[Blindmath] FW: Recent posts from Design Science News

Fri Oct 11 19:33:21 UTC 2013

Neil, what is the best way for us to let Microsoft know our views? 
Sometimes these companies are so large it is hard to know where to go to 
let the people who need to know hear our comments.

Michael Whapples
On 11/10/2013 20:28, Neil Soiffer wrote:
> As the person who wrote the blog post, I obviously do think it is bad news.
> The only way Microsoft will fix it if users like the people who read this
> list and use MathPlayer give them a call and complain. It is hard to
> believe it would take even close to a person-day to fix the IE10 bug.
> Without pressure to fix the bug from users, they aren't motivated to fix
> their crash. So please call and don't assume someone else will do it --
> everyone who cares needs to do it because they need to hear from lots of
> people to make it a priority.
>
> Neil Soiffer
> SeniorScientist
> Design Science, Inc.
> www.dessci.com
> ~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor ~
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 5:41 AM, Lewicki, Maureen
> <mlewicki at bcsd.neric.org>wrote:
>
>> Your thoughts, Folks? I am not familiar with this but it sounds like bad
>> news for accessibility
>>
>> Maureen Murphy Lewicki
>> Maureen Murphy Lewicki
>> Teacher of Visually Impaired
>> Bethlehem Central School
>> 332 Kenwood AvenueDelmar, NY 12054
>> http://bethlehemschools.org<http://bethlehemschools.org/>
>> (518) 439-7460
>> Fax (518) 475-0092
>> "The real problem of blindness is not the loss of eyesight.  The
>> real problem is the misunderstanding and lack of education that
>> exists.  If a blind person has the proper training and
>> opportunity, blindness can be reduced to a mere physical
>> nuisance."Kenneth Jernigan
>>
>>
>> From: Weinstock, Gwen
>> Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2013 8:38 AM
>> To: Lewicki, Maureen
>> Subject: FW: Recent posts from Design Science News
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: noreply+feedproxy at google.com<mailto:noreply+feedproxy at google.com> [
>> noreply+feedproxy at google.com] on behalf of Design Science News [
>> newsblog at dessci.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2013 8:13 AM
>> To: Weinstock, Gwen
>> Subject: Recent posts from Design Science News
>> Recent posts from Design Science News<http://news.dessci.com/>
>>
>> [Link to Design Science News]  <http://news.dessci.com/>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> Microsoft cripples the display of math in IE10 & 11<
>> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DesignScienceNews/~3/6nqx-VpbPgg/microsoft-cripples-display-math-ie10-11.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
>> Posted: 09 Oct 2013 09:25 AM PDT
>> [IeNoMathml] <
>> http://designscience.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54f0d27e28834019affe1def0970c-pi>
>> For the past 12 years, IE users have benefited from our free MathPlayer
>> plugin<http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/> to display and
>> speak math on the web. MathPlayer has been downloaded over a million times
>> and billions of expressions have been rendered by it on the web.
>> Additionally, tens of million expressions have been spoken allowing people
>> with disabilities from dyslexia to blindness to get access to math.
>> However, MathPlayer cannot be made to work with IE 10 or IE11 until
>> Microsoft decides it is worth their attention.
>>
>> Until they address the problems, it means an end to accessible math in IE
>> -- IE goes from being the best solution for math accessibility to having no
>> math accessibility. It also means that websites that deliver math need to
>> use the JavaScript-based MathJax<http://www.mathjax.org> solution if the
>> math is going to render in IE. MathJax is a great solution and works with
>> MathPlayer now, but without MathPlayer, the display is many times slower
>> than if MathPlayer is used. So with every page containing math that you
>> view, you are paying a price for the lack of MathML support in IE.
>>
>> Why MathPlayer doesn't work in IE10 and IE11
>>
>> We wish we could make MathPlayer work with IE10 and IE11, but we can't. A
>> half a year ago when we released MathPlayer 3, IE10 simply had too many
>> bugs for us to be able to say MathPlayer worked with it. A recent update to
>> IE10 fixed a number of bugs so that MathPlayer now works tantalizingly well
>> except that math inside of a span or table causes IE10 to crash. The crash
>> is in IE10, not MathPlayer -- earlier versions of IE work well with the
>> same MathPlayer code. Unfortunately, these two cases occur quite often, so
>> MathPlayer isn't usable in IE10. Microsoft is aware of the bug but
>> indicated that fixing the problem was not a priority for them.
>>
>> There is a different reason why we can't make MathPlayer work with IE11:
>> Microsoft disabled the plug-in technology MathPlayer uses to display math
>> in IE called a binary behavior. Behaviors allow third party developers to
>> extend the capabilities of the browser. It is a powerful idea, but
>> unfortunately Microsoft disabled support for binary behaviors<
>> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/bg182625%28v=vs.85%29.aspx#legacyAPIs
>>> .
>> What can you do?
>>
>> If math and accessible math on the web is important to you, make some
>> noise! Write a blog post, share this story with your friends and
>> colleagues, contact Microsoft directly and get your friends and colleagues
>> to do so also. If they get enough direct feedback from customers - not
>> other software developers, they will hopefully give this matter the
>> attention it deserves. You can report Internet Explorer issues directly to
>> them at http://connect.microsoft.com/IE. If you can contact their
>> Technical Support Staff by telephone your report will carry even more
>> weight. You can contact Microsoft Technical Support at (800) 936-5700.
>>
>> In the meantime, if you need math accessibility or don't want to wait
>> extra time for pages to display math, don't upgrade to IE10 or IE11. That
>> also means not upgrading to Windows 8.x because Windows 8.x only supports
>> IE10 and IE11.
>>
>> With your help, we hope that IE returns to being the best browser for
>> viewing math.
>>
>>
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