[Axiom-developer] SVG, MathML, and all that

[Bob McElrath]

Kai, in the SVG example you sent previously at:
    http://kaikaminski.gmxhome.de/axiom-index.html
your server is sending the content-type "image/svg-xml" for the svg
file, where it should be "image/svg+xml"  (note the "+").  Mozilla
(properly) does not understand this content-type so does not render it.

Also, anyone wanting to play with SVG (esp. under linux) should grab the
"deer park" alpha for firefox 1.1:
    http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
It contains SVG enabled by default, rendered with the Cairo engine.
MathML is also enabled.  (but it is enabled in all mozilla browsers
nowadays)  The Mozilla SVG implementation is young, so you may want to
also install the Adobe SVG viewer:
    http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/main.html
You can switch between them by typing 'about:config' in the URL bar and
changing the value of 'svg.enabled' (which controls the built-in Mozilla
SVG implementation.  However, version 3.0 of their viewer (the only one
available) will hang all recent versions of firefox and mozilla, and is
therefore totally unusable.  :(

Just to be pedantic, the document type I am contemplating is described
here: http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-XHTMLplusMathMLplusSVG-20020809/
Essentially an interface would be a single XML file with javascript to
bind user interface widgets.

Here are some interesting resources/projects:
    http://smarth.sourceforge.net/
a dynamic MathML equation editor.  The application itself is written in
SVG.  (requires Adobe SVG viewer -- Mozilla doesn't like this one)

Here is an equation grapher that uses SVG and javascript:
    http://www.jasonkarldavis.com/scripts/grapher/grapher.xml
(perhaps just to motivate that SVG is a good format for figures)
and here is the same using Mozilla's XUL interface:
    http://www.jasonkarldavis.com/scripts/grapher/xul/grapher.xul
it's intended to be run in the sidebar, which is why everything is
clustered on the left.  I'm envisioning javascript actions that would
allow the user to click on the graph to rescale axes, change labelling,
change from log to linear, etc.  I think all of these should send a
command back to axiom to regenerate the graph.

XUL is Mozilla's XML User Interface Language, which gives developers
access to every UI widget used by Mozilla.  It is the framework upon
which Firefox extensions are based.  
    http://www.xulplanet.com/
Sometimes it's also called "chrome".

--
Cheers,
Bob McElrath [Univ. of California at Davis, Department of Physics]

    "One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen
    these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding
    fathers used in the great struggle for independence." --Charles A. Beard

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