MultiMarkdown and MathML - new feature and request for help

[Fletcher T. Penney]

On Jun 10, 2006, at 7:18 PM, Michel Fortin wrote:


> Le 10 juin 2006 à 17:02, Fletcher T.Penney a écrit :

>

>> 	1) How can I create a valid document with a .html extension?  

>> (requiring .xhtml is going to break a bunch of other stuff)

>

> MathML (or any other XML language for that matter) is not  

> recognized when the browser parse the file with the HTML parser. So  

> for MathML to work, you need ".xhtml" or a "application/xhtml+xml"  

> MIME type. And yes, unfortunately, that can break other stuff.


Placing

		<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="application/xhtml+xml" />

in the .html file doesn't work (I had already tried...)  Is there  
another way around this, or must the extension be .xhtml?  Surely  
something as simple as a filename extension is not this important on  
the web in 2006...



>> 	2) How do I fix my xhtml2latex stylesheets (http:// 

>> fletcher.freeshell.org/wiki/Markdown_and_XML) to work with a file  

>> that has the xmlns attribute applied to the html node? (Or with  

>> whatever comes out of an answer to #1 above)

>

> Instead, try to answer this question: how to specify an XML  

> namespace from the stylesheet?


Ok, I'll bite...  So how does one do this?


>> 	3) Any suggestions on the markup syntax?  I sort of arbitrarily  

>> chose the use of an extra `.  I am sure there is a better way of  

>> doing this, and would love to hear input.

>

> Well, if you want to be sure Markdown doesn't change the content of  

> your expression, you could wrap it into a processing instruction tag:

>

>     <?ascii2math x_(1,2) = (-b+-sqrt(b^2-4ac))/(2a) ?>

>

> This is less pretty, but has less chance to break too. With your  

> syntax, what happens if you have some `<` in a formula? With the  

> one above, only `?>` would be problematic, but you shouldn't see  

> that too often in maths.


Definitely less pretty.  I have no desire to require something like  
"<?ascii2math ...  ?>".  This is clearly not what Gruber intended  
when he wrote, "without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or  
formatting instructions."  And this is exactly what I have tried to  
avoid with MultiMarkdown-specific markup.  I don't mind an  
unobtrusive quotation mark or two, but want to avoid things that look  
remotely like "programming"...

As for the "<" issue, I don't follow.  There is no use of "<" or ">"  
in my current ascii2math syntax, and those symbols work just fine.


Fletcher


-- 
Fletcher T. Penney
fletcher at alumni.duke.edu

I have noted that persons with bad judgment are most insistent that  
we do what they think best.
     - Lionel Abel