WebMath: Fwd: MathML and Open EBook (OEB)? OEB style language adequate?

[June Lester]

Of possible interest to math publishers et al.  From the Mozilla list.
Haven't looked at it yet, so can't comment.

June


>
>Hello,
>
>There is interest in using MathML in "extended OEB" documents.  OEB is a
>recently released, XML-conforming open e-book formatting specification.  OEB
>is shorthand for, you guessed it, "Open EBook".  Details on OEB, and links to
>download version 1.0 of spec, can be found at http://www.openebook.org .   If
>you have difficulty in accessing that site (there are some network problems
>currently being fixed), contact me privately and I'll happily e-mail to you
>the Word version of the spec.
>
>Some definitions:
>
>"Basic OEB" uses a default DTD that is essentially a slightly reduced subset
>of HTML 4.0.
>
>"Extended OEB" allows extensions to the default element set, or to use an
>entirely new DTD, so long as the elements used are mentioned in the supplied
>OEB-conforming CSS style sheet.  Thus, MathML can be used in extended OEB
>documents, at least from the element side of the house.
>
>OEB-conformant "browsers/readers" of high typographical capability are now
>being considered to render both basic and extended OEB documents.  (Microsoft
>is supposedly building their e-book Reader to be fully OEB-conformant, but of
>this I am not certain.)
>
>Regarding MathML, the specific question has been asked if the basic OEB CSS
>style language is adequate to properly render MathML expressions on
>OEB-conforming readers.
>
>Here's general information on the OEB CSS style language, taken from section
>1.4.4 of the spec:
>
>     "This specification defines a style language based on CSS 1 and CSS 2,
>     with a media type of "text/x-oeb1-css".  The OEB Authoring Group is aware
>     that this definition of a media type goes against the recommendation of
>     the CSS Working Group (see http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1), but has
>     chosen to do so due to practical considerations.
>
>     "The CSS-based stylesheet constructs in this specification have been
>     included to define baseline rendering functionality.  To minimize the
>     burden on reading system developers and device manufacturers, not all
>     CSS 1 or CSS 2 properties are included.  A few additional properties and
>     values have been added for supporting page layout, headers, and footers."
>
>Chapter 4 of the spec fully details the OEB CSS style language.
>
>
>So, to restate the question, is the current OEB style language adequate to
>properly render MathML expressions on OEB-conformant browsers/readers?  Or is
>it missing some essential properties, and if so, what could it use?  If the
>OEB CSS style language is adequate, how difficult would it be to build style
>sheets for using MathML?
>
>I guess the answer requires someone with experience in building style sheets
>for MathML to look over the OEB CSS style language (Chapter 4 of the spec.)
>
>Thanks in advance for your help!
>
>Jon Noring
>Exemplary Technologies
>
>--
>_________________________________________________________________
>Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana  ***  Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nefzaoui
>        http://www.exemplary.net/publishing/index.html
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
WebMath at mail.math.ca - WebMath Mailing List
To unsubscribe:
via Web:     http://camel.math.ca/cgi-bin/wcms/webmath.pl
via e-mail:  send message a to majordomo at mail.math.ca with
"unsubscribe webmath" in the BODY of message
List Archives: http://camel.math.ca/mail/webmath/
-----------------------------------------------------------------