[Blindmath] accessible math websites
P. R. Stanley
prstanley at ntlworld.com
Tue Mar 17 03:42:18 UTC 2009
"I hope I stated it at a level understandable by you,"
I wonder if your messages could be used as a proof for the monkey
theorum. They're so long that I can always find my own replies in them. *smile*
If you're going to get personal at least do it in style. that said, I
would discourage any further personal attacks since this is not the
right forum for it.
In conclusion, Michael, I'd remind you that at the end of the day
honesty is the best policy.
You would have come across far more dignified if you had the courage
to openly declare your interests at the outset.
best wishes
Paul
At 22:30 16/03/2009, you wrote:
>Where did I blame the tool (LaTeX)? The problem lay in the output
>formats (as I said originally). No matter what output format, PDF,
>DVI, PS, HTML/mathml the accessibility tools just couldn't give
>enough information for me to be certain I had the actual formatting.
>Also I should really be checking the particular output I will be
>submitting, the HTML/MathML is most likely to differ in its physical
>layout to the PDF as HTML may be displayed differently in different
>browsers. This impacts back to the LaTeX as that is how I authored
>the document. Whether any other tool out there (eg. wysiwyg editor)
>could give that in an accessible form is another matter (they
>probably cannot) but what a wysiwyg editor can or cannot do doesn't
>impact on the accessibility of LaTeX.
>
>Whether knowing the LaTeX was the problem, I doubt it, even my tutor
>who I would say is very proficient in LaTeX didn't know the actual
>answer. It took a bit of hunting around on the internet for me to
>find a solution which did exactly what I needed.
>
>While LaTeX was able to do this formatting/layout I needed, it is
>the one thig LaTeX can be awkward about due to its design. LaTeX is
>designed to remove the need for the author to be concerned with the
>physical layout of the document, leaving them to focus on the
>content. When trying to override what LaTeX wants to do
>automatically can lead to the document being more complicated than
>ideally it could be.
>
>LaTeX is so huge in what it can do it is difficult (may be even
>impossible) to know the whole of LaTeX, and when we need to do
>something new we may need to use parts of LaTeX new to us. These
>newly learnt parts of LaTeX may be described to us, but if not
>described in the entirity (how it will work with other parts of
>LaTeX, all the options we can give it, etc) we can only have a very
>good guess what the output will be. Sometimes (depending on the
>person sometimes may only be a few times for others it may be most
>of the time) we can guess correctly, but there will be times when we
>guess wrong.
>
>For documents where we are concerned about the result due to the
>importance of the document to us, we naturally want to check what is
>being submitted. For the above reasons, I hope I stated it at a
>level understandable by you, there have been specific circumstances
>where LaTeX and associated tools aren't enough on there own for me
>to be certain I am submitting what I want to submit.
>
>May be some of the above doesn't apply to you, may be you have
>learnt the full LaTeX language to the point where there are no
>possible questions remaining, may be you never have documents which
>matter enough to need checking before submitting, may be you have
>something you are keeping secret which helps in the checking stage,
>etc. If this is the case then share this with us, how did you learn
>the whole LaTeX language (I do mean the whole thing not just a
>subset), what are you using to check output files, etc? Let me know
>then I can be quiet as I will be happy that the use of LaTeX for
>producing documents is 100% accessible as I won't have any cases to
>prove otherwise.
>
>Michael Whapples
>On 16/03/09 20:28, P. R. Stanley wrote:
>>Well then maybe you should learn your LaTeX before attempting to be
>>creative with it.
>>If there ever was a case of the workman blaming the tool or
>>whatever the expression is. _smile*
>>
>>By the way, the compiled document is no longer LaTeX. It's PDF or
>>DVI or whatever format you choose but not LaTeX.
>>Paul
>>At 10:38 16/03/2009, you 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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