WebMath: A question - and request for recommendation.

[Robby at orst.edu]

The following software can be easily used to author MathML:

* MathType 4.0 (PC. Check for the Mac)
* Mathematica 4.0
* TechExplorer (PC, Mac not out)

The way it works with MathType is that you construct an equation, turn on
one of several MathML translators customized for various software that
displays MathML, copy the equation, and paste it into an ASCII (or UNICODE)
document, e.g an HTML file or a notepad document.

Mathematica 4.0 has a SAVE AS HTML/MATHML option.  This produces an HTML
file which contains the MathML for the notebook.

TechExplorer (Professional version only) has a very nice LaTeX to MathML
translator in the documentation pages! It runs a Java applet that only will
run under Netscape.

As for your second question . . .

A client can display MathML in a browser using a plug-in like WebEQ or
TechExplorer.  Native support for MathML (presentation tags only) is
contained in binaries of Mozilla, the open source project for the Netscape
code.  I have not tried these and have had two conflicting reports as to
whether the support is now being included in the daily builds or whether it
is necessary to manually compile the source code.  Clearly, this is not yet
ready for prime time.  IE5, on the other hand, does contain the needed XML
support but is not yet able to display MathML without a plug-in.  However,
this is different than using a plug-in like TechExplorer to display the
entire page.  The MathML is being parsed and the plug-in is being used just
to render it as an embedded part of the page. Math displayed in this fashion
will, for example, re-size and change position when the fonts are changed or
the browser window re-sized. There is reasonable hope that Microsoft will
include native support in the near future. There are other browsers that do
have native support, but you would not expect your students to install them
on their machines so can be ruled out as irrelevant for practical pedagogic
purposes.

The best recommendations I can give for software that renders mathematics
simply are the ones above (MathType and TechExplorer if you know LaTeX) plus
MathView which has now changed its name to livemath (www.livemath.com).
Livemath is still a little buggy but I know some people that are really
impressed with it for simple stuff, and it will display correctly in a
student's browser if they download a free plug-in.

My own recommendation for the next short period of time is to use MathType
to create gifs (which can be sort of mass-produced using the wildcard naming
feature) and go to the extra trouble of creating an ASCII file with the
corresponding MathML code for future updating.  I would be VERY interested
to hear what others had to say, however, since there are certainly products
with which I have only minimal familiarity and which might be very good.  

For more advanced stuff, I would just write it in LaTeX and go from there.


 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Robin Susanto [mailto:susanto at langara.bc.ca] 
Sent:	Monday, November 08, 1999 3:38 PM
To:	webmath at camel.math.ca
Subject:	WebMath: A question - and request for recommendation.

First the question:

When I author a MATHML document using a particular software, does my
'reader'
need the same software in order to read it, or can he use any software that
supports Mathml? Or, can he use an ordinary browser, such as NetScape of
Internet Explorer?

And secondly, I wonder if anybody can recommend a Mathml authoring/editing
software for me. I am planning to construct fairly simple mathematical
expressions (mostly formulas for first and second year Statistics). And at
this
point in time I am not thinking of any bells and whistles. I have checked
several vendor sites, and I have looked at their impressive samples. But I
wonder if anybody could tell me: "I have used this and I like it." 

Thanks . . .
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