[Blindmath] IOS7 and math support

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
The original page I tried VoiceOver math support on is 
http://www.albany.edu/~hammond/gellmu/dmml.xml 
<http://www.albany.edu/%7Ehammond/gellmu/dmml.xml>.

I tried the page that Kevin gave and set the renderer to MathML. I did 
get a warning dialog saying that the browser does not support all 
features of MathJax but I could activate the OK button without any 
issue. Once the renderer was set to MathML it seemed to read fine.

I guess the problems with reading the math you encountered on that page 
might relate to not having the MathJax renderer set to MathML.

The Only difference I notice between what I am doing and what you are 
doing, is I am using an iPodTouch and not an iPad, but one would have 
thought that should not cause the difference. The only other thing I can 
think of is possibly differing IOS7 versions, I initially updated to 
IOS7 and then about a week later it offered me an update to IOS 7.0.2 
which I did upgrade to.

Michael Whapples
On 05/10/2013 05:48, Susan Osterhaus wrote:
> Warning! Kevin, thanks for the link. However, if you have upgraded to iOS
> 7, I would advise against setting the render to MathML. I tried that, and
> a window appeared asking me if I really wanted to do that and asked me to
> select Cancel or OK. The window froze on top of the webpage and would not
> respond to either Cancel or OK. Closing Safari and reopening it did
> nothing, as the window just froze everything. I had to reboot my iPad to
> get rid of it. I think this is an iOS 7 bug, as it has already done other
> strange things to me. However, if you don't attempt to change the
> rendering, VoiceOver will read the math. I don't like the way it read the
> math, and it often substituted minus, minus, minus,... but at least it
> made an attempt. I'd very much like to know if it reads simpler math more
> easily or if it does a worse job. I also was unable to do any navigation
> on the math on this webpage following Michael's instructions. Michael,
> could you give us the webpage that you were successful in using?
>
> Susan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kevin
> Fjelsted
> Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 6:51 PM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] IOS7 and math support
>
> To see an example set of equations and try them with IOS voiceover go to
> http://www.mathjax.org/demos/mathml-samples/ and set the render to MathML.
> -Kevin
>
> On Oct 4, 2013, at 3:17 PM, Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> I remember a brief comment recently about the math support in VoiceOver
> in IOS7.
>> I have just taken a quick look at some of it.
>>
>> My main interest is in accessibility of reading math, thus I have only
> looked at that side of things.
>> I viewed a page with some maths in MathML in Safari. VoiceOver read the
> equations fine and allowed one to explore the equations bit by bit. When
> flicking left and right, it appears an equation is a single object and
> voiceover reads the entire equation. However once you are on the equation,
> you may double tap it and go down a level to explore parts of the
> fraction, and each part may be double tapped to decend another level. An
> alternative way to explore the equation is that in the rotor you will find
> options for size of parts of the equation to navigate by if flicking up
> and down.
>> I tried with my Braille display connected to see what Braille output
> would be produced and the output was in Nemeth. I am not an expert in
> Nemeth and I have only done some limited testing, but the Nemeth did look
> correct to me.
>> While I have not tried Nemeth input, one would hope that with all the
> above math accessibility that may be the Nemeth input might be back
> translation and MathML would be inserted. Quite where one might insert
> math on an IOS device I am not sure (IE. can you enter it in any edit box
> or must it be a math enabled one).
>> Other things I have not tested is math accessibility in any other apps,
> I do not know whether this is going to be limited to Safari and any apps
> using the standard web browser control.
>> Also assuming the Nemeth input does result in a proper equation, I do
> not know what the option is for math input for those without a Braille
> keyboard.
>> Providing this support works as well on other equations other than the
> limited ones I have tried it with, this certainly seems a step forward for
> math accessibility.
>> Michael Whapples
>>
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