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⟶ CISD and DCI ⟶ Literature ⟶ W3C UK News (1998-2006)
⟶ CISD and DCI ⟶ Literature ⟶ W3C UK News (1998-2006)
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□ Overview
1998
□ 1 □ 2 □ 3 □ 4 □ 5 □ 6 □ 7 □ 8 □ 9 □ 10 □ 11 □ 12
1999
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2000
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2001
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2002
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2003
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2004
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Issue 4: April 1998

MathML

MathML became a W3C Recommendation on 7 April 1998. Additional information is available at: http://www.w3.org/Math/.

MathML is a low-level format for describing mathematics primarily for use as a basis for machine to machine communication. It provides a much needed facility enabling mathematical expressions as Web page content. MathML is intended to facilitate the use and re-use of mathematical and scientific content for high-quality visual display on the Web. It also has significant potential in other (more semantic) applications such as computer algebra systems, print typesetters, and voice synthesisers.

MathML is cast as an application of XML. As such, with adequate style sheet support, it will ultimately be possible for browsers to natively render mathematical expressions. At the present, several vendors offer applet and Browser plug-ins which can render, in place, MathML expressions. A number of translators and equation editors will be available soon. These can generate, from HTML with embedded MathML code, HTML pages with images of the mathematical expressions.

An example of HTML and MathML embedded in Web schematics

An example of HTML and MathML embedded in Web schematics
Full image ⇗
© UKRI Science and Technology Facilities Council

CCLRC Web Schematics Submission

David Duce and Bob Hopgood, on behalf of the CCLRC, have made a submission to W3C that an XML DTD should be developed for representing schematic graphics in Web documents. The submission is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-WebSchematics. Schematic graphics encompasses the types of diagrams typically found in scientific (including mathematics) and engineering papers, essentially 2D diagrams constructed from primitives such as boxes, lines, arrows, curves and text. The submission reviews the approaches that have been taken to schematic graphics in a variety of document production systems, from which some key issues are drawn out. An approach to a schematic graphics mark-up language is described. A key question is the extent to which the approaches taken in graphics standards, such as GKS-94, are applicable to the Web context. In particular, the model of primitives and attributes in graphics standards is rather different from the model of content and attributes in SGML/HTML. The need for a clean model to underpin the mark-up of schematic graphics is highlighted and this should be addressed in discussion of the submission.

A pilot implementation of web schematics has been added to Amaya and was demonstrated at the W3C-LA Symposia held in Bonn and Utrecht in early April 1998 where there was a great deal of interest. It was also demonstrated at WWW7 in Brisbane.

Events in Europe

March was a busy month with W3C contributing to the GMD stand at CeBIT in the middle of March which was then followed by three W3C-LA Symposia in Stockholm, Bonn and Utrecht in late March - early April. The usual massive crowds at CeBIT made it quite an experience and there was quite a lot of interest in W3C. For the symposia, Judy Brewer came over from the USA and spoke at the Stockholm and Utrecht events on Web Accessibility activities. Robert Cailliau gave his view of the future of the Web at the Stockholm and Bonn events. All three events were well attended with over 100 people at each. Hopefully the awareness of W3C and its activities will have improved throughout Europe. Robert Cailliau responded to the question What is the Future of the Web? by saying that:

the Full Members of W3C were in proportion to what would be expected. However, the European Commission's view is that the future of the Global Information Society would be driven by Small to Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs). It was worrying at the great disparity between the number of European SMEs involved with W3C and those in the USA. It was no good Europe sitting in the back of the bus waiting to see where it was going. Europe must be up at the front driving it! Those in the audience who were not members should move their seats to the front of the bus and start influencing the future.

WWW7

The annual World-Wide Web Conference was held in Brisbane, Australia from April 14-18, 1998. W3C ran a track throughout the Conference describing many of the W3C activities. W3C also made a major contribution to Developer's Day on the last day of the Conference.

New Members: W3C passes 250

Thirteen new W3C members joined in March. The number of members has now reached 253 with a regional break down of:

Full Affiliate
Americas 32 116
Europe 33 39
Asia-Oceania 15 18

The new members (information from their sites) are:

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