Subject: RE: Equation Editor. (fwd)
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sat Sep 02 2000 - 16:09:44 CDT
I though the everyone might interested in this exchange.
Cheers
Martin
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 09:20:11 -0700
From: Paul Topping <PaulT@mathtype.com>
To: 'Martin Sevior' <msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: RE: Equation Editor.
Hi Martin,
Sure, you can post it (and this for that matter).
We have no current plans to create an equation editor for Gnome and abiword.
Perhaps someday if it becomes apparent that there will be a substantial
desktop (as opposed to server) market for software. If we did create such a
product, it would probably not be GPL licensed. My interest in posting my
"embedded equation component manifesto" was almost purely technical. I would
like word processors on all platforms to do a good job of hosting equation
editors and other kinds of embedded objects well.
I think support for the kind of interfaces and capabilities I mentioned in
my "manifesto" would be a prerequisite for any involvement in Gnome and
abiword by me and my company. Unless I'm convinced that this platform can be
substantially better than Microsoft Windows/Office, I don't see any chance
of success. If the Gnome community's sole advantage in the marketplace is
that their software is free, it will fail IMHO.
Paul
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin Sevior [mailto:msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au]
> Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 6:06 PM
> To: Paul Topping
> Subject: RE: Equation Editor.
>
>
> HI Paul,
> Thanks for your resonse. Do you mind if I post your
> message to the
> general abiword mailing list?
>
> On another point, do you want your equation editor employed in GPL
> projects like gnome and abiword? How do you envision licensing it?
>
> Thanks very much,
>
> Martin
>
> On Fri, 1 Sep 2000, Paul Topping wrote:
>
> > Dear Martin,
> >
> > We have the ability to convert our equations to presentation MathML.
> > However, MathML is NOT our archive equation representation
> as it doesn't
> > represent everything our equation editor can do. When we
> save equations as
> > MathML, we also save our "real" data structures in a
> comment that goes along
> > with the MathML so we can read it back in later with no
> loss. Of course, if
> > someone else changes the MathML, it invalidates our data.
> >
> > The concept of an equation editor saving in MathML is a common and
> > understandable one, but I must ask you to rethink that
> decision (or perhaps
> > it is only a desire at this point) or at least understand
> its limitations.
> > MathML is intended largely to be an exchange format for
> math. It isn't
> > intended to represent everything that all math packages can
> do. To a large
> > extent, it really represents a lowest common denominator.
> Also, its math is
> > limited at the top to undergraduate college math. (This
> restriction affects
> > content MathML more than presentation MathML, but I thought it worth
> > mentioning.)
> >
> > I think the model that makes more sense is one in which an
> equation editor
> > archives its representation within the document using its
> own XML-based
> > language that completely represents its facilities.
> >
> > To perhaps belabor the point, imagine if you restricted
> Abiword's facilities
> > to those representable using a generic document DTD. This
> would be very
> > limiting, wouldn't it.
> >
> > Just some thoughts.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Martin Sevior [mailto:msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2000 4:58 PM
> > > To: PaulT@mathtype.com
> > > Subject: Equation Editor.
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear Paul,
> > > I've read with interest your ideas on equation editing. We in
> > > Abiword would love to get an equation editor on a par with Latex
> > > Formatting capabilities. We are just now laying the foundation for
> > > component embedding in Abiword. With luck we'll get the
> > > framework up and
> > > running in about 6 weeks.
> > >
> > > One requirement we have is that we want to store the equation
> > > description
> > > in MathML. Does your component support this?
> > >
> > > Looking forward to hearing from you.
> > >
> > > Martin Sevior
> > >
> > > Abiword Developer
> > >
> > > See http://www.abisource.com
> > >
> >
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Sat Sep 02 2000 - 16:12:57 CDT