling Support for MathML in Chrome

bugs.chromium.org

30 pointspera16 comments

The chromium bug ticketing system is all but unreadable to me. The OP ticket itself is closed and links to another instead, is there recent movement of note?

I know igalia[0] was working on this but I haven't been following the bug trackers directly. Their site and news section gives a better sense of the progress and includes small demonstrations with many of their updates.

0: https://mathml.igalia.com/

The linked ticket has some activity from the fall of 2020, but hard to say what the overall status is.

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=6606

Is there a need for browser-level support for math formulas anymore? https://www.mathjax.org/ is a good support library if you want math in your webpage and don't want to resort to images. I've used it with https://casual-effects.com/markdeep/features.md.html#embedde... and haven't had any issues.

There's absolutely a need for some rendering of formulas that doesn't need JavaScript.

Formulas don't have anything that would require Turing-completeness to display.

Wait until you hear about font shaping.

Chromium already handles that. There is no need to rewrite Freetype in JS and require websites, which display text, to ship a freetype.js. But this is what happens for maths in Chromium.

No need to turn simple documents containing some formulas into applications.

MathJax uses MathML. :-/

It has a MathML fallback, but does not require MathML.

Here's a useful discussion about MathML support in KaTeX (an alternative to MathJax) and it's importance for accessibility- https://github.com/KaTeX/KaTeX/issues/593

I believe the parent means that MathJax uses MathML internally:

> MathJax uses MathML as the basis for its internal format for mathematical expressions, so MathML support is built into MathJax at a fundamental level.

https://docs.mathjax.org/en/latest/output/mathml.html

I seems a requirement for accessibility.

Wow, I just checked out this discussion! The links and references are wonderful!

I am definitely going to become a developer for KaTeX now! :-)

You also gave me a lot more solid information to step up my game as an electrical engineering student who uses braille.

You are a real MVP! :)

It can use MathML, as an input or output format, but it's certainly not limited to it for either.

Pretty much all uses of MathJax use it with LaTeX input and HTML-CSS output, no MathML involved.

Perhaps I should share how I take my electrical engineering notes, which are extremely math heavy. It probably is interesting.

MathML is effectively the accessibility standard for people who have print-related disabilities (which I have), not LaTeX. There really is no way around it. One way or another, I basically do everything in MathML.

MathJax in academic courses, in terms of accessibility, is the way to go. Here is an awesome reference: Preparing Accessible Math Documents using MathJax v3 https://progressiveaccess.com/ahg19/ahg19.pdf

But MathJax is clunky and requires an internet connection. It just is not sleek or nice to use.

There are some pretty good scripts which back-translate LaTeX into MathML. Likewise, there are scripts that back-translate MathML into LaTeX.

You may find this interesting: For my graduate electrical engineering coursework, I take all of my notes using a braille notetaker (8 key input where each braille cell is created by combinations of these keys known as chords) connected to my laptop running a screenreader known as JAWS.

I take all of my notes in Lambda braille code, which gets back-translated to MathML on my computer. It is an extremely efficient way of taking notes and doing coursework. My peers are actually jealous of my ability to create such amazing notes. I have the best cheat sheets for exams: everyone wants a copy of mine.

Sometimes using OCR can be useful: Rarely I like to take notes with a pencil and paper (I can see perfectly fine but I have a print-related disability). Sometimes I like to take screenshots of math online. Sometimes I want a whole page of math equations from a textbook.

For this, I use MathPix (MathML, LaTeX, and several other outputs): https://mathpix.com/

There is also InftyReader, which does the same (but no handwriting recognition!), and is not nearly as user-friendly, or updated, for that matter (MathML, LaTeX, and several other outputs): https://www.inftyreader.org/

Perhaps some people here might be interested in speech-to-text rendering of math in LaTeX, which I do not use. You may want to check out this fascinating post: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/145367/how-can-i-use...

There is some program called MathTalk which does this, in conjunction with Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional: https://mathtalk.com/mathtalk-products/

But, apparently, there is a better, more updated, open source package, utilizing Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional, which does speech-to-text LaTeX called Mathfly: https://mathfly.org/

The speech aspect could be useful for learning, in terms of reinforcement, especially with the braille keyboard rendered MathML notes. It could be used for Anki flashcards (spaced repetition), or audio notes apps such as Audio Notetaker or Glean (see: https://sonocent.com/).

Why does mathjax require an internet connection? It's simply a js file or am I missing something?

In order to use MathJax offline, you need to have a local version of MathJax installed on your Windows/MacOS/Linux operating system. Instructions are described here: http://docs.mathjax.org/en/latest/web/hosting.html#web-hosti...

MathJax on an offline mobile device is going to be an issue, unless the device is rooted, jailbroken, or something like that.

The best option for most users, rendering math heavy syntax that needs to be displayed in a human-readable form, is to use a standalone LaTeX system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_TeX_editors

I wouldn't call shipping a few hunderd kilobytes js file with your html file "installing". I don't know about iOS but android should handle a local html file fine.

Installing LaTeX is MUCH much more work then passing a small JS file.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com