[Blindmath] accessible math websites

Mon Mar 16 20:38:12 UTC 2009

"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."

>Once again Michael you have summed up nicely what I had to say to you. *smile*
You see, you can write concisely if you try hard enough.
Paul


>At 12:56 16/03/2009, you wrote:
>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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>>>>
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