[Blindmath] accessible math websites

Michael Whapples mwhapples at aim.com
Mon Mar 16 12:56:14 UTC 2009 

I did state in my message why, its to do with the checking of the 
output. I won't repeat what I said as surely you can read email fully, 
and if you can't then repeating it won't go any further.

Michael Whapples
On 16/03/09 11:49, P. R. Stanley wrote:
> How is it an exageration?
> Can't you read text files? LaTeX source is pure text. You specify 
> everything in text. My goodness, you've everything served up to you on 
> a plate here. What more do you want, someone to do the chewing for you 
> as well? *smile*
> At 11:14 16/03/2009, you wrote:
>> Of course, 100% accessible is probably a slight exaggeration, but I 
>> certainly don't know of any equivalent notation systems that provide 
>> the level of access for the blind that LaTeX does. Yes, you may need 
>> sighted assistance to confirm the way LaTeX compiled at some point, 
>> but don't you need sighted asistance to tell you the WYSYWYG editor 
>> you're using did what you want? If you know of some way of editing 
>> documents without vision that allows you to check all potential 
>> facets of a document for correctness without any sort of sighted 
>> confirmation, lead me to it! *smile*
>>
>> Jared
>>
>>
>> On 3/16/2009 6:38 AM, Michael Whapples wrote:
>>> "LaTeX is the only 100% accessible typesetting tool for the blind"
>>> Really? I feel that needs questioning from both directions. I am 
>>> sure there probably are other tools just as accessible as LaTeX but 
>>> LaTeX is by far the most popular one which is useable. The other 
>>> side is whether LaTeX is really 100% accessible, well the source 
>>> code might be but the compiled document isn't. I remember when I 
>>> wanted to achieve a very specific formatting I found it hard to get 
>>> an output where I could independently confirm the output was 
>>> actually formatted as I needed. As I remember I had to resort to 
>>> asking a sighted person to check the formatting for me and it took a 
>>> few attempts at the source code to actually get exactly what I 
>>> needed. May be these cases are rare, but so long as a single case 
>>> exists then a 100% accessibility claim is an exageration.
>>>
>>> Michael Whapples
>>> On 16/03/09 06:34, P. R. Stanley wrote:
>>>> I wasn't refering to you personally. It was you as in general.
>>>> as I have already explained, wysewyg was invented to serve people 
>>>> like you i.e. the sighted. LaTeX by some fortunate accident 
>>>> happened to be just the thing we blind folks need in order to 
>>>> ensure that the document looks as presentable as possible.
>>>> Difficult or not LaTeX is the only 100% accessible typesetting tool 
>>>> for the blind and you cannot and will not be able to change and I'm 
>>>> not going to sit quietly while some half baked idea gets promoted 
>>>> solely as to make money for a handful of opportunists!
>>>> and before you get excited, no, I am not alluding to you.
>>>> Paul
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> At 05:33 16/03/2009, you wrote:
>>>>> FYI: I know TeX reasonably well. I wrote my thesis in it and many 
>>>>> papers
>>>>> in it, but I don't use it anymore (mostly) because I hate the write,
>>>>> "compile", fix, "compile", fix, etc., loop that WYSIWYG 
>>>>> eliminates. I do
>>>>> advocate that people going into math or physics and a few other 
>>>>> sciences
>>>>> learn it because many of their colleagues will use it and you will 
>>>>> see it
>>>>> and need to correspond with them using it. Knowing it doesn't mean 
>>>>> using it
>>>>> though.
>>>>>
>>>>> The point about actuarial notation is that it is not as 
>>>>> straightforward in
>>>>> TeX as a fraction or superscript is. As you can see, the "angle" 
>>>>> part is
>>>>> split among the overline and the |, and those constructs break 
>>>>> apart the
>>>>> operands in a semantically unnatural way, making comprehension 
>>>>> harder. If
>>>>> one were using real TeX, you'd write a macro to do this and it 
>>>>> would be more
>>>>> understandable, but the TeX variant used by Wikipedia (texvc) and 
>>>>> most other
>>>>> web-oriented systems is not extensible and only support a very 
>>>>> limited
>>>>> subset of TeX.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Neil Soiffer
>>>>> Senior Scientist
>>>>> Design Science, Inc.
>>>>> www.dessci.com
>>>>> ~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, WebEQ, 
>>>>> Equation
>>>>> Editor ~
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 6:38 PM, P. R. Stanley 
>>>>> <prstanley at ntlworld.com>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> > I'm sorry, Neil, what is the point you're making? You may not 
>>>>> understand it
>>>>> > straightaway but with a little bit of work and patience you can 
>>>>> get to know
>>>>> > the system. The benenfits of LaTeX which have been highlighted 
>>>>> on this list
>>>>> > on many occasions surely must make it worth the effort.
>>>>> > Cheers
>>>>> > Paul
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > At 00:31 16/03/2009, you wrote:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> If you are willing to deal with TeX, take a look at Wikipedia. 
>>>>> The images
>>>>> >> use TeX as the alt text. Unfortunately, TeX is pretty cryptic for
>>>>> >> actuarial
>>>>> >> notations. For example, "a angle n i" is represented as
>>>>> >> "a_{\overline{n|}i}" Take a look at
>>>>> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuarial_notation
>>>>> >> and see if it is understandable.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> For more basic concepts (such as Algebra I and II), there are 
>>>>> sites such
>>>>> >> as
>>>>> >> www.onemathematicalcat.org that use MathML and are accessible via
>>>>> >> MathPlayer
>>>>> >> with JAWS.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Neil Soiffer
>>>>> >> Senior Scientist
>>>>> >> Design Science, Inc.
>>>>> >> www.dessci.com
>>>>> >> ~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, WebEQ, 
>>>>> Equation
>>>>> >> Editor ~
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 1:39 PM, <sarah.jevnikar at utoronto.ca> 
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> > Hi all,
>>>>> >> > Every so often, I find my math text inadequately explains a 
>>>>> topic, and
>>>>> >> so I
>>>>> >> > wish to look it up online. However I find many math websites 
>>>>> have
>>>>> >> equations
>>>>> >> > as images that JAWS won't read. Are there any sites you know 
>>>>> of which
>>>>> >> > explain mathematical concepts that are JAWS-friendly?
>>>>> >> > Thank you for your help,
>>>>> >> > Sarah Jevnikar
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >
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>>>>>
>>>>> >> >
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>>>>
>>>>
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