RE: equation editors and TeX (long) (was "Equation Editor")

[Sri Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>]

> I've done some more checking and there is a lot of momentum behind MathML.
> Amaya can already directly edit MathML into their web browser. Both IE and
> Mozilla have plans to display MathML. MathML can be directly translated by
> expat 1.1 and libXML 2.0. There a lot of projects to display MathML we can
> borrow code from. MathML 2.0 has just been approved and there is a project
> in Italy to display advanced Math using MathML 2.0. They even have a gtk
> widget to do it. We can steal any or all of this code as it is all GPL or
> freer. In short I am extremely comfortable with MathML as our internal
> representation of Maths in Abiword.

I have a question.  Are you using MathML for _rendering_?  Frankly, from
the examples I saw of MathML I find it rather difficult to use compared to
say LaTeX.  For instance:

         <mrow>
            <mrow>
              <msup>
                <mi>x</mi>
                <mn>2</mn>
              </msup>
              <mo>+</mo>
              <mrow>
                <mn>4</mn>
                <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
                <mi>x</mi>
              </mrow>
              <mo>+</mo>
              <mn>4</mn>
            </mrow>
            <mo>=</mo>
            <mn>0</mn>
          </mrow>

It feels overly wordy with an overuse of tags.  However, I have not used
MathML and this is my first exposure.  Perhaps you could expand on how you
plan on using MathML a little further?

	sri