[Blindmath] FW: Recent posts from Design Science News

Fri Oct 11 21:41:55 UTC 2013

They are a big organization, and we don't have a great way to contact the
important people directly. I do have a couple of IE developer email addrs,
but I don't think it is appropriate I put them out to a wide list.  The
method we suggest in the post is:

"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."

Again, getting this fix is a matter of numbers:  the more people who
complain about the IE10 bug, the more likely it is that they will fix it.

Neil Soiffer
SeniorScientist
Design Science, Inc.
www.dessci.com
~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor ~

On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com>wrote:

> 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<ht**tp://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@**
>>> google.com <noreply%2Bfeedproxy 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<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/**6a00e54f0d27e28834019affe1def0**
>>> 970c-pi<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/<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<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<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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>>>> .
>>>>
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