[coyotos-dev] OSDoc issue

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Thu, 2008-03-13 at 08:48 -0600, John B Halleck wrote:
> (Responding to Jonathan S. Shapiro's post)
> 
> > Since all of the mainstream browsers now support MathML (either
> directly or with free > plugins), what is the advantage of generating
> the image?
> 
>   It insures that ALL browers (not just the main ones) have SOMETHING
> that they
>   can display for it, MathML support or no.

I'm not convinced of that. Text browsers probably cannot display images.

More to the point, there is a limit to how much engineering effort I am
willing to put into browsers that are not tracking the newer standards.
The conversion process from MathML to PNG is a tricky business, and
there are a rich variety of ways it can go wrong. In the absence of a
widely used browser that really needs this support, I'm not convinced
that it is urgent given that people also have access to the PDF versions
of the same images.

There are two issues in my mind that may motivate supplying an image:

  1. Older browsers that may not have been upgraded. The problem there
     is that those browsers can't do XHTML either, which kinda renders
     the issue of supporting them moot.

  2. MOST Linux-based browsers still don't have all of the necessary
     font support, though it looks like the solution to that may only
     be a month or two away.

>   Unrelated to the current discussion, I see that migration as the right
> direction
>   philosophicly, if possibly problematic practicly.

Me too.


shap