Meeting minutes
<ivan> Date: 2021-01-15
<ivan> guest+ bert
<ivan> guest+ Neil_Soiffer
<ivan> guest+ Bruce_Miller
<ivan> guest+David_Farmer
<ivan> guest+ David_Farmer
<ivan> guest+ Steve_Noble
<ivan> guest+ Sam_Dooley
<ivan> Guest+ Deyan_Ginev
MathML CG
dauwhe: We have a last minute change to the agenda
… members of the soon to be MathML WG visiting today
… their charter is being written and reviewed
… we thought this would be a good time to meet with the EPUBWG and share information on the scope and nature of the work
… there's many publishers that use MathML
… and math conventions
… it makes sense to share information on our use cases
… I am very excited by this new energy around math
NeilS: Two main prongs to the charter
<dauwhe> https://
<ivan> guest+ Brian_Kardell
NeilS: MathML Core: Igalia is leading this work
… getting MathML into browsers
… integrate with the existing tech stack
… we are running into the constraints of the browsers
… other prong is to improve accessibility, search, and computability
… allowing author intent
… disabiguate what something means
… if you had vertical bars around content, it could be an absolute value, or something else
… screenreaders can guess, but its a guess
… we want to allow authors to clarify that meaning
… that's the high level overview
… open to questions
Brian: Just wanted to correct one thing, the current and near-future of browsers are the target of MathML Core level 1
… as things grow and change, we can grow with them
Bill_Kasdorf: Thanks for joining, do you want to make any comments on backwards compatiblity
NeilS: There are things that aren't in Core
… there is a level 2 planned
… we want to get something out now instead of waiting
… there are polyfills for the differences
… there's a few things in MathML that are obscure and never implemented
… many of the polyfills are deprecated
… many things still work, but some javascript may be required
… the idea of core is that the stuff people use will be supported
… fractions, square roots, etc
… line breaking is in level 2
… mfenced is going away to be replaced by a polyfill
… if you're willing to use those, it will be the same
… for Core, it covers about 95-98% of what you want
Brian: We based a lot of this on what MathML is in use in the market
NeilS: Bevelled fractions, for example, I thought it was common, but in the research we found it's rarely used
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to ask about LaTeX
tzviya: I have a few questions
… first about authoring
… are the workflows maintainable?
NeilS: David Farmer is on the call, he works on PreText
DavidF: The Math in PreText, designed to convert to any output, PDF, HTML, EPUB, braille
… the way we do HTML is to use pretext?? and then add mathjax
… we are working on an easier way for authors to write content
… many textbooks in math
… learning latex is a hurdle, we want to make it simpler
… for accessibility we want to simplify
tzviya: I don't want a new tool
… if an author wants to write in LaTeX, they will
… what would be helpful for me (Wiley Scholarly), is to talk to us directly
… how to incorporate into the tool chain
Brian: The goal is not to lose author information
… flow from author, to latex, to the screenreader
… if the author has some intent, let them express it
DavidF: It's still Latex, but we're considering the steps between
NeilS: Please get in touch
Brian: In terms of existing tool chains, things should work as before if not better
ivan: Two questions
… one: in terms of the standard and implementation, are you keeping the content markup and presentation markup?
NeilS: We have no intention of doing anything to content
… presentation and content MathML will continue to exist
… dealing with author intent, incorporates all of content MathML
… threads the content tree
… that may at some point replace content MathML, for now we are keeping it
ivan: Other question is practical
… can you speak to the timeline?
… when do you plan to publish the new recommendations, and implementation?
… this WG relies on what you do, as do the reading systems
… they would love to incorporate core
NeilS: Going from memory, roughly Core will be out first
… mostly already written, another year or so to release
… CR in 6 months
… we've been exploring other ideas, and the publication schedule is closer to the end of the charter
… math player accessibility, working on the replacement for that now
… developing as we finalize intent
… NVDA will pick up all of that
… as will ORCA, possibly JAWS, I have asked
… Apple is a mystery
NeilS: Also spoke to the mathjax folks, the core work doesn't replace their work, but it might result in a new backend renderer, faster
… likely won't switch until browsers are implemented
ivan: What can this group do to help?
… help with testing, review, support?
NeilS: I don't think there's anything before going to charter, aside from sign off
… but as we get into development, comments on publisher needs
… trying things out once implementations are out there
ivan: Is EPUB WG listed as a liaison?
NeilS: You're listed
dauwhe: We're doing it already!
… A lot of people who use EPUB are educational publishers at all levels
… is there a lot of support for pedagogical notation?
… I mostly work on novels
… just wondering about the teaching additions
Brian: There's a lot of different textbooks
… there's not elementary math
dauwhe: Long division with things crossed out to show places and things
NeilS: That was in MathML 3, but there's no browser supports, it might change if there's need
Brian: The thing with that is finding someone to express the priority and achieve them
NeilS: Fund them
dauwhe: If you want stuff in MathML, Brian can make them happen, with some help
<ivan> guest+ Murray_Sargent
Brian: It can be difficult to know what is important without people asking for them
… standards is a small group of people doing the work and owning it forever,
… from a practical standpoint, we need to know what is important
… given the parameters we have now
George: At EPUBTest we have a math sample book
… we are reporting results
… support by reading systems and screenreaders
… visual presentation and AT support
<dauwhe> http://
George: I can't wait to see the changes as it's better supported by Chrome
… we still have chem on the web in publishing group happening
… great to see the semantics of chemistry included
… great work!
tzviya: In terms of elementary math vs other math
… this group doesn't have elementary (primary) mathematics
… I could help get samples from Cengage, McGraw-Hill
… I have samples ranging from college to nobel prize winners
… we can give you the samples, I know you have done research, but we can provide even more
… we have a large community
NeilS: Please support the charter!
dauwhe: If you're an AC rep, or ask your nicely
… bake them cookies
Bill_Kasdorf: Quick, if you want elementary math, I can get the people from the conversion/pre-press houses
… some are now members
NeilS: There's a polyfill for it, so I'd love testers
dauwhe: We're here and we're happy to help
Testing
dauwhe: Do we have any new members?
… moving on to the regular agenda
… I wanted to talk about testing again
… we had hoped for a testing champion
… in the short term it is me
… I have a strange fascination with writing tests for EPUB
… I have started
… I am not sure if these will be used as CR exit criteria
… but we can use them to learn about the spec
… and make it better
… I have been going through the RS spec and writing tests
… working on a script felt premature
<dauwhe> https://
dauwhe: EPUB is weird and there's a lot of interaction
… this is in a fork of the testing repo
<dauwhe> https://
dauwhe: extracting normative statements from the spec
… write a test for it
… and add it to the list
… I've been running into some interesting issues that I wanted to discuss
… one thing that this has done has reminded me how much of the spec has not been implemeneted
… biggest example is manifest fallbacks
… at least among the commerical/trade oriented RSs
… very little support
… not supported in Thorium, Apple Books, etc
… I have tests that show RSs aren't processing manifest fallbacks at all
… one interesting consequence is looking at the way RSs handle foreign resources
… test where I had a JSON content doc with an xhtml fallback
… I have a few RSs where they display the JSON
… throw it in a webview and see what happens
… this seems incongruent with the spec
… RSs are just trying to display the content no matter what
… I made a bunch of manifest fallbacks with XML
… they'll show the content, a tree view
… that seems odd
… I suspect I'll run into the same thing with linked metadata records
… order of priorities of those
… haven't seen support for this
… I wanted to mention to the WG that we have these areas of little implementation
… another issue is that we have a number of normative statements that feel hard to test
… we had to set it up this was, a EPUB 3 RS must process the container etc
… meta safe statement
Garth: Assuming you're right and few commerical reading systems use fallbacks
… what do you think that means for us?
… we remove it from the spec
… or the opposite?
dauwhe: I honestly don't know
… it touches on the concept of the core media type
… which is foundational to the idea of EPUB
… a CMT doesn't require a fallback
… but you also expect it to work
… this finding blurs that a little
… it's not a CMT, but the RS tries and fails in an odd way
tzviya: I have a similar question to Garth
… I think we need to be careful that testability isn't the only thing to look for
… we're going to discover untestable things
… but EPUB works
… and we don't want to destroy something that works because it's hard to test
… I'm not sure what the best solution is
… maybe wordsmithing can help but won't help with the testing
dauwhe: It's a good illustration of remembering our larger goals
ivan: Answer first, absolutely true that testability should not be the only criteria
… even in the audiobooks spec or others, where vocabularies were defined and testing unclear
… if there's features EPUB has, and are used, they must be part of the spec, it's on us to prove that for a feature there's a use
… that's a criteria we need to fold into our testing
… in the happy days of HTML5, and with versions of SVG, we did find features in both that were never implemented
… there's some nice features people planned, but they were removed from later versions because they were never implemented
… we would have to have a policy for features that haven't been used
… and aren't implemented practically in any reading system
… what do we do with them
… and what do we do with the backwards compatibility
… we declare them as deprecated or dropped
… we cannot hope for every feature implemented by every RS
… but at least have reasonable coverage
CharlesL: When I was wearing my developer app
… for Java we had JUnit
… testing framework
… I am wondering if we need a unit test reading system
… testing for hard-to-test features
… we need to build a test reading system maybe
mgarrish: I think we probably need to look at or consider what features are foundational
… look for implementation
… removing manifest fallbacks opens up the spine, which could be a problem
<dauwhe> +1 to mg
mgarrish: I'm all for removing things we don't need, but we have to be careful
dauwhe: That's my concern as well
<tzviya> +1 to mgarrish
dauwhe: this feels foundational
… but also neglected
<circularken_> +1 to mgarrish
dauwhe: I don't want to remove this
… I want to find a way forward that acknowledges the reality but promotes interop
Hadrien: I'm wondering if fallbacks are not used as extensibility for some environments
… I wouldn't be surprised where specific reading systems craft specific epubs with this in mind
… I do wonder what is the intent
… I don't remember where fallbacks came from
… if there's a new version of something like images or video, the fallback could be used to maintain compatibility
… but also could have extensibility
… reading systems might have these use cases, but they don't allow sideloading
dauwhe: I hope we get to a point where we can pass these tests
… ADE supports the fallbacks
… and there's probably others
… gives us the opportunity not to mangle the spec
… and allows for the extensiblity
Garth: I agree with Matt
… we need to be careful not to rip out foundational things
… CMTs and the fallback chain may not be foundational
… you may not have to lose CMTs with losing the fallback chain
… I think it's worth questioning
mgarrish: Certainly there's ways of making things work
… it becomes complicated
… potentially invalidates content in the market
… I think we have to balance priorities
… further to Hadrien's point
… there's other systems that aren't on our radar
… libraries may be using linked metadata records
… it's a means of having the record travel
… there's lots of requirements on merging and consolidating that may not come into play
… there's use cases that may not be on our radar
dauwhe: I think we'll be having lots of discussions like this
… we don't have access to all useragents
ivan: This reminds me of a question I was asked
… with web and HTML, a big search engine (i.e. google)
… could come back with data that says "25% of websites use x feature"
… there was an established way to have data like that
… but is there an equivalent for EPUB
dauwhe: We've done a little bit of this
… thanks to the goodwill of group members who have access to this data
… we can only do this in certain ways
… it's a lot easier to do on the web
duga: The web and EPUB are just really different
… there's no "open EPUB" equivalent for the open web
wendyreid: It just takes a lot of processing
ivan: I expected that
… we may have to think about ways to achieve something like this
… we need to make some decisions feature by feature about what should or shouldn't be normative
… is it implemented or not
… implementability is not the only criteria
… we need ways to determine this
dauwhe: Thanks for the good discussion, I'll be filing issues on the things I find to discuss them
… this will come up again!
dauwhe: Thanks everyone, see you in a week!