Hi Michael: Thank you very much for your informative response. I will sift through the sites and documents you have provided with relish. Some of them like the access2science.com URL I never knew of before so hopefully they'll provide other good sources of materials. They may even be a good repository of whatever systems we finally come up with, if any. I have had a bit of interest from the community and am a tad surprised there doesn't appear to be more information already available. Maybe I just haven't found it yet. On Mon, 7 May 2012, Michael Whapples wrote: > Hello Kirk and others who are interested, > There are some who highly promote LaTeX for writing and reading technical > documents. I certainly say for those serious on using technical notation and > will make plenty of use then learning LaTeX can be a good investment, however > I would never promote it for reading (it really is a document preparation > tool) and also for many who may only encounter technical notation from time > to time it really isn't worth the investment (if learning it for the > technical notation is the only reason, I know some like using it for about > everything in which case you will be making great use of it). > > Another mark up system, I think meant to be easier to learn but I am unsure > whether so powerful is the asciimath notation (sorry I don't have a link to > hand but I am sure a quick search will find relevant stuff). Asciimath is > mainly used on the web but is therefore suitable for all platforms. > > Other more specialised systems exist like triangle and lambda, but I think > these may be a bit limited and the editors which were designed for them were > only developed for windows (not good for people here as its a linux list). > > A new system which John Gardner of ViewPlus is creating, and which I have > been involved with when he was thinking of it is called Linear Editing and > Authoring Notation (LEAN). A preprint of a paper by John Gardner on the LEAN > system can be found at > http://www.access2science.com/jagqn/More%20Accessible%20Math%20preprint.htm > and I personally feel the system is a good way forward. LEAN is unicode based > so should be simple enough for applications to work with. While at the moment > work has mainly been focussed on Windows screen readers, I could imagine it > working fine with others like Orca if someone made a suitable symbol > dictionary. I have been working on a greasemonkey userscript so that one > could read MathML equations in firefox using the LEAN system, that userscript > can be found at http://bitbucket.org/mwhapples/mathmlreader but I must worn > people its still work in progress. > > Finally there are other useful documents on the access2science.com website. > > Hope some of this has been useful. > > Michael Whapples > On 04/05/2012 14:20, Kirk Reiser wrote: >> Hello everybody: I am slowly over time posting this request to all the >> mailing lists I know and think might be related to the topic. I am >> hoping to gather enough interest that we can develop standardize >> systems and get some implementation. >> >> >> One of the irritations I have whenever I'm reading something technical >> in text is the lack of useful representation of scientific or >> technical notation. It happens in every book and document in every >> format from ASCII text to HTML and even in documents such as MS Word. >> To a small extent we have some rough accessibility with basic >> mathematical texts because most character sets offer some amount of >> arithmetic related symbols and they are often necessary for >> programming and/or scientific calculations. Even then representing >> calculus or other higher mathematical concepts are not well worked out >> and certainly not standardized in any way. What there is currently is >> a mixed bag of .tex mark-up or text representation of Nemith code >> symbols. >> >> I would like to attempt to find standardized or common textual systems >> and pull them together in one place as a resource for other people >> writing new materials or editing previously available documents to >> easily use. if there are no predefined systems, I would like to try >> to build systems for each of the technical and scientific disciplines >> for future writers and editors to use. I would also like to put >> together a group of volunteers to edit at least one text in each >> discipline so visually impaired students and readers can get past this >> frustrating situation. We would make the books and papers available >> through the bookserve project or other facilities if any are >> interested in participating. >> >> Some of the disciplines which I believe need systems found or >> developed include: physics, chemistry, electronics, mathematics and >> any others people feel should be considered. >> >> If any of you know of any representational systems for any technical >> or scientific disciplines please write or contact me in someway to let >> me know about them. >> >> If anyone is interested in being involved in gathering and developing >> symbolic systems or discussing them also please contact me. >> >> If you or someone you know might be interested in helping edit books >> and papers using these symbolic systems, once again please contact me. >> >> Depending on how much response I receive will determine what type of >> on going communication I put together. If you have suggestions for >> that I'd like to hear them as well. >> >> I can be contacted at kirk at reisers.ca or on the #speakup channel on >> freenode.net. >> >> Kirk Reiser >> >> -- >> Kirk Reiser The Computer Braille Facility >> e-mail: kirk at braille.uwo.ca University of Western Ontario >> phone: (519) 661-3061 >> > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > -- Kirk Reiser The Computer Braille Facility e-mail: kirk at braille.uwo.ca University of Western Ontario phone: (519) 661-3061
