Re: fences (variable size math symbols)

Subject: Re: fences (variable size math symbols)
From: David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 18:20:24 +0100
>  Meaning you can have as many
> nested levels as you need.

I'll think about this again but I currently don't see how nesting
provides the right information.

If I have an mrow element that contains three characters that all have
the stretch attribute set to true, I need to stretch them all by the
same amount. This is not the same as arbitrarily taking the
subexpression containing the first two, making a fence object out of
that, and then nesting that object in a fence object that wraps up the
rest of the expression. In particular this latter algorithm would make
the last fence larger if (as is often the case) the fences are being
made slightly larger than the surrounding text. However it would
probably do as a first attempt. Assuming that the effect on line
breaking (if any) of nesting fence objects is not too detrimental.

> You the user shouldn't need to do any "typesetting"; you
> need only direct the flow of content into ports/areas, as it were.

Yes I have to tell myself that every thirty seconds or so when using
dsssl:-) Coming from an expressive typesetting language like latex,
using a style language which has no access to the typeset object is
rather a shock. Like working with both hands tied behind your back!

> That half of MathML explicitly encodes such formatting intentions may be
> disregarded from the perspective of the DSSSL sheet.

Now this I don't understand at all. If I want to write a dsssl spec so
that any system that supports the dsssl math objects can typeset mathml
then surely this is _exactly_ the half of mathml that I need to worry
about. The content part of mathml I was planning to support by
transforming to the presentation part of mathml. (This mapping is more
or less fixed in the mathml recomendation.)

> 	Your larger question was whether dsssl math flow objects are
> sufficient to support MathML.  I think the answer is probably yes, but
> the mapping is indirect.  Of course until somebody actually implements
> such support this is purely speculative.

Which strange enough is what I am trying to do at present:-)

David


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  • fences (variable size math symbols)
    • David Carlisle - from mail1.ability.netby web4-1.ability.net (8.8.5/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA19115Mon, 8 Jun 1998 11:02:46 -0400 (EDT)
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