[Blindmath] Reading and Writing Math

[John Gardner]

Hello Ryan, the translators are written in Python, simply because it is the
only language I know well enough.  It could certainly be written in other
languages, but if in Javascript, it probably needs to be optimized lots
better than I could do it.   I'm no software engineer for sure.

John


-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Ryan Hemphill
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2012 5:09 PM
To: john.gardner at orst.edu; Blind Math list for those interested in
mathematics
Cc: Brad Momberger
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Reading and Writing Math

This is very interesting.

As I stated on this board upon getting in, I am working on a Browser/Screen
Reader/Platform (Win/Mac) compatible reader that also translates into
Braille (unicode).  While I like your idea, do you plan on providing any
open source that will do your translation in JavaScript?  If so, we could
consider eventually dove-tailing your work into our product at some point
and would be happy to give it a shot.

Ryan

On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 2:54 PM, John Gardner <john.gardner at orst.edu> wrote:

> Hello all, sorry to be slow in joining the recent threads on 
> reading/writing math -I've been travelling.  In my view, the 
> fundamental difficulty in "making math accessible" is that there is no 
> compact user-friendly linear format for doing so.  Latex is widely 
> used but is certainly not compact, and MathML is nearly impossible to 
> read/write in raw form.  A good braille math code may be great for 
> reading math (provided of course you are one of that small minority 
> who can read it) but all current codes are too fragile to use for 
> authoring.  After years of talking about this problem, I have finally 
> decided to try to do something about it.  I call it LEAN Math. LEAN is 
> actually an acronym for Linear Editing and Authoring Notation.
>
> In essence LEAN defines a set of special unicode characters for 
> special things like start-fraction, middle-of-fraction, end-fraction, 
> sub-, super-, under-, over-script indicators, etc.  One can view it as 
> a very compact form of Latex or MathML.  It is inspired by Triangle 
> and Lambda notations but fully unicode based.  I have written a MathML 
> to LEAN and LEAN to MathML translator and, and it is possible now to 
> display and author anything that can be written in MathML 3.0 
> (presentation format only for now).
>
> When fully debugged, the LEAN system will be introduced first in 
> combination with MathType in MS Word as a fully audio-accessible 
> reader/editor.  I intend to make it available within a few months.  
> And it will be free and open source.  Presently  it is useful only in 
> audio, but one could develop 8-dot braille notation that makes it 
> braille accessible too.
>
> I am writing a paper on LEAN that will be available in preprint form 
> within a couple of weeks.  I hope that some people on this list will 
> be willing to have an early look at this new notation and provide 
> feedback before the paper is submitted.  It sure would be good to get 
> the notation right at the very start!  You can find a zip file at 
> http://www.access2science.com/mathml/LEANMath.zip that contains a Word 
> file with explanations, a Windows font, and screen reader speak files 
> for Window-Eyes and NVDA.  I'll be happy to make a Jaws file if 
> somebody can tell me the location of the speak file in Jaws.  I'll be 
> looking for alpha testers of the translator soon as well, but I still 
> have some polishing and debugging to do first.
>
> John Gardner
>
>
>
>
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