Nabble - Sakai - User

Re: [DG: Teaching & Learning] [Using Sakai] [Building Sakai] Wiki's and Sakai

2009-04-02T12:40:36Z

Hi Adam,

I certainly don't mind sharing if others would find them useful. Since Support probably has the best understanding of the hands-on functionality of the Sakai toolset, I work closely with our local "keeper of the docs", Margaret Wagner, to update and correct our local online documentation. We collaborated on improving the Wiki instructions, actually. If there's interest in the community, I can get with her and see what we need to do to get them in trunk. Here's an excerpt to give you an idea of the content:

On Apr 2, 2009, at 3:09 PM, dktr adam marshall wrote:

Could the rewritten page replace the incumbent in trunk? I was thinking of doing something similar and I’m sure a lot of other people would also be interested.

Adam

From: pedagogy-bounces@... [pedagogy-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Jeff Ziegler
Sent: 02 April 2009 20:05
To: May, Megan Marie
Cc: Sakai User; sakai-dev Dev; pedagogy Learning
Subject: Re: [DG: Teaching & Learning] [Building Sakai] Wiki's and Sakai

At UMich, when we first adopted rWiki we heard from a lot of instructors who were trying to use it but I re-wrote the default "Full Help Page" to explain the syntax (the macro instructions were completely obtuse) and included examples of usage and the expected results - much easier for them to understand now. We also started covering Wiki in our regular training workshops. Most of our Support contacts now are about Permissions or minor bugs like not being able to delete comments. Those of our users who use an external Wiki usually do so because they used it previously and don't want to relearn syntax in a new Wiki - it's just easier for them to link to their preferred Wiki through Web Content.

Jeff


On Apr 1, 2009, at 4:50 PM, May, Megan Marie wrote:

Hi everyone,
 Here at IU we’re disappointed that the WYSIWYG editing capabilities aren’t going to make the 2.6.0 release (see message below for the announcement/rationale). We’ve found that faculty try the wiki in Sakai but end up switching to free and inexpensive hosted solutions because they are so much easier to use. Obviously, the wysiwyg would greatly improve the user experience but it wouldn’t resolve the ‘ease of use’ issues we’re hearing about. This has made us wonder if it might be wise to explore other options, like integration with existing wiki applications.

Do other institutions receive similar feedback? Has anyone looked into integrating Sakai with a different wiki solution?

Thanks,
Megan

From: Pete Peterson [plpeterson@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 4:45 PM
To: 'Sakai Developers'; 'Sakai QA'; production@...
Cc: Michael Korcuska; Knoop, Peter; Anthony Whyte; Pete Peterson; May, Megan Marie; Stephen Swinsburg; David Horwitz
Subject: Important information about Sakai 2.6.0 and the rWiki tool

Greetings Sakai Community,

We have been unable to resolve a number of issues with the 2.6 rwiki code, centered around the WYSIWYG editing capabilities and data loss under certain conditions. At this point in the release cycle we are opting to replace it with the 2.5.x version of rwiki, making the necessary changes to make it compatible with the 2.6 codebase. We are also re-applying some of the minor fixes and improvements intended for the 2.6 version of rwiki to the 2.5.x-based version (see SAK-15866 for more details).

Summary
· We have rolled the rwiki code back to the 2.5 version which has proven stable in many production instances.
· Many of the updated rwiki features that are present in trunk/ the original 2.6 version, have been merged back into this version. Details of this effort can be viewed at SAK-15866 (many thanks to Steve Swinsburg for his work on this issue).
· This new hybrid-rwiki has been tested and seems to work as expected.

With regards to the WYSIWYG editing capabilities for rwiki scheduled for inclusion in Sakai 2.6 (SAK-8535), we will continue explore options for implementing such functionality at a later time. This is an oft requested features, so if you are interested in helping us explore and implement possible solutions, please contact knoop@..., Sakai Project Coordinator.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please send them to us by 3/31/2009.

Thank you for your time and support,

Pete Peterson
QA Director, Sakai Foundation
plpeterson@...
Phone: +1-530-754-7259

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<ATT00001.txt>

---------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Ziegler - CTools Help Desk Supervisor
Digital Media Commons, Duderstadt Center
CTools Support Phone: 734.615.5512
---------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------

Jeff Ziegler - CTools Help Desk Supervisor

Digital Media Commons, Duderstadt Center

CTools Support Phone: 734.615.5512

---------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [DG: Teaching & Learning] [Using Sakai] [Management] Comments on the proposed dev model

2009-04-02T07:57:40Z

Anthony suggested I post this a little wider : )

From: Michael Korcuska [mailto:mkorcuska@...] On Behalf Of Michael Korcuska
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:19 AM
To: May, Megan Marie
Cc: management@...
Subject: Re: [Management] Comments on the proposed dev model

Thanks, Megan. I'm glad you're getting the conversation started. A few comments within:

On Apr 2, 2009, at 13:10, May, Megan Marie wrote:

Hi everyone,

I wrote a blog entry that had some thoughts on the proposed development process. Since not everyone follows planet sakai I wanted to be sure to specifically share my comments with the community via a community communication channels. There hasn’t been as much on list communication as I expected so hopefully this sparks some discussion or persuades others to share their thoughts.

All the best,

Megan

URL: http://meganmariemay.blogspot.com/2009/03/proposed-sakai-development-model.html

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a webinar session given by Michael Korcuska, the Sakai Foundation Executive Director, on the proposed development model for Sakai. First, I want to say that even though there were some hiccups (gotta have them!), this was one of the most beneficial forums for communication and engagement that I’ve experienced in Sakai in a long time.

One of the things I liked about the proposal was that Sakai as a product is defined. I think a lack of vision has been a major hurdle these past few years. I see this a positive step forward but the devil is in the details. Before I dive into critique, I want to be clear that I don't think these are things that can't be worked through. They just happen to be points that need careful consideration and detail before we all drink the kool aid.

To begin with, the largest hurdle is going to be communication. Let's all be honest, we're all really bad at this for a multitude of reasons! The proposal adds complexity and without clear definition of who is to do what and how we're going to end up less coordinated. In addition, I have a few simple requests: I want it [communication] to be consistent, reliable and simple. Please, please don't make me read lengthy messages where I need to analyze every word for hidden meaning.

Also, I feel *strongly* that the product council should not include members of the board. The board should be visionary and assist in laying out a broad strategy for community execution (like the current proposal!). Once those members become bogged down in the day to day operational details, they will become less effective as the visionary leaders they have been elected to be. This isn't to say that there aren't members that wouldn't be a good fit on the council - they should just be one or the other.

MK: I disagree with this. I think we should take talent wherever it comes from at this point it time. Now it may be that, eventually, the product council is where certain board members would rather spend their time (as opposed to Foundation governance issues). And I could see it eventually being a problem to have someone playing both roles. But for now I think it would be a mistake to exclude qualified individuals.

Are we having trouble getting the names of folks and/or folks with enough time? If that the case, I find it concerning that there aren’t enough folks willing to do this job. On a side note, I wish these nominations were made public – I don’t see why we can’t collectively know who the community seeks to represent them.

Lastly, it seems that the product council is not only tasked with being the gatekeepers and shepherds but also the group that defines the standards. Performing as gatekeepers and shepherds requires quite a different skill set and temperament than defining the standards. I'd advocate that a short term task force that was charged with initially defining said standards that the council could use. I think that approach could result in a much faster implementation of this process as well as garner a wider breadth of knowledge. Something that will be *key* in ensuring we have appropriate standards/criteria. Future looking, when the standards/criteria need revisiting, the council could recommend the community assemble a new task force.

MK: I like this proposal very much. Are you proposing someone (the board, me?) create such a task force or that a group of willing volunteers start working on it? I prefer the latter--community action is still the bread and butter of Sakai and is what will make this work.

I’d like for you and the board to endorse the formation of a task force. Appoint someone to lead the group and ask for volunteers in the community that can dedicate time to it right now.

Michael

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Michael Korcuska

Executive Director, Sakai Foundation

mkorcuska@...

phone: +1 510-931-6559

mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586

skype: mkorcuska

Discuss Sakai 3 and library integration, 3/10, 11am - 12:30pm EDT

2009-03-03T11:37:49Z

The Sakai and library communities are invited to participate in a videoconference / conference call to discuss ideas for library integration with Sakai 3, hosted by the Sakaibrary project of Indiana University and the University of Michigan. The call will be held Tuesday, March 10 from 11am - 12:30pm EDT (15:00-16:30 GMT). We selected this time in an effort to be as inclusive as possible of the wide range of time zones in which the Sakai community lives.

Since Sakai's beginnings, there have been various efforts to integrate content from a wide range of sources with the Sakai framework, from locally created repositories to licensed content from commercial vendors. Individual campuses have different needs regarding access to content and library services via Sakai. Sakai 3 offers an opportunity to consider work that has been done and identify potential future directions. Prior to the call, we invite you to look at usage scenarios that have been collected by the Sakaibrary project to guide development of the Citations Helper and prototype Research Guides tool available at:
<http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/SLIB/Usage+Scenarios+Collected+2009><http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/SLIB/Usage+Scenarios+Collected+2009>. These scenarios have provided very valuable insights into faculty, student, and librarian needs with regards to library integration.

The call will take place on the Sakai 001 conference bridge:

* IP Address: 156.56.240.9
* Telephone: 812-856-7060
* Conference Code: 348#
* PIN: 72524#

A more detailed agenda will be sent out prior to the call. Please accept our apologies if you are interested in this topic but the time does not work for you. We hope to schedule some additional conversations in the future, so please contact us by e-mail if you are interested but can't participate in next week's call.

Thanks, and looking forward to talking with you.

Jon Dunn, Indiana University, jwd@...
Susan Hollar, University of Michigan, shollar@...

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Discuss Sakai 3 and library integration, 3/10, 11am - 12:30pm EDT

2009-03-03T09:45:23Z

The Sakai and library communities are invited to participate in a videoconference / conference call to discuss ideas for library integration with Sakai 3, hosted by the Sakaibrary project of Indiana University and the University of Michigan. The call will be held Tuesday, March 10 from 11am - 12:30pm EDT (15:00-16:30 GMT). We selected this time in an effort to be as inclusive as possible of the wide range of time zones in which the Sakai community lives.

Since Sakai's beginnings, there have been various efforts to integrate content from a wide range of sources with the Sakai framework, from locally created repositories to licensed content from commercial vendors. Individual campuses have different needs regarding access to content and library services via Sakai. Sakai 3 offers an opportunity to consider work that has been done and identify potential future directions. Prior to the call, we invite you to look at usage scenarios that have been collected by the Sakaibrary project to guide development of the Citations Helper and prototype Research Guides tool available at:
<http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/SLIB/Usage+Scenarios+Collected+2009>. These scenarios have provided very valuable insights into faculty, student, and librarian needs with regards to library integration.

The call will take place on the Sakai 001 conference bridge:

* IP Address: 156.56.240.9
* Telephone: 812-856-7060
* Conference Code: 348#
* PIN: 72524#

A more detailed agenda will be sent out prior to the call. Please accept our apologies if you are interested in this topic but the time does not work for you. We hope to schedule some additional conversations in the future, so please contact us by e-mail if you are interested but can't participate in next week's call.

Thanks, and looking forward to talking with you.

Jon Dunn, Indiana University, jwd@...
Susan Hollar, University of Michigan, shollar@...

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RE: Collab Email List Status

2009-03-02T07:15:03Z

It's my understanding that the problems were with email service external to the Collab server. The good news at the moment, however, is that we do finally seem to be back in business, with all list traffic making it through.

We do still plan on migrating to a list serve this week though. UHI has graciously hosted Collab for the community for awhile now, however, they need to contribute elsewhere these days. So rather than looking for another volunteer to host Collab immediately, we are going to temporarily use the list serve approach, while we await the earlier adopters release of Sakai 3.0 mid-year. Once that is out, then we plan to centralize and replace the currently dual roles of Collab and sakaiproject.org with a single Sakai instance to support many of the community's collaboration infrastructure needs.

-peter
Sakai Project Coordinator

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Beth Kirschner [mailto:bkirschn@...]
> Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 9:34 AM
> To: Knoop, Peter
> Cc: sakai-dev@...; sakai-user;
> production@...
> Subject: Re: Collab Email List Status
>
> Peter,
>
> In the spirit of 'eating our own dogfood', I wonder if we think
> the source of the problem is internal or external to Sakai?
>
> - Beth
>
> On Mar 1, 2009, at 6:45 PM, Knoop, Peter wrote:
>
> > Okay, after sending this email, it did not reach many folks, so I
> > think we can safely say the Collab email lists are not working
> > correctly yet. We hope to migrate the lists to a list serve early
> > next week.
> >
> > -peter
> > Sakai Project Coordinator
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Knoop, Peter
> > > Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 1:50 PM
> > > To: sakai-dev@...; sakai-user;
> > > production@...
> > > Subject: Collab Email List Status
> > >
> > > As most everyone has hopefully realized by now, Collab email lists
> > have
> > > been variously unreliable recently (which also means updates on the
> > > problems sent to those same lists may not have reached you ;) We
> > > appear to be back in business now, however, as indications are that
> > > UHI, which hosts Collab for the community, has made progress in
> > > addressing their campus-wide infrastructure failure. That failure
> > > indirectly impacted Collab's ability to send email to site
> > members, but
> > > did not interrupt the inbound flow of email. So, if you want to
> > check
> > > for messages you might have missed, you can go to the site's Email
> > > Archive. I would also recommend that you resend any important
> emails
> > > you were hoping for feedback on that may not have reached everyone
> > on a
> > > list.
> > >
> > > Going forward, we will be replacing the use of Collab for email
> > lists
> > > with a simple mail list-serve solution, since most sites ended up
> > not
> > > using any of Sakai's other collaboration capabilities. This should
> > > help lower the bar for folks subscribing/unsubscribing to the email
> > > lists too, as well as eliminated the administration overhead of
> > > maintaining Collab. We'll be sending more information around about
> > > this change in the coming days as we formalize migration plans.
> > >
> > > If you have any questions, please let me know.
> > >
> > > -peter
> > > Sakai Project Coordinator
> >
> > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> > ) from the DG: Development / Building Sakai site.
> > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> > Preferences.

Re: Collab Email List Status

2009-03-02T06:34:19Z

Peter,

In the spirit of 'eating our own dogfood', I wonder if we think
the source of the problem is internal or external to Sakai?

- Beth

On Mar 1, 2009, at 6:45 PM, Knoop, Peter wrote:

> Okay, after sending this email, it did not reach many folks, so I
> think we can safely say the Collab email lists are not working
> correctly yet. We hope to migrate the lists to a list serve early
> next week.
>
> -peter
> Sakai Project Coordinator
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Knoop, Peter
> > Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 1:50 PM
> > To: sakai-dev@...; sakai-user;
> > production@...
> > Subject: Collab Email List Status
> >
> > As most everyone has hopefully realized by now, Collab email lists
> have
> > been variously unreliable recently (which also means updates on the
> > problems sent to those same lists may not have reached you ;) We
> > appear to be back in business now, however, as indications are that
> > UHI, which hosts Collab for the community, has made progress in
> > addressing their campus-wide infrastructure failure. That failure
> > indirectly impacted Collab's ability to send email to site
> members, but
> > did not interrupt the inbound flow of email. So, if you want to
> check
> > for messages you might have missed, you can go to the site's Email
> > Archive. I would also recommend that you resend any important emails
> > you were hoping for feedback on that may not have reached everyone
> on a
> > list.
> >
> > Going forward, we will be replacing the use of Collab for email
> lists
> > with a simple mail list-serve solution, since most sites ended up
> not
> > using any of Sakai's other collaboration capabilities. This should
> > help lower the bar for folks subscribing/unsubscribing to the email
> > lists too, as well as eliminated the administration overhead of
> > maintaining Collab. We'll be sending more information around about
> > this change in the coming days as we formalize migration plans.
> >
> > If you have any questions, please let me know.
> >
> > -peter
> > Sakai Project Coordinator
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> ) from the DG: Development / Building Sakai site.
> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> Preferences.

RE: Collab Email List Status

2009-03-01T15:45:35Z

Okay, after sending this email, it did not reach many folks, so I think we can safely say the Collab email lists are not working correctly yet. We hope to migrate the lists to a list serve early next week.

-peter
Sakai Project Coordinator

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Knoop, Peter
> Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 1:50 PM
> To: sakai-dev@...; sakai-user;
> production@...
> Subject: Collab Email List Status
>
> As most everyone has hopefully realized by now, Collab email lists have
> been variously unreliable recently (which also means updates on the
> problems sent to those same lists may not have reached you ;) We
> appear to be back in business now, however, as indications are that
> UHI, which hosts Collab for the community, has made progress in
> addressing their campus-wide infrastructure failure. That failure
> indirectly impacted Collab's ability to send email to site members, but
> did not interrupt the inbound flow of email. So, if you want to check
> for messages you might have missed, you can go to the site's Email
> Archive. I would also recommend that you resend any important emails
> you were hoping for feedback on that may not have reached everyone on a
> list.
>
> Going forward, we will be replacing the use of Collab for email lists
> with a simple mail list-serve solution, since most sites ended up not
> using any of Sakai's other collaboration capabilities. This should
> help lower the bar for folks subscribing/unsubscribing to the email
> lists too, as well as eliminated the administration overhead of
> maintaining Collab. We'll be sending more information around about
> this change in the coming days as we formalize migration plans.
>
> If you have any questions, please let me know.
>
> -peter
> Sakai Project Coordinator

Collab Email List Status

2009-03-01T10:49:55Z

As most everyone has hopefully realized by now, Collab email lists have been variously unreliable recently (which also means updates on the problems sent to those same lists may not have reached you ;) We appear to be back in business now, however, as indications are that UHI, which hosts Collab for the community, has made progress in addressing their campus-wide infrastructure failure. That failure indirectly impacted Collab's ability to send email to site members, but did not interrupt the inbound flow of email. So, if you want to check for messages you might have missed, you can go to the site's Email Archive. I would also recommend that you resend any important emails you were hoping for feedback on that may not have reached everyone on a list.

Going forward, we will be replacing the use of Collab for email lists with a simple mail list-serve solution, since most sites ended up not using any of Sakai's other collaboration capabilities. This should help lower the bar for folks subscribing/unsubscribing to the email lists too, as well as eliminated the administration overhead of maintaining Collab. We'll be sending more information around about this change in the coming days as we formalize migration plans.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

-peter
Sakai Project Coordinator
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Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award application DEADLINE is extended to 11:59 pm GMT, Monday, March 2, 2009.

2009-02-27T09:49:40Z

Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award application DEADLINE is extended to
allow for weekend submissions to 11:59 PM GMT, Monday, March 2, 2009.

Are you a faculty member who engages your students using Sakai
(www.sakaiproject.org) or, know of a colleague who does so? If you
believe that you or someone you know has created a Sakai course which
transforms the learning experience, we want to hear from you. We are
looking for teachers whose courses best exemplify excellent teaching
practices combined with innovative solutions. Please share your story
with us and with other faculty around the world by applying for the
Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award, which is being sponsored this year
by IBM (www.ibm.com), with additional support from rSmart
(www.rsmart.com) and John Wiley and Sons (www.wiley.com) all of whom are
Sakai Commercial Affiliates. Check out our self-scoring rubric today to
see how your course stacks up at www.OpenEdpractices.org

Go to the same url to learn more about the award and access an online
application form. The application deadline is March 2, 2009, at 11:59
PMGMT. Winners will be awarded a trip to Boston, Massachusetts, to
present at the 10th Sakai Conference and receive their award during the
conference.

Entries will also seed a collection of innovative practices in the
OpenEdpractices.org repository, a community of practice for teaching and
learning with open/community-source tools supported in part by rSmart,
the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and Marist
College.

TWSIA 2009 Committee Chair

Susan Roig * Director Academic Technology, Claremont Graduate
University * SunGard * Higher Education * 150 E. Tenth Street,
Claremont, CA 91711 * Tel 909-607-8412 * Fax 909-607-7285 *
susan.roig@... <mailto:susan.roig@...> * www.sungardhe.com
<http://www.sungardhe.com/>

..After all, as Einstein said, not everything that can be measured
matters, and not everything that matters can be measured...

CONFIDENTIALITY: This email (including any attachments) may contain
confidential, proprietary and privileged information, and unauthorized
disclosure or use is prohibited. If you received this email in error,
please notify the sender and delete this email from your system. Thank
you.

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RE: Use of Respondus

2009-02-26T17:29:53Z

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Plourde, Mathieu [mailto:mathieu@...]
>Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 7:34 AM

>At the University of Delaware, we have had a campus license
>with Respondus for a while. Our faculty member enjoy creating
>their quizzes in Respondus and exporting them to their WebCT
>courses. Through the GA Tech utility, most faculty members who
>had quizzes in WebCT were able to migrate them to Sakai.
>
>As WebCT is being phased out, we are in the process of
>rethinking about this campus agreement. Respondus supports all
>other major LMSs, even Moodle, but not Sakai. Do any of you
>use another quiz-aid? Is there one that's compliant with Sakai?

Hi, Mathieu:

Although not released to Sakai yet (it's fresh out of the oven here on
Etudes central-land), we have support for offline question authoring and the
ability to paste and import properly-tagged questions right into Mneme -
Test Center.

I don't know of the advantage of authoring in Respondus, as opposed to a
plain text editor (a good question for your faculty), but I wanted to let
you know that we support paste and import from Respondus exports, with minor
adjusting (stripping of blank lines within Respondus questions). The only
Respondus question not supported is uneven matching questions. We support
all Mneme question types, except task and likert-scale.

For a sneak preview of the format specifications and sample questions, see:
http://etudes.org/mneme/paste-and-import-instructions.htm

We will work on QTI 1.2 import / export support for Mneme, following the
Respondus QTI implementation later this spring. In the meantime, we are
moving onto offering support for 'export' of one or more question pools to
text files (same format).

Feel free to contact me directly with any questions.

Best,
Vivie

--
Vivie Sinou
Executive Director, Etudes, Inc.
http://etudes.org/

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Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award application DEADLINE is extended to Midnight GMT, Monday, March 2, 2009.

2009-02-26T17:07:19Z

Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award application DEADLINE is extended to
allow for weekend submissions to Midnight GMT, Monday, March 2, 2009.

Are you a faculty member who engages your students using Sakai
(www.sakaiproject.org) or, know of a colleague who does so? If you
believe that you or someone you know has created a Sakai course which
transforms the learning experience, we want to hear from you. We are
looking for teachers whose courses best exemplify excellent teaching
practices combined with innovative solutions. Please share your story
with us and with other faculty around the world by applying for the
Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award, which is being sponsored this year
by IBM (www.ibm.com), with additional support from rSmart
(www.rsmart.com) and John Wiley and Sons (www.wiley.com) all of whom are
Sakai Commercial Affiliates. Check out our self-scoring rubric today to
see how your course stacks up at www.OpenEdpractices.org

Go to the same url to learn more about the award and access an online
application form. The application deadline is February 27, 2009, at
midnight GMT. Winners will be awarded a trip to Boston, Massachusetts,
to present at the 10th Sakai Conference and receive their award during
the conference.

Entries will also seed a collection of innovative practices in the
OpenEdpractices.org repository, a community of practice for teaching and
learning with open/community-source tools supported in part by rSmart,
the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and Marist
College.

TWSIA 2009 Committee Chair

Susan Roig * Director Academic Technology, Claremont Graduate
University * SunGard * Higher Education * 150 E. Tenth Street,
Claremont, CA 91711 * Tel 909-607-8412 * Fax 909-607-7285 *
susan.roig@... <mailto:susan.roig@...> * www.sungardhe.com
<http://www.sungardhe.com/>

..After all, as Einstein said, not everything that can be measured
matters, and not everything that matters can be measured...

CONFIDENTIALITY: This email (including any attachments) may contain
confidential, proprietary and privileged information, and unauthorized
disclosure or use is prohibited. If you received this email in error,
please notify the sender and delete this email from your system. Thank
you.

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Daylight Savings Time Coming Soon: Check your meeting times...

2009-02-25T15:26:14Z

The switch to Daylight Savings Time (DST) is approaching. As we are a global community is important to note that not everyone switches to DST at the same time; therefore, you may need to make special accommodations in scheduling meetings where some of the participants have switched and some have not. This year most of North America will switch on 8 March 2009, whereas most of Europe will do so later, on 29 March 2009, and much of Australia will switch even later, on 5 April 2009.

There are a variety of websites that can help you figure out what the correct meeting times are for various localities. Here's one I have found useful:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

They also have a nice table of when places will switch this time around:

http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst2009a.html

Note that Collab, which is running Sakai 2.5, suffers from SAK-15781, so if you're looking at the Sakai Conference Bridge schedule, then be careful of how you interpret meeting times between 9 March and 5 April! The times maybe an hour off for you...

-peter
Sakai Project Coordinator
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Another Sakai3 Demo: 11-Mar-2009 (Wednesday) 3-4PM Eastern US time

2009-02-25T11:53:20Z

For those that were unable to attend the first two Sakai 3 demo opportunities, I will be offering another one on Wednesday, 11 March 2009, at 3:00-4:00pm Eastern US (Noon Pacific/7pm UTC). If you plan to attend, please RSVP to me so that we can try to anticipate any connection overload problems.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Knoop, Peter
> Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 11:02 AM
> To: 'sakai-user@...'
> Subject: Another Sakai3 Demo: 20-Feb-2009 Noon-1PM Eastern US time
>
> For those who were unable to attend the earlier Sakai 3 demo due to
> time conflicts, I'll be repeating the demo this Friday, 20 February
> 2009, from Noon - 1pm Eastern Time (9am Pacific/5pm UTC). If you plan
> to attend, please RSVP to me so that we can try to anticipate any
> connection overload problems.
>
> We will make use of two Indiana systems for the demo, Adobe Connect for
> the screen-sharing and the Sakai001 Conference Bridge for audio:
>
> Adobe Connect/Breeze: http://breeze.iu.edu/r76418368/
> * Click "Enter as a Guest"
> * Type in your first & last name AND your institution (e.g., Peter
> Knoop - Sakai Foundation)
> * Click "Enter Room"
>
> Sakai001 Conference Bridge:
> * Telephone: 812-856-7060 or IP Address: 156.56.240.9
> * Conference Code: 348#
> * PIN: 72524#
> * (Directions: http://tinyurl.com/webbridge)
>
>
> Here are some additional links for Sakai 3 as well:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/553k9l - Michael Korcuska's proposal to the
> community for Sakai 3
>
> http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/DQLWAg - Some basic
> information on Sakai 3 and a collection of useful links.
>
> http://3akai.sakaiproject.org - A demo server where you can try out
> some of the early Sakai 3 functionality yourself at any time. This
> will be the server used in the demo.
>
> http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/FAfWAg - Sakai 3
> Milestone 1 release for those who want to install and try it out
> themselves.
>
>
> If you have any questions, please let me know.
>
> -peter
> Sakai Project Coordinator
>

Using external groups for discussing Sakai related things

2009-02-23T03:23:05Z

Hi all,

Recently a number of groups have been appearing outside of the
traditional Sakai Collab/Confluence/Jira infrastructure, for
discussing Sakai related developments. I feel that this is dangerous
and has the potential to fragment the community. Discussions and
decisions appear to be being made 'behind closed doors'.

Whilst I realise those groups are open for anyone to join, many look
only towards Collab and Confluence for a central point of discussion
and information so may not be aware of many important discussions
being made in these other groups, nor have the chance to have their
input heard.

Sakai is a vibrant open community and we should keep these discussions
centralised and open for all, especially with the changes coming in
the near future. Do people agree?

regards,
Steve

---
Steve Swinsburg
Portal Systems Developer
Centre for e-Science
Lancaster University
Lancaster
LA1 4YT

email: s.swinsburg@...
phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870

[see attachment: "smime.p7s", size: 2437 bytes]

Attachments:

smime.p7s
https://collab.sakaiproject.org//access/content/attachment/52c7fb9f-a828-4ab0-84d6-56d844e423cd/smime.p7s

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RE: Use of Respondus

2009-02-20T08:22:44Z

Hi Mathieu,

I seem to remember from a presentation at the last Sakai conference that Samigo is QTI v 1.2 compliant. Can Respondus export this type?

Kate Ellis

Instructional Technology Consultant and Designer
Teaching and Learning Technologies Center
Wells Library 305 West Tower
Indiana University Bloomington
812-855-9024
http://www.indiana.edu/~tltc

From: Plourde, Mathieu [mailto:mathieu@...]
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 10:34 AM
To: pedagogy; Sakai User
Cc: Sakai Developers
Subject: Use of Respondus

Hi,

At the University of Delaware, we have had a campus license with Respondus for a while. Our faculty member enjoy creating their quizzes in Respondus and exporting them to their WebCT courses. Through the GA Tech utility, most faculty members who had quizzes in WebCT were able to migrate them to Sakai.

As WebCT is being phased out, we are in the process of rethinking about this campus agreement. Respondus supports all other major LMSs, even Moodle, but not Sakai. Do any of you use another quiz-aid? Is there one that's compliant with Sakai?

Best Regards,

=================================

Mathieu Plourde, MBA
Instructional Designer
IT-User Services
021 Smith Hall
18 Amstel Avenue
Newark, DE 19716

Phone: 302-831-4060
Fax: 302-831-4205
mathieu@...<mailto:mathieu@...>
http://copland.udel.edu/~mathieu/

=================================

________________________________

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Re: MathType

2009-02-19T14:10:15Z

Hi Ricci,

The Etudes folk might be able to comment here, they made Sferyx
available as an option in Melete. When I was looking at MathML last
year, we looked at Sferyx but it was far too expensive for our needs.

cheers,
Steve

---
Steve Swinsburg
Portal Systems Developer
Centre for e-Science
Lancaster University
Lancaster
LA1 4YT

email: s.swinsburg@...
phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870

On 19/02/2009, at 9:28 PM, Ricci, Margaret P wrote:

> Has anyone used sferyx with its equation editor?
>
>
> On 2/18/09 9:58 AM, "Steven Githens" <swgithen@...> wrote:
>
> Good Morning Steve... of the Swinsburg variety,
>
> I had thought a little about doing this sort of thing but ran into the
> following problematic bullet points:
>
> * Making it re-editable in FCK. The right click context menu
> basically
> has a listener that receives the tag(s) that are under your pointer
> when
> you right click somewhere. We could probably group the <img/> and
> <mathml/> together in a bigger tag, so I don't think this is a
> showstopper, but something that would take a fair amount of time of
> dinking around with and testing.
> * What happens when someone actually has MathML support in their
> browser? They end up seeing 2 of everything, since we can't really
> have
> any javascript in resource content to test for MathML support and then
> toggle one or the other. I don't think CSS has any constructs with
> enough logic to optionally hide something like this either.
>
> However! We could have both the image and MathML, but always hide the
> MathML from visual display. That would at least make it more
> available
> for users with sensory impairments?
>
> -Steve
>
>
> Steve Swinsburg wrote:
> > Hi Steve,
> >
> > Rather than having the MathML encoded into the alt attribute on the
> > img tag, why not have both the img and the math tags inline. The
> base
> > math tag would have a class to hide it (and to hide it from
> > screenreaders as well). You could then have a more textual
> description
> > of the math formula as the alt tag which would be more accessible to
> > screenreaders than having to wade through math tags.
> >
> > In the future, when more browsers support MathML natively, the class
> > could just be adjusted, the images removed and the MathML would
> work.
> >
> > ie the quadratic roots equation would be represented like so:
> >
> > <img src="quadratic_roots.png" alt="x={-b +- sqrt {b^2 - 4ac}}
> over 2a" />
> > <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" <http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML
> > >
> > <mi>x</mi>
> > <mo>=</mo>
> > <mfrac>
> > <mrow>
> > <mrow>
> > <mo>-</mo>
> > <mi>b</mi>
> > </mrow>
> > <mo>±</mo>
> > <msqrt>
> > <msup>
> > <mi>b</mi>
> > <mn>2</mn>
> > </msup>
> > <mo>-</mo>
> > <mrow>
> > <mn>4</mn>
> > <mo>⁢</mo>
> > <mi>a</mi>
> > <mo>⁢</mo>
> > <mi>c</mi>
> > </mrow>
> > </msqrt>
> > </mrow>
> > <mrow>
> > <mn>2</mn>
> > <mo>⁢</mo>
> > <mi>a</mi>
> > </mrow>
> > </mfrac>
> > </math>
> >
> >
> >
> > and in the CSS
> >
> > math {
> > display:none;
> > }
> >
> > later to be adjusted so the MathML displays.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > cheers,
> > Steve
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > Steve Swinsburg
> > Portal Systems Developer
> > Centre for e-Science
> > Lancaster University
> > Lancaster
> > LA1 4YT
> >
> > email: s.swinsburg@... <">mailto:s.swinsburg@...
> > <mailto:s.swinsburg@...>
> > phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 17 Feb 2009, at 23:54, Steven Githens wrote:
> >
> >> Stephen Swinsburg wrote:
> >>>
> >>> The points about IE7 not working with it echo on and on... it
> would
> >>> be great to develop an FCK plugin that works according to the
> >>> standard. Those that want/need Math symbols may end up using a
> >>> browser that works!
> >>> I guess the images+MathML is the workaround for now?
> >> Exactly. The images work right now for browsers and users across
> the
> >> board**, and we'll need to push ahead with native MathML solution
> >> going forward.
> >>
> >> And yeah, I'd still like to experiment with having an option to
> >> choose between images and mathml.
> >>
> >> ~steve
> >>
> >> ** Well, ok, as The Mike Elledge pointed out it's probably not
> >> accessible. If there was somehow to put the MathML hidden on the
> img
> >> tag in a way that would make it available to visually impaired
> users
> >> for the moment that would be awesome. Again, at the current
> >> revision, the MathML is on the alt tag. (This is also what allows
> you
> >> to re-edit an existing equation. It reads the mathml off the alt
> tag
> >> to prepopulate the applet, and then replaces the image and alt text
> >> when you're done)
> >
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> ) from the DG: User / Using Sakai site.You can modify how you
> receive notifications at My Workspace > Preferences.
>
> Margaret Ricci
> Instructional Technology Consultant
> Teaching and Learning Technologies Center
> mricci@...
> 812-855-8355
>

Sakai just wont start

2009-02-18T13:24:00Z

For some reason, today Sakai will just no start up. It keeps telling me that darn error:

java.net.BindException: Address already in use
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketBind(Native Method)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.bind(PlainSocketImpl.java:359)
at java.net.ServerSocket.bind(ServerSocket.java:319)
at java.net.ServerSocket.<init>(ServerSocket.java:185)
at org.apache.avalon.cornerstone.blocks.sockets.DefaultServerSocketFactory.createServerSocket(DefaultServerSocketFactory.java:65)
at org.apache.james.core.AbstractJamesService.initialize(AbstractJamesService.java:347)
at org.apache.james.smtpserver.SMTPServer.initialize(SMTPServer.java:228)
at org.apache.avalon.framework.container.ContainerUtil.initialize(ContainerUtil.java:235)
at org.apache.excalibur.containerkit.lifecycle.LifecycleHelper.startup(LifecycleHelper.java:144)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.application.DefaultApplication.startup(DefaultApplication.java:481)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.application.DefaultApplication.doRunPhase(DefaultApplication.java:429)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.application.DefaultApplication.runPhase(DefaultApplication.java:365)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.application.DefaultApplication.start(DefaultApplication.java:139)
at org.apache.avalon.framework.container.ContainerUtil.start(ContainerUtil.java:251)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.kernel.DefaultKernel.startup(DefaultKernel.java:178)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.kernel.DefaultKernel.addApplication(DefaultKernel.java:254)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.deployer.DefaultDeployer.deploy(DefaultDeployer.java:353)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.embeddor.DefaultEmbeddor.deployFile(DefaultEmbeddor.java:498)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.embeddor.DefaultEmbeddor.deployFile(DefaultEmbeddor.java:491)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.embeddor.DefaultEmbeddor.deployFiles(DefaultEmbeddor.java:476)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.embeddor.DefaultEmbeddor.deployDefaultApplications(DefaultEmbeddor.java:466)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.components.embeddor.DefaultEmbeddor.execute(DefaultEmbeddor.java:224)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.frontends.CLIMain.run(CLIMain.java:158)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.frontends.CLIMain.execute(CLIMain.java:144)
at org.apache.avalon.phoenix.frontends.CLIMain.main(CLIMain.java:102)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.sakaiproject.james.PhoenixLauncherMain.startup(PhoenixLauncherMain.java:122)
at org.sakaiproject.james.JamesServlet$JamesRunner.run(JamesServlet.java:89)

This is when it craps out at James SMTP. That port is not used and no other process is using it. Any ideas?

Re: MathType

2009-02-18T08:15:43Z

John Norman wrote:
> And of course we make it more complicated in Sakai 3 by preferring
> TinyMCE editor over FCK for future accessibility support expectations.
> Some others are using Spheryx.
I have started looking a little at docs on how to write TinyMCE
plugins. Since TinyMCE is supposed to be better than FCK, and writing
plugin's for FCK is super easy, I'm guessing it will naturally present
itself soon. And I think there might be a few for some of these editors
already on the TinyMCE tip.

And like I mentioned in the 'Future' section, I'm hoping that there will
be an option for a completely open source stack here ( though neither
will probably be able to be distributable with our license ).

The DragMath applet handles MathML via javascript ok, and this library:
http://jeuclid.sourceforge.net/ can do the image rendering.

-s

>
> John
>
> On 18 Feb 2009, at 14:58, Steven Githens wrote:
>
> > Good Morning Steve... of the Swinsburg variety,
> >
> > I had thought a little about doing this sort of thing but ran into the
> > following problematic bullet points:
> >
> > * Making it re-editable in FCK. The right click context menu basically
> > has a listener that receives the tag(s) that are under your pointer
> > when
> > you right click somewhere. We could probably group the <img/> and
> > <mathml/> together in a bigger tag, so I don't think this is a
> > showstopper, but something that would take a fair amount of time of
> > dinking around with and testing.
> > * What happens when someone actually has MathML support in their
> > browser? They end up seeing 2 of everything, since we can't really
> > have
> > any javascript in resource content to test for MathML support and then
> > toggle one or the other. I don't think CSS has any constructs with
> > enough logic to optionally hide something like this either.
> >
> > However! We could have both the image and MathML, but always hide the
> > MathML from visual display. That would at least make it more available
> > for users with sensory impairments?
> >
> > -Steve
> >
> >
> > Steve Swinsburg wrote:
> > > Hi Steve,
> > >
> > > Rather than having the MathML encoded into the alt attribute on the
> > > img tag, why not have both the img and the math tags inline. The
> > base
> > > math tag would have a class to hide it (and to hide it from
> > > screenreaders as well). You could then have a more textual
> > description
> > > of the math formula as the alt tag which would be more accessible to
> > > screenreaders than having to wade through math tags.
> > >
> > > In the future, when more browsers support MathML natively, the class
> > > could just be adjusted, the images removed and the MathML would
> > work.
> > >
> > > ie the quadratic roots equation would be represented like so:
> > >
> > > <img src="quadratic_roots.png" alt="x={-b +- sqrt {b^2 - 4ac}}
> > over 2a" />
> > > <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"
> <http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML> >
> > > <mi>x</mi>
> > > <mo>=</mo>
> > > <mfrac>
> > > <mrow>
> > > <mrow>
> > > <mo>-</mo>
> > > <mi>b</mi>
> > > </mrow>
> > > <mo>±</mo>
> > > <msqrt>
> > > <msup>
> > > <mi>b</mi>
> > > <mn>2</mn>
> > > </msup>
> > > <mo>-</mo>
> > > <mrow>
> > > <mn>4</mn>
> > > <mo>⁢</mo>
> > > <mi>a</mi>
> > > <mo>⁢</mo>
> > > <mi>c</mi>
> > > </mrow>
> > > </msqrt>
> > > </mrow>
> > > <mrow>
> > > <mn>2</mn>
> > > <mo>⁢</mo>
> > > <mi>a</mi>
> > > </mrow>
> > > </mfrac>
> > > </math>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > and in the CSS
> > >
> > > math {
> > > display:none;
> > > }
> > >
> > > later to be adjusted so the MathML displays.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > cheers,
> > > Steve
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ---
> > > Steve Swinsburg
> > > Portal Systems Developer
> > > Centre for e-Science
> > > Lancaster University
> > > Lancaster
> > > LA1 4YT
> > >
> > > email: s.swinsburg@...
> <mailto:s.swinsburg@...
> > >
> > > phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 17 Feb 2009, at 23:54, Steven Githens wrote:
> > >
> > >> Stephen Swinsburg wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> The points about IE7 not working with it echo on and on... it
> > would
> > >>> be great to develop an FCK plugin that works according to the
> > >>> standard. Those that want/need Math symbols may end up using a
> > >>> browser that works!
> > >>> I guess the images+MathML is the workaround for now?
> > >> Exactly. The images work right now for browsers and users across
> > the
> > >> board**, and we'll need to push ahead with native MathML solution
> > >> going forward.
> > >>
> > >> And yeah, I'd still like to experiment with having an option to
> > >> choose between images and mathml.
> > >>
> > >> ~steve
> > >>
> > >> ** Well, ok, as The Mike Elledge pointed out it's probably not
> > >> accessible. If there was somehow to put the MathML hidden on the
> > img
> > >> tag in a way that would make it available to visually impaired
> > users
> > >> for the moment that would be awesome. Again, at the current
> > >> revision, the MathML is on the alt tag. (This is also what allows
> > you
> > >> to re-edit an existing equation. It reads the mathml off the alt
> > tag
> > >> to prepopulate the applet, and then replaces the image and alt text
> > >> when you're done)
> > >
> >
> >
> > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> > ) from the DG: Development / Building Sakai site.
> > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> > Preferences.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: Development /
> Building Sakai site.
> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> Preferences.

Re: MathType

2009-02-18T07:44:19Z

And of course we make it more complicated in Sakai 3 by preferring
TinyMCE editor over FCK for future accessibility support expectations.
Some others are using Spheryx.

John

On 18 Feb 2009, at 14:58, Steven Githens wrote:

> Good Morning Steve... of the Swinsburg variety,
>
> I had thought a little about doing this sort of thing but ran into the
> following problematic bullet points:
>
> * Making it re-editable in FCK. The right click context menu basically
> has a listener that receives the tag(s) that are under your pointer
> when
> you right click somewhere. We could probably group the <img/> and
> <mathml/> together in a bigger tag, so I don't think this is a
> showstopper, but something that would take a fair amount of time of
> dinking around with and testing.
> * What happens when someone actually has MathML support in their
> browser? They end up seeing 2 of everything, since we can't really
> have
> any javascript in resource content to test for MathML support and then
> toggle one or the other. I don't think CSS has any constructs with
> enough logic to optionally hide something like this either.
>
> However! We could have both the image and MathML, but always hide the
> MathML from visual display. That would at least make it more available
> for users with sensory impairments?
>
> -Steve
>
>
> Steve Swinsburg wrote:
> > Hi Steve,
> >
> > Rather than having the MathML encoded into the alt attribute on the
> > img tag, why not have both the img and the math tags inline. The
> base
> > math tag would have a class to hide it (and to hide it from
> > screenreaders as well). You could then have a more textual
> description
> > of the math formula as the alt tag which would be more accessible to
> > screenreaders than having to wade through math tags.
> >
> > In the future, when more browsers support MathML natively, the class
> > could just be adjusted, the images removed and the MathML would
> work.
> >
> > ie the quadratic roots equation would be represented like so:
> >
> > <img src="quadratic_roots.png" alt="x={-b +- sqrt {b^2 - 4ac}}
> over 2a" />
> > <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" >
> > <mi>x</mi>
> > <mo>=</mo>
> > <mfrac>
> > <mrow>
> > <mrow>
> > <mo>-</mo>
> > <mi>b</mi>
> > </mrow>
> > <mo>±</mo>
> > <msqrt>
> > <msup>
> > <mi>b</mi>
> > <mn>2</mn>
> > </msup>
> > <mo>-</mo>
> > <mrow>
> > <mn>4</mn>
> > <mo>⁢</mo>
> > <mi>a</mi>
> > <mo>⁢</mo>
> > <mi>c</mi>
> > </mrow>
> > </msqrt>
> > </mrow>
> > <mrow>
> > <mn>2</mn>
> > <mo>⁢</mo>
> > <mi>a</mi>
> > </mrow>
> > </mfrac>
> > </math>
> >
> >
> >
> > and in the CSS
> >
> > math {
> > display:none;
> > }
> >
> > later to be adjusted so the MathML displays.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > cheers,
> > Steve
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > Steve Swinsburg
> > Portal Systems Developer
> > Centre for e-Science
> > Lancaster University
> > Lancaster
> > LA1 4YT
> >
> > email: s.swinsburg@... <mailto:s.swinsburg@...
> >
> > phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 17 Feb 2009, at 23:54, Steven Githens wrote:
> >
> >> Stephen Swinsburg wrote:
> >>>
> >>> The points about IE7 not working with it echo on and on... it
> would
> >>> be great to develop an FCK plugin that works according to the
> >>> standard. Those that want/need Math symbols may end up using a
> >>> browser that works!
> >>> I guess the images+MathML is the workaround for now?
> >> Exactly. The images work right now for browsers and users across
> the
> >> board**, and we'll need to push ahead with native MathML solution
> >> going forward.
> >>
> >> And yeah, I'd still like to experiment with having an option to
> >> choose between images and mathml.
> >>
> >> ~steve
> >>
> >> ** Well, ok, as The Mike Elledge pointed out it's probably not
> >> accessible. If there was somehow to put the MathML hidden on the
> img
> >> tag in a way that would make it available to visually impaired
> users
> >> for the moment that would be awesome. Again, at the current
> >> revision, the MathML is on the alt tag. (This is also what allows
> you
> >> to re-edit an existing equation. It reads the mathml off the alt
> tag
> >> to prepopulate the applet, and then replaces the image and alt text
> >> when you're done)
> >
>
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> ) from the DG: Development / Building Sakai site.
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> Preferences.

Re: MathType

2009-02-18T07:11:44Z

Oh yeah, oops! I missed the CSS Class at the bottom.

Steve Swinsburg wrote:
> How complete is the plugin in order to change this functionality?
I'm sure there a few bugs, but the FCK Plugin works as is with the
images and re-editing them with a context menu, so it should be pretty
straightforward to fiddle around the the javascript for the plugin to do
this instead of just an <img/>

If Mike Elledge is still on the line here, how does that sound as far as
accessiblity? Having display:none MathML below the image?

cheers,
Steve

> cheers,
> Steve
>
> ---
> Steve Swinsburg
> Portal Systems Developer
> Centre for e-Science
> Lancaster University
> Lancaster
> LA1 4YT
>
> email: s.swinsburg@...
> phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 18 Feb 2009, at 14:58, Steven Githens wrote:
>
>> Good Morning Steve... of the Swinsburg variety,
>>
>> I had thought a little about doing this sort of thing but ran into
>> the following problematic bullet points:
>>
>> * Making it re-editable in FCK. The right click context menu
>> basically has a listener that receives the tag(s) that are under your
>> pointer when you right click somewhere. We could probably group the
>> <img/> and <mathml/> together in a bigger tag, so I don't think this
>> is a showstopper, but something that would take a fair amount of time
>> of dinking around with and testing.
>> * What happens when someone actually has MathML support in their
>> browser? They end up seeing 2 of everything, since we can't really
>> have any javascript in resource content to test for MathML support
>> and then toggle one or the other. I don't think CSS has any
>> constructs with enough logic to optionally hide something like this
>> either.
>>
>> However! We could have both the image and MathML, but always hide
>> the MathML from visual display. That would at least make it more
>> available for users with sensory impairments?
>>
>> -Steve
>>
>>
>> Steve Swinsburg wrote:
>>> Hi Steve,
>>>
>>> Rather than having the MathML encoded into the alt attribute on the
>>> img tag, why not have both the img and the math tags inline. The
>>> base math tag would have a class to hide it (and to hide it from
>>> screenreaders as well). You could then have a more textual
>>> description of the math formula as the alt tag which would be more
>>> accessible to screenreaders than having to wade through math tags.
>>>
>>> In the future, when more browsers support MathML natively, the class
>>> could just be adjusted, the images removed and the MathML would work.
>>>
>>> ie the quadratic roots equation would be represented like so:
>>>
>>> <img src="quadratic_roots.png" alt="x={-b +- sqrt {b^2 - 4ac}} over
>>> 2a" />
>>> <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" >
>>> <mi>x</mi>
>>> <mo>=</mo>
>>> <mfrac>
>>> <mrow>
>>> <mrow>
>>> <mo>-</mo>
>>> <mi>b</mi>
>>> </mrow>
>>> <mo>±</mo>
>>> <msqrt>
>>> <msup>
>>> <mi>b</mi>
>>> <mn>2</mn>
>>> </msup>
>>> <mo>-</mo>
>>> <mrow>
>>> <mn>4</mn>
>>> <mo>⁢</mo>
>>> <mi>a</mi>
>>> <mo>⁢</mo>
>>> <mi>c</mi>
>>> </mrow>
>>> </msqrt>
>>> </mrow>
>>> <mrow>
>>> <mn>2</mn>
>>> <mo>⁢</mo>
>>> <mi>a</mi>
>>> </mrow>
>>> </mfrac>
>>> </math>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> and in the CSS
>>>
>>> math {
>>> display:none;
>>> }
>>>
>>> later to be adjusted so the MathML displays.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> Steve
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Steve Swinsburg
>>> Portal Systems Developer
>>> Centre for e-Science
>>> Lancaster University
>>> Lancaster
>>> LA1 4YT
>>>
>>> email: s.swinsburg@... <mailto:s.swinsburg@...>
>>> phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 17 Feb 2009, at 23:54, Steven Githens wrote:
>>>
>>>> Stephen Swinsburg wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> The points about IE7 not working with it echo on and on... it
>>>>> would be great to develop an FCK plugin that works according to
>>>>> the standard. Those that want/need Math symbols may end up using a
>>>>> browser that works!
>>>>> I guess the images+MathML is the workaround for now?
>>>> Exactly. The images work right now for browsers and users across
>>>> the board**, and we'll need to push ahead with native MathML
>>>> solution going forward.
>>>>
>>>> And yeah, I'd still like to experiment with having an option to
>>>> choose between images and mathml.
>>>>
>>>> ~steve
>>>>
>>>> ** Well, ok, as The Mike Elledge pointed out it's probably not
>>>> accessible. If there was somehow to put the MathML hidden on the
>>>> img tag in a way that would make it available to visually impaired
>>>> users for the moment that would be awesome. Again, at the current
>>>> revision, the MathML is on the alt tag. (This is also what allows
>>>> you to re-edit an existing equation. It reads the mathml off the
>>>> alt tag to prepopulate the applet, and then replaces the image and
>>>> alt text when you're done)
>>>
>>
>

Re: MathType

2009-02-18T07:05:16Z

Hey Steve,

Your 'however' point is what I was alluding too, have it there but
always hidden until a point in time when we can turn it on, that point
being determined by the browser developer gods.
And I like the idea of wrapping it all in one big tag so that the
plugin can deal with one object.

So very basically, every math element would look like (assuming span
wraps it and keeps it all nice inline)

<img src="some_img.png" alt="some math expression that I can
read" />
<math xmlns="...">
<m:stuff />
</math>


and with the CSS
math {
display;none;
}

How complete is the plugin in order to change this functionality?

cheers,
Steve

---
Steve Swinsburg
Portal Systems Developer
Centre for e-Science
Lancaster University
Lancaster
LA1 4YT

email: s.swinsburg@...
phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870

On 18 Feb 2009, at 14:58, Steven Githens wrote:

> Good Morning Steve... of the Swinsburg variety,
>
> I had thought a little about doing this sort of thing but ran into
> the following problematic bullet points:
>
> * Making it re-editable in FCK. The right click context menu
> basically has a listener that receives the tag(s) that are under
> your pointer when you right click somewhere. We could probably
> group the <img/> and <mathml/> together in a bigger tag, so I don't
> think this is a showstopper, but something that would take a fair
> amount of time of dinking around with and testing.
> * What happens when someone actually has MathML support in their
> browser? They end up seeing 2 of everything, since we can't really
> have any javascript in resource content to test for MathML support
> and then toggle one or the other. I don't think CSS has any
> constructs with enough logic to optionally hide something like this
> either.
>
> However! We could have both the image and MathML, but always hide
> the MathML from visual display. That would at least make it more
> available for users with sensory impairments?
>
> -Steve
>
>
> Steve Swinsburg wrote:
>> Hi Steve,
>>
>> Rather than having the MathML encoded into the alt attribute on the
>> img tag, why not have both the img and the math tags inline. The
>> base math tag would have a class to hide it (and to hide it from
>> screenreaders as well). You could then have a more textual
>> description of the math formula as the alt tag which would be more
>> accessible to screenreaders than having to wade through math tags.
>>
>> In the future, when more browsers support MathML natively, the
>> class could just be adjusted, the images removed and the MathML
>> would work.
>>
>> ie the quadratic roots equation would be represented like so:
>>
>> <img src="quadratic_roots.png" alt="x={-b +- sqrt {b^2 - 4ac}} over
>> 2a" />
>> <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" >
>> <mi>x</mi>
>> <mo>=</mo>
>> <mfrac>
>> <mrow>
>> <mrow>
>> <mo>-</mo>
>> <mi>b</mi>
>> </mrow>
>> <mo>±</mo>
>> <msqrt>
>> <msup>
>> <mi>b</mi>
>> <mn>2</mn>
>> </msup>
>> <mo>-</mo>
>> <mrow>
>> <mn>4</mn>
>> <mo>⁢</mo>
>> <mi>a</mi>
>> <mo>⁢</mo>
>> <mi>c</mi>
>> </mrow>
>> </msqrt>
>> </mrow>
>> <mrow>
>> <mn>2</mn>
>> <mo>⁢</mo>
>> <mi>a</mi>
>> </mrow>
>> </mfrac>
>> </math>
>>
>>
>>
>> and in the CSS
>>
>> math {
>> display:none;
>> }
>>
>> later to be adjusted so the MathML displays.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> cheers,
>> Steve
>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>> Steve Swinsburg
>> Portal Systems Developer
>> Centre for e-Science
>> Lancaster University
>> Lancaster
>> LA1 4YT
>>
>> email: s.swinsburg@... <mailto:s.swinsburg@...
>> >
>> phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 17 Feb 2009, at 23:54, Steven Githens wrote:
>>
>>> Stephen Swinsburg wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The points about IE7 not working with it echo on and on... it
>>>> would be great to develop an FCK plugin that works according to
>>>> the standard. Those that want/need Math symbols may end up using
>>>> a browser that works!
>>>> I guess the images+MathML is the workaround for now?
>>> Exactly. The images work right now for browsers and users across
>>> the board**, and we'll need to push ahead with native MathML
>>> solution going forward.
>>>
>>> And yeah, I'd still like to experiment with having an option to
>>> choose between images and mathml.
>>>
>>> ~steve
>>>
>>> ** Well, ok, as The Mike Elledge pointed out it's probably not
>>> accessible. If there was somehow to put the MathML hidden on the
>>> img tag in a way that would make it available to visually impaired
>>> users for the moment that would be awesome. Again, at the current
>>> revision, the MathML is on the alt tag. (This is also what allows
>>> you to re-edit an existing equation. It reads the mathml off the
>>> alt tag to prepopulate the applet, and then replaces the image and
>>> alt text when you're done)
>>
>

[see attachment: "smime.p7s", size: 2437 bytes]

Attachments:

smime.p7s
https://collab.sakaiproject.org//access/content/attachment/48a37718-f66a-4c0c-90bb-430c07826297/smime.p7s

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Re: MathType

2009-02-18T01:42:37Z

Hi Steve,

Rather than having the MathML encoded into the alt attribute on the
img tag, why not have both the img and the math tags inline. The base
math tag would have a class to hide it (and to hide it from
screenreaders as well). You could then have a more textual description
of the math formula as the alt tag which would be more accessible to
screenreaders than having to wade through math tags.

In the future, when more browsers support MathML natively, the class
could just be adjusted, the images removed and the MathML would work.

ie the quadratic roots equation would be represented like so:

<img src="quadratic_roots.png" alt="x={-b +- sqrt {b^2 - 4ac}} over
2a" />
<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" >
<mi>x</mi>
<mo>=</mo>
<mfrac>
<mrow>
<mrow>
<mo>-</mo>
<mi>b</mi>
</mrow>
<mo>±</mo>
<msqrt>
<msup>
<mi>b</mi>
<mn>2</mn>
</msup>
<mo>-</mo>
<mrow>
<mn>4</mn>
<mo>⁢</mo>
<mi>a</mi>
<mo>⁢</mo>
<mi>c</mi>
</mrow>
</msqrt>
</mrow>
<mrow>
<mn>2</mn>
<mo>⁢</mo>
<mi>a</mi>
</mrow>
</mfrac>
</math>

and in the CSS

math {
display:none;
}

later to be adjusted so the MathML displays.

cheers,
Steve

---
Steve Swinsburg
Portal Systems Developer
Centre for e-Science
Lancaster University
Lancaster
LA1 4YT

email: s.swinsburg@...
phone: +44 (0) 1524 594870

On 17 Feb 2009, at 23:54, Steven Githens wrote:

> Stephen Swinsburg wrote:
>>
>> The points about IE7 not working with it echo on and on... it would
>> be great to develop an FCK plugin that works according to the
>> standard. Those that want/need Math symbols may end up using a
>> browser that works!
>> I guess the images+MathML is the workaround for now?
> Exactly. The images work right now for browsers and users across
> the board**, and we'll need to push ahead with native MathML
> solution going forward.
>
> And yeah, I'd still like to experiment with having an option to
> choose between images and mathml.
>
> ~steve
>
> ** Well, ok, as The Mike Elledge pointed out it's probably not
> accessible. If there was somehow to put the MathML hidden on the
> img tag in a way that would make it available to visually impaired
> users for the moment that would be awesome. Again, at the current
> revision, the MathML is on the alt tag. (This is also what allows
> you to re-edit an existing equation. It reads the mathml off the
> alt tag to prepopulate the applet, and then replaces the image and
> alt text when you're done)

[see attachment: "smime.p7s", size: 2437 bytes]

Attachments:

smime.p7s
https://collab.sakaiproject.org//access/content/attachment/5cad14b6-0aa5-4e0d-9659-00f21ab8e5da/smime.p7s

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Re: MathType

2009-02-17T14:01:43Z

FWIW I brought up a topic on a MathML plugin for the FCKeditor in
Sakai last year. Never got the resources to develop anything but it's
great that this topic is being discussed again, it's something that is
desperately needed and requested over and over again.

MathML is a W3C standard spec so it's something we should be focusing
on rather than the use of a proprietary app, although I can see that
as a good starting point.
One question, does the use of MathML really need to be full XHTML, or
is the namespace enough http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML?

The points about IE7 not working with it echo on and on... it would be
great to develop an FCK plugin that works according to the standard.
Those that want/need Math symbols may end up using a browser that works!
I guess the images+MathML is the workaround for now?

cheers,
Steve

On 17/02/2009, at 9:07 PM, Mark Norton wrote:

> I looked into providing support for MathML in Sousa and did some tests
> against various browsers. IE and Safari both require plugins to render
> MathML. Firefox 5+ has support for MathML, and getting better.
> However,
> there is a small gotcha w.r.t to Firefox and MathML. If you look real
> carefully at the MathML torture test pages, you will discover that
> they
> are XHTML pages with an extension of .xhtml. If you download one of
> these pages and change the extension to .html or .htm, it ceases to
> render.
>
> Why, you may ask? It's pretty simple. XHTML is required to conform to
> XML conventions. Firefox uses name space extensions to include the
> MathML notation (which is also XML (TeX is not, BTW)). HTML is a
> looser
> specification, which is why you can write instead of .
>
> Many presentation systems will not generate XHTML. JSF, for example,
> doesn't do all that good a job at it, though it might be improved.
> RSF,
> on the other hand, requires and enfoces XHTML for it's templates.
> Antranig assures me that it's simple to generate XTML pages from said
> templates.
>
> My notes on content support for Sousa can be viewed at:
> http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/SOUSA/Content+Notes
> including MathML notes.
>
> - Mark Norton
>
> D. Stuart Freeman wrote:
> > I think the implication for the FCKEditor is that we could add
> some kind
> > of filter that would take TeX inside of {math} tags and convert it
> to
> > mathML which the browser would then display. Another possibility
> would
> > be to add an "Insert Equation" button to the FCKEditor that when
> pressed
> > would open some sort of equation editor such as the applett that was
> > being discussed earlier in the thread. The output of that editor
> could
> > be inserted directly rather than rendered to a png for later
> display.
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 03:03:47PM -0500, Ricci, Margaret P wrote:
> >
> >> OK, I’m just jumping into this discussion, and I have a question
> or two.
> >> I just looked at the MIT page about MathML and was able to see
> everything
> >> on the Mozilla MathML torture test page without doing a thing (I
> have FF
> >> 3.0.6 also). Curiously, when I tried it in IE7 on Windows Vista,
> the “As
> >> rendered by your browser” column looked just fine while the “As
> rendered
> >> by TeX” column was completely empty.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I’m quite excited by the fact that I can see these things in my
> browsers
> >> without having to do a thing, but can someone tell me how this
> relates to
> >> the FCK editor? Like I said, I’m just trying to find my sealegs
> in this
> >> discussion, so if there is a good resource someone can point me
> to that
> >> will enlighten me, point away. Our urgency at IU to find an
> editor with
> >> math equation support just got ratcheted up a notch or two.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Many thanks,
> >>
> >> Maggie
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Margaret Ricci
> >>
> >> Instructional Technology Consultant
> >>
> >> Teaching and Learning Technologies Center
> >>
> >> Indiana University
> >>
> >> mricci@...
> >>
> >> 812-855-8355
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> From: abass.alamnehe [mailto:abass.alamnehe@...]
> >> Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 2:41 PM
> >> To: markjnorton@...; D. Stuart Freeman
> >> Cc: Steven Githens; David Goodrum; Michael Korcuska; sakai-dev Dev;
> >> sakai-user; Wheeler, William H.
> >> Subject: RE: MathType
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> The fonts problem could be lessen by the package provided below.
> >>
> >> [1]http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/webpublishing/mathml/index.html
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Thank You,
> >> -abass alamnehe
> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Mark Norton [[2]mailto:markjnorton@...]
> >> Sent: Tue 2/17/2009 1:12 PM
> >> To: D. Stuart Freeman
> >> Cc: Steven Githens; David Goodrum; Michael Korcuska; sakai-dev Dev;
> >> sakai-user; wheeler@...
> >> Subject: Re: MathType
> >>
> >> There is no way around the font issue. Even the plug-ins tend to
> >> require a symbols font, but they are included in the install.
> Most of
> >> the MathML renderers use SVG - which FireFox also supports natively
> >> now. SVG, while not perfect, does scale smoothly as long as the
> fonts
> >> it needs also scale well.
> >>
> >> - Mark
> >>
> >> D. Stuart Freeman wrote:
> >> > I'm indeed running Debian, so it's actually IceWeasel. My
> understanding
> >> > from the Mozilla pages is that Gecko based browsers now support
> mathml
> >> as
> >> > long as the fonts are installed.
> >> >
> >> > On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 01:38:09PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> D. Stuart Freeman wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>> This caught my interest, so I went to see what I would need
> to add to
> >> >>> Firefox to make it render mathml. I'm running version 3.0.6,
> and there
> >> >>> was no plugin necessary. I even already had all the fonts
> installed,
> >> it
> >> >>> just plain worked without any changes.
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >> That's really awesome, especially if it's an official Mozilla
> santioned
> >> >> Firefox build with nothing extra apt-getted (you're running
> Debian
> >> >> right? I'll have to fire up my VM's and try it on WinXP and OS
> X).
> >> >>
> >> >> Megacheers!
> >> >> Steve
> >> >>
> >> >>> I tested all of this at
> >> [3]http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/
> >> >>>
> >> >>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:33:14PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>>> Hello proxied Bill,
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> Currently the applets are only used for *authoring*. This
> was the
> >> major
> >> >>>> change between the first iteration and second iteration.
> Previously
> >> >>>> they were used for both authoring and viewing.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> Currently they are PNG files, and I definately agree that
> raster
> >> images
> >> >>>> are crappy. Which MathML plugins are you guys using for
> Firefox and
> >> IE
> >> >>>> (and I guess Safari) at the moment? Do you feel that they
> are robust
> >> >>>> enough to be 'officially' recommended for use by a university
> >> santioned
> >> >>>> CMS at the moment? When I looked at plugins a while back,
> they were
> >> >>>> pretty spotty across browsers.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> I was thinking that it would definately be possible to have
> a little
> >> >>>> option on the plugin that would allow you to either insert
> either an
> >> >>>> image with hidden MathML or just MathML. I can envision a
> lot of
> >> >>>> situations where you just really want to publish a few mathy
> things
> >> >>>> without forcing all your recipients to go through the pain of
> >> installing
> >> >>>> browser plugins. But at least the option would be available
> for those
> >> >>>> who are mathematically hip.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> A pure MathML solution does require more design work though,
> since
> >> you
> >> >>>> would need to somehow have FCK or whatever editor also
> render that in
> >> >>>> their editor. Realistically I think this next tag will be
> stuck with
> >> >>>> images (because it works right now), but it's certainly
> something
> >> that
> >> >>>> can be looked at going forward.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> I am actually really interested to hear what specific
> browser plugins
> >> >>>> you guys are using for viewing MathML at the moment though
> so I can
> >> >>>> check them out.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> Non-lossy Data Cheers,
> >> >>>> Steve
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> David Goodrum wrote:
> >> >>>> > Hi everyone,
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > I shared this information with a math professor here at
> Indiana
> >> >>>> > University. Prof. Bill Wheeler is also on our priorities
> committee
> >> for
> >> >>>> > IU's Sakai development. Here's part of his response (and
> I've cc'd
> >> >>>> > him on this message) - David Goodrum:
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > Dear David,
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > Thanks very much for sending me this note.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > I read the "readme", and it is interesting.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > However, I think the idea of converting MathML to images
> stored on
> >> a
> >> >>>> > server is bad.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > The point of MathML is that it can be rendered by
> browsers. We
> >> >>>> > abandoned stored images of mathematical expressions 6 or 7
> years
> >> ago.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > Although it might be that a stored image approach is the
> >> >>>> > most compatible one with the current Sakai technology, I
> think this
> >> is
> >> >>>> > not a good solution.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > The article does not mention what type of image is being
> stored. If
> >> >>>> > it is a true image file, e.g., gif, jpeg, or png, then it
> is not
> >> >>>> > scalable when the user adjusts the font size. The results
> can be
> >> >>>> > quite ugly.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > An advantage of MathML is that changes in font size apply
> to the
> >> >>>> > mathematical text as well as to the non-mathematical text.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > Another problem is that a single page can have many
> mathematical
> >> >>>> > expressions on it. So the number of image files on the
> server can
> >> >>>> > really explode, along with the overhead of serving all the
> images.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > And if the images are dynamically generated with different
> images
> >> for
> >> >>>> > each student (as in a homework assignment), the load on
> the server
> >> can
> >> >>>> > be very heavy.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > From the "readme", I can't discern whether the applet
> presently is
> >> >>>> > being served only to the author as part of the editor or
> generally
> >> >>>> > to all of the readers of the finished document. Do you know?
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > Thanks again.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > Sincerely,
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > Bill
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > Steven Githens wrote:
> >> >>>> > > Hi,
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> > > This is not the same product, but it's made by the same
> people...
> >> >>>> > > (Design Science)
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> > > In conjuction with Charles Sturt, I've been extending
> Rutgers
> >> WebEQ
> >> >>>> > > plugin to have a server side component to render the
> MathML into
> >> >>>> images
> >> >>>> > > ( so you don't have to embed Applets in the output ),
> and allow
> >> the
> >> >>>> > > equations to be re-editable.
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> > > I'm working on fixing a few remaining bugs ( at this
> very moment
> >> >>>> > > actually ), to prepare it for being vendor-droppable.
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> > >
> >> [1][4]https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> > > There is a readme here:
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>>
> >> [2][5]https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> > > Slightly off-topic Cheers,
> >> >>>> > > Steve
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> > > Michael Korcuska wrote:
> >> >>>> > > >
> >> >>>> > > > Has anybody used this product with Sakai?
> >> >>>> > > >
> >> >>>> > > > [3][6]http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
> >> >>>> > > >
> >> >>>> > > > --
> >> >>>> > > > Michael Korcuska
> >> >>>> > > > Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
> >> >>>> > > > mkorcuska@...
> >> >>>> > > > phone: +1 510-931-6559
> >> >>>> > > > mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
> >> >>>> > > > mobile (FR): +33 (0)6 31 11 58 97
> >> >>>> > > > skype: mkorcuska
> >> >>>> > > >
> >> >>>> > > >
> >> >>>> > > >
> >> >>>> > > >
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> >
> >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >>>> > > >
> >> >>>> > > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai
> Collab
> >> >>>> > > > ([4][7]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from
> the DG:
> >> >>>> Development /
> >> >>>> > > > Building Sakai site.
> >> >>>> > > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My
> Workspace >
> >> >>>> > > > Preferences.
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> >
> >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >>>> > >
> >> >>>> > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai
> Collab
> >> >>>> > > ([5][8]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the
> DG:
> >> Development
> >> >>>> /
> >> >>>> > > Building Sakai site.
> >> >>>> > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My
> Workspace >
> >> >>>> > > Preferences.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> >
> >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>> > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >> >>>> > ([6][9]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the
> DG: User /
> >> Using
> >> >>>> > Sakai site.
> >> >>>> > You can modify how you receive notifications at My
> Workspace >
> >> >>>> > Preferences.
> >> >>>> >
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>>
> >>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >> >>>> ([7][10]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
> >> Development /
> >> >>>> Building Sakai site.
> >> >>>> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> >> >>>> Preferences.
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> References
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> Visible links
> >> >>>> 1.
> >> [11]https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/
> trunk/
> >> >>>> 2.
> >> [12]https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
> >> >>>> 3. [13]http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
> >> >>>> 4. [14]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> >> >>>> 5. [15]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> >> >>>> 6. [16]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> >> >>>> 7. [17]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >> ----------------------
> >> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >> ([18]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
> Development /
> >> Building Sakai site.
> >> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> >> Preferences.
> >>
> >>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >> ([19]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: User /
> Using
> >> Sakai site.
> >> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> >> Preferences.
> >>
> >> References
> >>
> >> Visible links
> >> 1. http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/webpublishing/mathml/index.html
> >> 2. mailto:markjnorton@...
> >> 3. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/
> >> 4. https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
> >> 5. https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readmehtml
> >> 6. http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
> >> 7. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >> 8. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >> 9. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >> 10. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >> 11. https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/
> trunk/
> >> 12. https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
> >> 13. http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
> >> 14. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >> 15. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >> 16. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >> 17. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >> 18. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >> 19. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> >>
> >
> >
>
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> ) from the DG: Development / Building Sakai site.
> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> Preferences.

Re: MathType

2009-02-17T13:07:08Z

I looked into providing support for MathML in Sousa and did some tests
against various browsers. IE and Safari both require plugins to render
MathML. Firefox 5+ has support for MathML, and getting better. However,
there is a small gotcha w.r.t to Firefox and MathML. If you look real
carefully at the MathML torture test pages, you will discover that they
are XHTML pages with an extension of .xhtml. If you download one of
these pages and change the extension to .html or .htm, it ceases to render.

Why, you may ask? It's pretty simple. XHTML is required to conform to
XML conventions. Firefox uses name space extensions to include the
MathML notation (which is also XML (TeX is not, BTW)). HTML is a looser
specification, which is why you can write instead of .

Many presentation systems will not generate XHTML. JSF, for example,
doesn't do all that good a job at it, though it might be improved. RSF,
on the other hand, requires and enfoces XHTML for it's templates.
Antranig assures me that it's simple to generate XTML pages from said
templates.

My notes on content support for Sousa can be viewed at:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/SOUSA/Content+Notes
including MathML notes.

- Mark Norton

D. Stuart Freeman wrote:

> I think the implication for the FCKEditor is that we could add some kind
> of filter that would take TeX inside of {math} tags and convert it to
> mathML which the browser would then display. Another possibility would
> be to add an "Insert Equation" button to the FCKEditor that when pressed
> would open some sort of equation editor such as the applett that was
> being discussed earlier in the thread. The output of that editor could
> be inserted directly rather than rendered to a png for later display.
>
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 03:03:47PM -0500, Ricci, Margaret P wrote:
>
>> OK, I’m just jumping into this discussion, and I have a question or two.
>> I just looked at the MIT page about MathML and was able to see everything
>> on the Mozilla MathML torture test page without doing a thing (I have FF
>> 3.0.6 also). Curiously, when I tried it in IE7 on Windows Vista, the “As
>> rendered by your browser” column looked just fine while the “As rendered
>> by TeX” column was completely empty.
>>
>>
>>
>> I’m quite excited by the fact that I can see these things in my browsers
>> without having to do a thing, but can someone tell me how this relates to
>> the FCK editor? Like I said, I’m just trying to find my sealegs in this
>> discussion, so if there is a good resource someone can point me to that
>> will enlighten me, point away. Our urgency at IU to find an editor with
>> math equation support just got ratcheted up a notch or two.
>>
>>
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> Maggie
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Margaret Ricci
>>
>> Instructional Technology Consultant
>>
>> Teaching and Learning Technologies Center
>>
>> Indiana University
>>
>> mricci@...
>>
>> 812-855-8355
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: abass.alamnehe [mailto:abass.alamnehe@...]
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 2:41 PM
>> To: markjnorton@...; D. Stuart Freeman
>> Cc: Steven Githens; David Goodrum; Michael Korcuska; sakai-dev Dev;
>> sakai-user; Wheeler, William H.
>> Subject: RE: MathType
>>
>>
>>
>> The fonts problem could be lessen by the package provided below.
>>
>> [1]http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/webpublishing/mathml/index.html
>>
>> --
>>
>> Thank You,
>> -abass alamnehe
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mark Norton [[2]mailto:markjnorton@...]
>> Sent: Tue 2/17/2009 1:12 PM
>> To: D. Stuart Freeman
>> Cc: Steven Githens; David Goodrum; Michael Korcuska; sakai-dev Dev;
>> sakai-user; wheeler@...
>> Subject: Re: MathType
>>
>> There is no way around the font issue. Even the plug-ins tend to
>> require a symbols font, but they are included in the install. Most of
>> the MathML renderers use SVG - which FireFox also supports natively
>> now. SVG, while not perfect, does scale smoothly as long as the fonts
>> it needs also scale well.
>>
>> - Mark
>>
>> D. Stuart Freeman wrote:
>> > I'm indeed running Debian, so it's actually IceWeasel. My understanding
>> > from the Mozilla pages is that Gecko based browsers now support mathml
>> as
>> > long as the fonts are installed.
>> >
>> > On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 01:38:09PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:
>> >
>> >> D. Stuart Freeman wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> This caught my interest, so I went to see what I would need to add to
>> >>> Firefox to make it render mathml. I'm running version 3.0.6, and there
>> >>> was no plugin necessary. I even already had all the fonts installed,
>> it
>> >>> just plain worked without any changes.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >> That's really awesome, especially if it's an official Mozilla santioned
>> >> Firefox build with nothing extra apt-getted (you're running Debian
>> >> right? I'll have to fire up my VM's and try it on WinXP and OS X).
>> >>
>> >> Megacheers!
>> >> Steve
>> >>
>> >>> I tested all of this at
>> [3]http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/
>> >>>
>> >>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:33:14PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>> Hello proxied Bill,
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Currently the applets are only used for *authoring*. This was the
>> major
>> >>>> change between the first iteration and second iteration. Previously
>> >>>> they were used for both authoring and viewing.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Currently they are PNG files, and I definately agree that raster
>> images
>> >>>> are crappy. Which MathML plugins are you guys using for Firefox and
>> IE
>> >>>> (and I guess Safari) at the moment? Do you feel that they are robust
>> >>>> enough to be 'officially' recommended for use by a university
>> santioned
>> >>>> CMS at the moment? When I looked at plugins a while back, they were
>> >>>> pretty spotty across browsers.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I was thinking that it would definately be possible to have a little
>> >>>> option on the plugin that would allow you to either insert either an
>> >>>> image with hidden MathML or just MathML. I can envision a lot of
>> >>>> situations where you just really want to publish a few mathy things
>> >>>> without forcing all your recipients to go through the pain of
>> installing
>> >>>> browser plugins. But at least the option would be available for those
>> >>>> who are mathematically hip.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> A pure MathML solution does require more design work though, since
>> you
>> >>>> would need to somehow have FCK or whatever editor also render that in
>> >>>> their editor. Realistically I think this next tag will be stuck with
>> >>>> images (because it works right now), but it's certainly something
>> that
>> >>>> can be looked at going forward.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I am actually really interested to hear what specific browser plugins
>> >>>> you guys are using for viewing MathML at the moment though so I can
>> >>>> check them out.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Non-lossy Data Cheers,
>> >>>> Steve
>> >>>>
>> >>>> David Goodrum wrote:
>> >>>> > Hi everyone,
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > I shared this information with a math professor here at Indiana
>> >>>> > University. Prof. Bill Wheeler is also on our priorities committee
>> for
>> >>>> > IU's Sakai development. Here's part of his response (and I've cc'd
>> >>>> > him on this message) - David Goodrum:
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > Dear David,
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > Thanks very much for sending me this note.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > I read the "readme", and it is interesting.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > However, I think the idea of converting MathML to images stored on
>> a
>> >>>> > server is bad.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > The point of MathML is that it can be rendered by browsers. We
>> >>>> > abandoned stored images of mathematical expressions 6 or 7 years
>> ago.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > Although it might be that a stored image approach is the
>> >>>> > most compatible one with the current Sakai technology, I think this
>> is
>> >>>> > not a good solution.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > The article does not mention what type of image is being stored. If
>> >>>> > it is a true image file, e.g., gif, jpeg, or png, then it is not
>> >>>> > scalable when the user adjusts the font size. The results can be
>> >>>> > quite ugly.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > An advantage of MathML is that changes in font size apply to the
>> >>>> > mathematical text as well as to the non-mathematical text.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > Another problem is that a single page can have many mathematical
>> >>>> > expressions on it. So the number of image files on the server can
>> >>>> > really explode, along with the overhead of serving all the images.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > And if the images are dynamically generated with different images
>> for
>> >>>> > each student (as in a homework assignment), the load on the server
>> can
>> >>>> > be very heavy.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > From the "readme", I can't discern whether the applet presently is
>> >>>> > being served only to the author as part of the editor or generally
>> >>>> > to all of the readers of the finished document. Do you know?
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > Thanks again.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > Sincerely,
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > Bill
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > Steven Githens wrote:
>> >>>> > > Hi,
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> > > This is not the same product, but it's made by the same people...
>> >>>> > > (Design Science)
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> > > In conjuction with Charles Sturt, I've been extending Rutgers
>> WebEQ
>> >>>> > > plugin to have a server side component to render the MathML into
>> >>>> images
>> >>>> > > ( so you don't have to embed Applets in the output ), and allow
>> the
>> >>>> > > equations to be re-editable.
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> > > I'm working on fixing a few remaining bugs ( at this very moment
>> >>>> > > actually ), to prepare it for being vendor-droppable.
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> > >
>> [1][4]https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> > > There is a readme here:
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> >
>> >>>>
>> [2][5]https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> > > Slightly off-topic Cheers,
>> >>>> > > Steve
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> > > Michael Korcuska wrote:
>> >>>> > > >
>> >>>> > > > Has anybody used this product with Sakai?
>> >>>> > > >
>> >>>> > > > [3][6]http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
>> >>>> > > >
>> >>>> > > > --
>> >>>> > > > Michael Korcuska
>> >>>> > > > Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
>> >>>> > > > mkorcuska@...
>> >>>> > > > phone: +1 510-931-6559
>> >>>> > > > mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
>> >>>> > > > mobile (FR): +33 (0)6 31 11 58 97
>> >>>> > > > skype: mkorcuska
>> >>>> > > >
>> >>>> > > >
>> >>>> > > >
>> >>>> > > >
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> >
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>>> > > >
>> >>>> > > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>> >>>> > > > ([4][7]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
>> >>>> Development /
>> >>>> > > > Building Sakai site.
>> >>>> > > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>> >>>> > > > Preferences.
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> >
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>>> > >
>> >>>> > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>> >>>> > > ([5][8]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
>> Development
>> >>>> /
>> >>>> > > Building Sakai site.
>> >>>> > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>> >>>> > > Preferences.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> >
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>>> >
>> >>>> > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>> >>>> > ([6][9]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: User /
>> Using
>> >>>> > Sakai site.
>> >>>> > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>> >>>> > Preferences.
>> >>>> >
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>>>
>> >>>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>> >>>> ([7][10]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
>> Development /
>> >>>> Building Sakai site.
>> >>>> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>> >>>> Preferences.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> References
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Visible links
>> >>>> 1.
>> [11]https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
>> >>>> 2.
>> [12]https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
>> >>>> 3. [13]http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
>> >>>> 4. [14]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>> >>>> 5. [15]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>> >>>> 6. [16]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>> >>>> 7. [17]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >
>> >
>>
>> ----------------------
>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>> ([18]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: Development /
>> Building Sakai site.
>> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>> Preferences.
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>> ([19]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: User / Using
>> Sakai site.
>> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>> Preferences.
>>
>> References
>>
>> Visible links
>> 1. http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/webpublishing/mathml/index.html
>> 2. mailto:markjnorton@...
>> 3. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/
>> 4. https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
>> 5. https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
>> 6. http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
>> 7. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>> 8. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>> 9. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>> 10. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>> 11. https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
>> 12. https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
>> 13. http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
>> 14. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>> 15. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>> 16. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>> 17. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>> 18. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>> 19. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
>>
>
>

Re: MathType

2009-02-17T12:22:14Z

MSIE doesn't have MathML support by default, you'll have to use a plugin.
Everything I've seen reccommends MathPlayer
(http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/).

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 03:16:04PM -0500, Ricci, Margaret P wrote:

> Oops, I was wrong about IE7. I tried to open the MathML Torture test page
> in IE7, but it dumped itself into FireFox. My other attempts to get
> MathML to render in IE7 have not been successful, but I haven’t put in any
> plug-ins or looked at what fonts I’ve got.
>
>
>
> maggie
>
>
>
> From: Ricci, Margaret P [mailto:mricci@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 3:04 PM
> To: abass.alamnehe; markjnorton@...; D. Stuart Freeman
> Cc: Steven Githens; David Goodrum; Michael Korcuska; sakai-dev Dev;
> sakai-user; Wheeler, William H.
> Subject: RE: MathType
>
>
>
> OK, I’m just jumping into this discussion, and I have a question or two.
> I just looked at the MIT page about MathML and was able to see everything
> on the Mozilla MathML torture test page without doing a thing (I have FF
> 3.0.6 also). Curiously, when I tried it in IE7 on Windows Vista, the “As
> rendered by your browser” column looked just fine while the “As rendered
> by TeX” column was completely empty.
>
>
>
> I’m quite excited by the fact that I can see these things in my browsers
> without having to do a thing, but can someone tell me how this relates to
> the FCK editor? Like I said, I’m just trying to find my sealegs in this
> discussion, so if there is a good resource someone can point me to that
> will enlighten me, point away. Our urgency at IU to find an editor with
> math equation support just got ratcheted up a notch or two.
>
>
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Maggie
>
>
>
>
>
> Margaret Ricci
>
> Instructional Technology Consultant
>
> Teaching and Learning Technologies Center
>
> Indiana University
>
> mricci@...
>
> 812-855-8355
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: abass.alamnehe [mailto:abass.alamnehe@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 2:41 PM
> To: markjnorton@...; D. Stuart Freeman
> Cc: Steven Githens; David Goodrum; Michael Korcuska; sakai-dev Dev;
> sakai-user; Wheeler, William H.
> Subject: RE: MathType
>
>
>
> The fonts problem could be lessen by the package provided below.
>
> [1]http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/webpublishing/mathml/index.html
>
> --
>
> Thank You,
> -abass alamnehe
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Norton [[2]mailto:markjnorton@...]
> Sent: Tue 2/17/2009 1:12 PM
> To: D. Stuart Freeman
> Cc: Steven Githens; David Goodrum; Michael Korcuska; sakai-dev Dev;
> sakai-user; wheeler@...
> Subject: Re: MathType
>
> There is no way around the font issue. Even the plug-ins tend to
> require a symbols font, but they are included in the install. Most of
> the MathML renderers use SVG - which FireFox also supports natively
> now. SVG, while not perfect, does scale smoothly as long as the fonts
> it needs also scale well.
>
> - Mark
>
> D. Stuart Freeman wrote:
> > I'm indeed running Debian, so it's actually IceWeasel. My understanding
> > from the Mozilla pages is that Gecko based browsers now support mathml
> as
> > long as the fonts are installed.
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 01:38:09PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:
> >
> >> D. Stuart Freeman wrote:
> >>
> >>> This caught my interest, so I went to see what I would need to add to
> >>> Firefox to make it render mathml. I'm running version 3.0.6, and there
> >>> was no plugin necessary. I even already had all the fonts installed,
> it
> >>> just plain worked without any changes.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> That's really awesome, especially if it's an official Mozilla santioned
> >> Firefox build with nothing extra apt-getted (you're running Debian
> >> right? I'll have to fire up my VM's and try it on WinXP and OS X).
> >>
> >> Megacheers!
> >> Steve
> >>
> >>> I tested all of this at
> [3]http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:33:14PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Hello proxied Bill,
> >>>>
> >>>> Currently the applets are only used for *authoring*. This was the
> major
> >>>> change between the first iteration and second iteration. Previously
> >>>> they were used for both authoring and viewing.
> >>>>
> >>>> Currently they are PNG files, and I definately agree that raster
> images
> >>>> are crappy. Which MathML plugins are you guys using for Firefox and
> IE
> >>>> (and I guess Safari) at the moment? Do you feel that they are robust
> >>>> enough to be 'officially' recommended for use by a university
> santioned
> >>>> CMS at the moment? When I looked at plugins a while back, they were
> >>>> pretty spotty across browsers.
> >>>>
> >>>> I was thinking that it would definately be possible to have a little
> >>>> option on the plugin that would allow you to either insert either an
> >>>> image with hidden MathML or just MathML. I can envision a lot of
> >>>> situations where you just really want to publish a few mathy things
> >>>> without forcing all your recipients to go through the pain of
> installing
> >>>> browser plugins. But at least the option would be available for those
> >>>> who are mathematically hip.
> >>>>
> >>>> A pure MathML solution does require more design work though, since
> you
> >>>> would need to somehow have FCK or whatever editor also render that in
> >>>> their editor. Realistically I think this next tag will be stuck with
> >>>> images (because it works right now), but it's certainly something
> that
> >>>> can be looked at going forward.
> >>>>
> >>>> I am actually really interested to hear what specific browser plugins
> >>>> you guys are using for viewing MathML at the moment though so I can
> >>>> check them out.
> >>>>
> >>>> Non-lossy Data Cheers,
> >>>> Steve
> >>>>
> >>>> David Goodrum wrote:
> >>>> > Hi everyone,
> >>>> >
> >>>> > I shared this information with a math professor here at Indiana
> >>>> > University. Prof. Bill Wheeler is also on our priorities committee
> for
> >>>> > IU's Sakai development. Here's part of his response (and I've cc'd
> >>>> > him on this message) - David Goodrum:
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Dear David,
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Thanks very much for sending me this note.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > I read the "readme", and it is interesting.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > However, I think the idea of converting MathML to images stored on
> a
> >>>> > server is bad.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > The point of MathML is that it can be rendered by browsers. We
> >>>> > abandoned stored images of mathematical expressions 6 or 7 years
> ago.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Although it might be that a stored image approach is the
> >>>> > most compatible one with the current Sakai technology, I think this
> is
> >>>> > not a good solution.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > The article does not mention what type of image is being stored If
> >>>> > it is a true image file, e.g., gif, jpeg, or png, then it is not
> >>>> > scalable when the user adjusts the font size. The results can be
> >>>> > quite ugly.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > An advantage of MathML is that changes in font size apply to the
> >>>> > mathematical text as well as to the non-mathematical text.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Another problem is that a single page can have many mathematical
> >>>> > expressions on it. So the number of image files on the server can
> >>>> > really explode, along with the overhead of serving all the images.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > And if the images are dynamically generated with different images
> for
> >>>> > each student (as in a homework assignment), the load on the server
> can
> >>>> > be very heavy.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > From the "readme", I can't discern whether the applet presently is
> >>>> > being served only to the author as part of the editor or generally
> >>>> > to all of the readers of the finished document. Do you know?
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Thanks again.
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Sincerely,
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Bill
> >>>> >
> >>>> >
> >>>> >
> >>>> > Steven Githens wrote:
> >>>> > > Hi,
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > > This is not the same product, but it's made by the same people...
> >>>> > > (Design Science)
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > > In conjuction with Charles Sturt, I've been extending Rutgers
> WebEQ
> >>>> > > plugin to have a server side component to render the MathML into
> >>>> images
> >>>> > > ( so you don't have to embed Applets in the output ), and allow
> the
> >>>> > > equations to be re-editable.
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > > I'm working on fixing a few remaining bugs ( at this very moment
> >>>> > > actually ), to prepare it for being vendor-droppable.
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > >
> [1][4]https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > > There is a readme here:
> >>>> > >
> >>>> >
> >>>>
> [2][5]https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > > Slightly off-topic Cheers,
> >>>> > > Steve
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > > Michael Korcuska wrote:
> >>>> > > >
> >>>> > > > Has anybody used this product with Sakai?
> >>>> > > >
> >>>> > > > [3][6]http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
> >>>> > > >
> >>>> > > > --
> >>>> > > > Michael Korcuska
> >>>> > > > Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
> >>>> > > > mkorcuska@...
> >>>> > > > phone: +1 510-931-6559
> >>>> > > > mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
> >>>> > > > mobile (FR): +33 (0)6 31 11 58 97
> >>>> > > > skype: mkorcuska
> >>>> > > >
> >>>> > > >
> >>>> > > >
> >>>> > > >
> >>>> > >
> >>>> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> > > >
> >>>> > > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >>>> > > > ([4][7]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
> >>>> Development /
> >>>> > > > Building Sakai site.
> >>>> > > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> >>>> > > > Preferences.
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > >
> >>>> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> > >
> >>>> > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >>>> > > ([5][8]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
> Development
> >>>> /
> >>>> > > Building Sakai site.
> >>>> > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> >>>> > > Preferences.
> >>>> >
> >>>> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> >
> >>>> > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >>>> > ([6][9]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: User /
> Using
> >>>> > Sakai site.
> >>>> > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> >>>> > Preferences.
> >>>> >
> >>>>
> >>>>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>
> >>>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >>>> ([7][10]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
> Development /
> >>>> Building Sakai site.
> >>>> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> >>>> Preferences.
> >>>>
> >>>> References
> >>>>
> >>>> Visible links
> >>>> 1.
> [11]https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
> >>>> 2.
> [12]https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
> >>>> 3. [13]http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
> >>>> 4. [14]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> >>>> 5. [15]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> >>>> 6. [16]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> >>>> 7. [17]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >
> >
>
> ----------------------
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> ([18]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: Development /
> Building Sakai site.
> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> Preferences.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> ([19]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: User / Using
> Sakai site.
> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> Preferences.
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> ([20]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: User / Using
> Sakai site.
> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> Preferences.
>
> References
>
> Visible links
> 1. http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/webpublishing/mathml/index.html
> 2. mailto:markjnorton@...
> 3. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/
> 4. https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
> 5. https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readmehtml
> 6. http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
> 7. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 8. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 9. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 10. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 11. https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
> 12. https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readmehtml
> 13. http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
> 14. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 15. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 16. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 17. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 18. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 19. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal
> 20. https://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal

--
D. Stuart Freeman
Georgia Institute of Technology
[see attachment: "signature.asc", size: 204 bytes]

Attachments:

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RE: MathType

2009-02-17T11:41:05Z

The fonts problem could be lessen by the package provided below.

http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/webpublishing/mathml/index.html

--

Thank You,
-abass alamnehe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Norton [mailto:markjnorton@...]
Sent: Tue 2/17/2009 1:12 PM
To: D. Stuart Freeman
Cc: Steven Githens; David Goodrum; Michael Korcuska; sakai-dev Dev; sakai-user; wheeler@...
Subject: Re: MathType

There is no way around the font issue. Even the plug-ins tend to
require a symbols font, but they are included in the install. Most of
the MathML renderers use SVG - which FireFox also supports natively
now. SVG, while not perfect, does scale smoothly as long as the fonts
it needs also scale well.

- Mark

D. Stuart Freeman wrote:

> I'm indeed running Debian, so it's actually IceWeasel. My understanding
> from the Mozilla pages is that Gecko based browsers now support mathml as
> long as the fonts are installed.
>
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 01:38:09PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:
>
>> D. Stuart Freeman wrote:
>>
>>> This caught my interest, so I went to see what I would need to add to
>>> Firefox to make it render mathml. I'm running version 3.0.6, and there
>>> was no plugin necessary. I even already had all the fonts installed, it
>>> just plain worked without any changes.
>>>
>>>
>> That's really awesome, especially if it's an official Mozilla santioned
>> Firefox build with nothing extra apt-getted (you're running Debian
>> right? I'll have to fire up my VM's and try it on WinXP and OS X).
>>
>> Megacheers!
>> Steve
>>
>>> I tested all of this at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/
>>>
>>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:33:14PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hello proxied Bill,
>>>>
>>>> Currently the applets are only used for *authoring*. This was the major
>>>> change between the first iteration and second iteration. Previously
>>>> they were used for both authoring and viewing.
>>>>
>>>> Currently they are PNG files, and I definately agree that raster images
>>>> are crappy. Which MathML plugins are you guys using for Firefox and IE
>>>> (and I guess Safari) at the moment? Do you feel that they are robust
>>>> enough to be 'officially' recommended for use by a university santioned
>>>> CMS at the moment? When I looked at plugins a while back, they were
>>>> pretty spotty across browsers.
>>>>
>>>> I was thinking that it would definately be possible to have a little
>>>> option on the plugin that would allow you to either insert either an
>>>> image with hidden MathML or just MathML. I can envision a lot of
>>>> situations where you just really want to publish a few mathy things
>>>> without forcing all your recipients to go through the pain of installing
>>>> browser plugins. But at least the option would be available for those
>>>> who are mathematically hip.
>>>>
>>>> A pure MathML solution does require more design work though, since you
>>>> would need to somehow have FCK or whatever editor also render that in
>>>> their editor. Realistically I think this next tag will be stuck with
>>>> images (because it works right now), but it's certainly something that
>>>> can be looked at going forward.
>>>>
>>>> I am actually really interested to hear what specific browser plugins
>>>> you guys are using for viewing MathML at the moment though so I can
>>>> check them out.
>>>>
>>>> Non-lossy Data Cheers,
>>>> Steve
>>>>
>>>> David Goodrum wrote:
>>>> > Hi everyone,
>>>> >
>>>> > I shared this information with a math professor here at Indiana
>>>> > University. Prof. Bill Wheeler is also on our priorities committee for
>>>> > IU's Sakai development. Here's part of his response (and I've cc'd
>>>> > him on this message) - David Goodrum:
>>>> >
>>>> > Dear David,
>>>> >
>>>> > Thanks very much for sending me this note.
>>>> >
>>>> > I read the "readme", and it is interesting.
>>>> >
>>>> > However, I think the idea of converting MathML to images stored on a
>>>> > server is bad.
>>>> >
>>>> > The point of MathML is that it can be rendered by browsers. We
>>>> > abandoned stored images of mathematical expressions 6 or 7 years ago.
>>>> >
>>>> > Although it might be that a stored image approach is the
>>>> > most compatible one with the current Sakai technology, I think this is
>>>> > not a good solution.
>>>> >
>>>> > The article does not mention what type of image is being stored. If
>>>> > it is a true image file, e.g., gif, jpeg, or png, then it is not
>>>> > scalable when the user adjusts the font size. The results can be
>>>> > quite ugly.
>>>> >
>>>> > An advantage of MathML is that changes in font size apply to the
>>>> > mathematical text as well as to the non-mathematical text.
>>>> >
>>>> > Another problem is that a single page can have many mathematical
>>>> > expressions on it. So the number of image files on the server can
>>>> > really explode, along with the overhead of serving all the images.
>>>> >
>>>> > And if the images are dynamically generated with different images for
>>>> > each student (as in a homework assignment), the load on the server can
>>>> > be very heavy.
>>>> >
>>>> > From the "readme", I can't discern whether the applet presently is
>>>> > being served only to the author as part of the editor or generally
>>>> > to all of the readers of the finished document. Do you know?
>>>> >
>>>> > Thanks again.
>>>> >
>>>> > Sincerely,
>>>> >
>>>> > Bill
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > Steven Githens wrote:
>>>> > > Hi,
>>>> > >
>>>> > > This is not the same product, but it's made by the same people...
>>>> > > (Design Science)
>>>> > >
>>>> > > In conjuction with Charles Sturt, I've been extending Rutgers WebEQ
>>>> > > plugin to have a server side component to render the MathML into
>>>> images
>>>> > > ( so you don't have to embed Applets in the output ), and allow the
>>>> > > equations to be re-editable.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > I'm working on fixing a few remaining bugs ( at this very moment
>>>> > > actually ), to prepare it for being vendor-droppable.
>>>> > >
>>>> > > [1]https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
>>>> > >
>>>> > > There is a readme here:
>>>> > >
>>>> >
>>>> [2]https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Slightly off-topic Cheers,
>>>> > > Steve
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Michael Korcuska wrote:
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > > Has anybody used this product with Sakai?
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > > [3]http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > > --
>>>> > > > Michael Korcuska
>>>> > > > Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
>>>> > > > mkorcuska@...
>>>> > > > phone: +1 510-931-6559
>>>> > > > mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
>>>> > > > mobile (FR): +33 (0)6 31 11 58 97
>>>> > > > skype: mkorcuska
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > >
>>>> > >
>>>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>>>> > > > ([4]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
>>>> Development /
>>>> > > > Building Sakai site.
>>>> > > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>>>> > > > Preferences.
>>>> > >
>>>> > >
>>>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> > >
>>>> > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>>>> > > ([5]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: Development
>>>> /
>>>> > > Building Sakai site.
>>>> > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>>>> > > Preferences.
>>>> >
>>>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> >
>>>> > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>>>> > ([6]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: User / Using
>>>> > Sakai site.
>>>> > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>>>> > Preferences.
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>>>> ([7]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: Development /
>>>> Building Sakai site.
>>>> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>>>> Preferences.
>>>>
>>>> References
>>>>
>>>> Visible links
>>>> 1. https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
>>>> 2. https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
>>>> 3. http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
>>>> 4. https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>>>> 5. https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>>>> 6. https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>>>> 7. https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>

----------------------
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----------------------
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Re: MathType

2009-02-17T11:12:39Z

There is no way around the font issue. Even the plug-ins tend to
require a symbols font, but they are included in the install. Most of
the MathML renderers use SVG - which FireFox also supports natively
now. SVG, while not perfect, does scale smoothly as long as the fonts
it needs also scale well.

- Mark

D. Stuart Freeman wrote:

Re: MathType

2009-02-17T10:53:30Z

I'm indeed running Debian, so it's actually IceWeasel. My understanding
from the Mozilla pages is that Gecko based browsers now support mathml as
long as the fonts are installed.

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 01:38:09PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:

> D. Stuart Freeman wrote:
>> This caught my interest, so I went to see what I would need to add to
>> Firefox to make it render mathml. I'm running version 3.0.6, and there
>> was no plugin necessary. I even already had all the fonts installed, it
>> just plain worked without any changes.
>>
> That's really awesome, especially if it's an official Mozilla santioned
> Firefox build with nothing extra apt-getted (you're running Debian
> right? I'll have to fire up my VM's and try it on WinXP and OS X).
>
> Megacheers!
> Steve
>> I tested all of this at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:33:14PM -0500, Steven Githens wrote:
>>
>>> Hello proxied Bill,
>>>
>>> Currently the applets are only used for *authoring*. This was the major
>>> change between the first iteration and second iteration. Previously
>>> they were used for both authoring and viewing.
>>>
>>> Currently they are PNG files, and I definately agree that raster images
>>> are crappy. Which MathML plugins are you guys using for Firefox and IE
>>> (and I guess Safari) at the moment? Do you feel that they are robust
>>> enough to be 'officially' recommended for use by a university santioned
>>> CMS at the moment? When I looked at plugins a while back, they were
>>> pretty spotty across browsers.
>>>
>>> I was thinking that it would definately be possible to have a little
>>> option on the plugin that would allow you to either insert either an
>>> image with hidden MathML or just MathML. I can envision a lot of
>>> situations where you just really want to publish a few mathy things
>>> without forcing all your recipients to go through the pain of installing
>>> browser plugins. But at least the option would be available for those
>>> who are mathematically hip.
>>>
>>> A pure MathML solution does require more design work though, since you
>>> would need to somehow have FCK or whatever editor also render that in
>>> their editor. Realistically I think this next tag will be stuck with
>>> images (because it works right now), but it's certainly something that
>>> can be looked at going forward.
>>>
>>> I am actually really interested to hear what specific browser plugins
>>> you guys are using for viewing MathML at the moment though so I can
>>> check them out.
>>>
>>> Non-lossy Data Cheers,
>>> Steve
>>>
>>> David Goodrum wrote:
>>> > Hi everyone,
>>> >
>>> > I shared this information with a math professor here at Indiana
>>> > University. Prof. Bill Wheeler is also on our priorities committee for
>>> > IU's Sakai development. Here's part of his response (and I've cc'd
>>> > him on this message) - David Goodrum:
>>> >
>>> > Dear David,
>>> >
>>> > Thanks very much for sending me this note.
>>> >
>>> > I read the "readme", and it is interesting.
>>> >
>>> > However, I think the idea of converting MathML to images stored on a
>>> > server is bad.
>>> >
>>> > The point of MathML is that it can be rendered by browsers. We
>>> > abandoned stored images of mathematical expressions 6 or 7 years ago.
>>> >
>>> > Although it might be that a stored image approach is the
>>> > most compatible one with the current Sakai technology, I think this is
>>> > not a good solution.
>>> >
>>> > The article does not mention what type of image is being stored. If
>>> > it is a true image file, e.g., gif, jpeg, or png, then it is not
>>> > scalable when the user adjusts the font size. The results can be
>>> > quite ugly.
>>> >
>>> > An advantage of MathML is that changes in font size apply to the
>>> > mathematical text as well as to the non-mathematical text.
>>> >
>>> > Another problem is that a single page can have many mathematical
>>> > expressions on it. So the number of image files on the server can
>>> > really explode, along with the overhead of serving all the images.
>>> >
>>> > And if the images are dynamically generated with different images for
>>> > each student (as in a homework assignment), the load on the server can
>>> > be very heavy.
>>> >
>>> > From the "readme", I can't discern whether the applet presently is
>>> > being served only to the author as part of the editor or generally
>>> > to all of the readers of the finished document. Do you know?
>>> >
>>> > Thanks again.
>>> >
>>> > Sincerely,
>>> >
>>> > Bill
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Steven Githens wrote:
>>> > > Hi,
>>> > >
>>> > > This is not the same product, but it's made by the same people...
>>> > > (Design Science)
>>> > >
>>> > > In conjuction with Charles Sturt, I've been extending Rutgers WebEQ
>>> > > plugin to have a server side component to render the MathML into
>>> images
>>> > > ( so you don't have to embed Applets in the output ), and allow the
>>> > > equations to be re-editable.
>>> > >
>>> > > I'm working on fixing a few remaining bugs ( at this very moment
>>> > > actually ), to prepare it for being vendor-droppable.
>>> > >
>>> > > [1]https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
>>> > >
>>> > > There is a readme here:
>>> > >
>>> >
>>> [2]https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
>>> > >
>>> > > Slightly off-topic Cheers,
>>> > > Steve
>>> > >
>>> > > Michael Korcuska wrote:
>>> > > >
>>> > > > Has anybody used this product with Sakai?
>>> > > >
>>> > > > [3]http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
>>> > > >
>>> > > > --
>>> > > > Michael Korcuska
>>> > > > Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
>>> > > > mkorcuska@...
>>> > > > phone: +1 510-931-6559
>>> > > > mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
>>> > > > mobile (FR): +33 (0)6 31 11 58 97
>>> > > > skype: mkorcuska
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > >
>>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> > > >
>>> > > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>>> > > > ([4]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
>>> Development /
>>> > > > Building Sakai site.
>>> > > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>>> > > > Preferences.
>>> > >
>>> > >
>>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> > >
>>> > > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>>> > > ([5]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: Development
>>> /
>>> > > Building Sakai site.
>>> > > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>>> > > Preferences.
>>> >
>>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> >
>>> > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>>> > ([6]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: User / Using
>>> > Sakai site.
>>> > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>>> > Preferences.
>>> >
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>>> ([7]https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: Development /
>>> Building Sakai site.
>>> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>>> Preferences.
>>>
>>> References
>>>
>>> Visible links
>>> 1. https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
>>> 2. https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
>>> 3. http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
>>> 4. https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>>> 5. https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>>> 6. https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>>> 7. https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
>>>
>>
>>
>

--
D. Stuart Freeman
Georgia Institute of Technology
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Attachments:

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RE: brand new problems with webDAV under XP

2009-02-16T10:27:24Z

Adam Marshall wrote:

> Ta J, we've been looking at 'anyclient' which is free.

This looks interesting, especially for Windows users.

Getting some further mileage out of an "independent" client such
as this would be in the spirit of this blog post from Chuck
Severance:

http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/000577.html

Otherwise, Greenbytes maintains a lot of info on Windows-related
DAV issues:

http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webfolder-client-list.html
http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webdav-redirector-list.html

As an aside, they are the purveyors of an iPhone DAV client:

http://greenbytes.de/products.html

I wonder how that works with Sakai.

Seth

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Re: MathType

2009-02-16T10:18:38Z

Per Wising wrote:

> On 16 feb 2009, at 15.48, Steven Githens wrote:
>
>> Michael S Elledge wrote:
>> > Hi Steven--
>> >
>> > I have some concerns about using this approach that may be easily
>> > resolved.
>> > 1) How widespread is MathType? Despite its limitations, MathML is a
>> > conventional approach and will be what users expect.
>> I'm not sure, but I think a fair number of people use WebEQ for Equation
>> Editing. I have looked at DragMath too, which is actually open source,
>> so hopefully that will be an option in the future.
>
> I'm following this thread with a great deal of interest. Steven, did
> you get any feedback from faculty regarding the MathType addition to
> FCK Editor?
>

I personally haven't, but have so far really just been the coder for
this. However, I think Rutgers is running the first iteration in
production so they might.

Also, just so I don't completely threadjack Michael's original post,
I've never actually downloaded the MathType package so I have no idea
what all it includes. This has only been using Design Science's WebEQ
applet and java library.

~Steve
> Cheers,
> Per

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RE: brand new problems with webDAV under XP

2009-02-16T09:55:19Z

Ta J, we've been looking at 'anyclient' which is free.

Bitkinex was recommended by somebody in paris but we haint investigated as
it costs real money!

Adam

_____

From: Josh Baron [mailto:Josh.Baron@...]
Sent: 16 February 2009 17:38
To: Adam Marshall
Cc: 'sakai-dev Dev'; 'Using Sakai Email List'
Subject: Re: brand new problems with webDAV under XP

Adam,

I don't know if this will help or not but after a great deal of frustration
trying to deal with WebDAV and XP (as well as Vista), we opted to use a
FTP/SSH/WebDAV client called BitKinex (www.bitkinex.com/). There is a free
demo download if you want to try it out. The company also provided us with
10 or so free licenses because we are an academic institution.

The software isn't ideal as a solution for "basic" users but it works well
for those with more advanced capabilities.

Josh

-----------------------------
Joshua Baron
Director, Academic Technology and eLearning
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, New York 12601
(845) 575-3623 (work)

From:

"Adam Marshall" <adam.marshall@...>

To:

"'sakai-dev Dev'" <sakai-dev@...>, "'Using Sakai Email
List'" <sakai-user@...>

Date:

02/16/2009 08:09 AM

Subject:

brand new problems with webDAV under XP

_____

Can anybody comment on this?

I have theory that one of the recent XP updates has broken aspects of webDAV
on windows XP.

webDAV under XP has always been a bit, how shall I put it, odd with repeated
requests for the same username and password ad nauseum.

Things have got a lot worse of late, as now it appears that one cannot
supply a username containing an @ (at} symbol when setting up (or using) a
mapped network connection under XP.

WebLearn Beta uses such usernames for webDAV connections and these no longer
work; usernames without the @ symbol still work as they always used to.

Using webDAV via the Internet Explorer interface (where one can click on a
'dav' URL to pop up a connection) still works ok but of course this method
creates a one-shot webDAV connection and does not set up a permanent
'Network Connection'.

Anybody noticed /heard anything about this ?

Adam

--
Adam Marshall: OUCS, 13, Banbury Rd. Oxford OX2 6NN.
The upcoming new WebLearn service: <http://beta.weblearn.ox.ac.uk/>
http://beta.weblearn.ox.ac.uk
Shameless plug: <http://www.myspace.com/wheresthebeachmusic>
http://www.myspace.com/wheresthebeachmusic
Cheese of the month: Double Gloucester - shouldnt be overlooked!

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Re: MathType

2009-02-16T09:33:58Z

On 16 feb 2009, at 15.48, Steven Githens wrote:

> Michael S Elledge wrote:
> > Hi Steven--
> >
> > I have some concerns about using this approach that may be easily
> > resolved.
> > 1) How widespread is MathType? Despite its limitations, MathML is a
> > conventional approach and will be what users expect.
> I'm not sure, but I think a fair number of people use WebEQ for
> Equation
> Editing. I have looked at DragMath too, which is actually open source,
> so hopefully that will be an option in the future.

I'm following this thread with a great deal of interest. Steven, did
you get any feedback from faculty regarding the MathType addition to
FCK Editor?

Cheers,
Per
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Re: MathType

2009-02-16T06:48:42Z

Good Monday Morning!

Michael S Elledge wrote:
> Hi Steven--
>
> I have some concerns about using this approach that may be easily
> resolved.
> 1) How widespread is MathType? Despite its limitations, MathML is a
> conventional approach and will be what users expect.
I'm not sure, but I think a fair number of people use WebEQ for Equation
Editing. I have looked at DragMath too, which is actually open source,
so hopefully that will be an option in the future.

Just to be clear, the end result is actually MathML, plus a rendered
image of the MathML. When I looked at browser plugin's for rendering
MathML, it seemed sketchy and all over the map. But the MathML is there
in the page, so we can use it as soon as we know what to do with it.
> 2) How will user experience differ using MathType? Can users parse the
> content of the description, or is there some way of identifying
> different parts of a formula?I worry that a plain <alt> description
> will be too "flat" for users to understand complex formulas.
Right now, the alt tag really is just the MathML, escaped and stuff as
required to be in an xml attribute. <img src="blah"
alt="<mathml><mi>.....". This is what came across as the easiest option
for a first iteration of pushing out something that worked. Again, the
entire FCK Plugin is probably less than 50 lines of actual javascript,
so it can be changed pretty easily.
> 3) Is there a protocol for creating an appropriate description--or is
> there a an editing tool?
>
The current editing tool is just the WebEQ applet.

Ex. http://www.dessci.com/en/products/webeq/interactive/inputctrlex1.htm

But anything that handles MathML could be used in the future.
> We should be careful that we support well-known and truly accessible
> methods in Sakai, especially given the unaddressed issues of FCKeditor.
>
Definately. I honestly did a full days research on this when I started
out and posted to a few lists, but didn't end up with anything
conclusive, going down the current path because it worked reasonable
well for the rest of the requirements and it would be easy to modify in
the future ( when an accessibility expert with browser based math skillz
shows up. :p )

-Steve

> Mike
>
> On Feb 15, 2009, at 5:52 PM, Steven Githens <swgithen@...
> <mailto:swgithen@...>> wrote:
>
>> Mark Norton wrote:
>> > Is it accessible?
>> I doubt it, but I'm guessing it's a step in the right direction ( having
>> an image as well as the mathml on a tag of the <img/> ) vs. embedding
>> applets in the output. (Where you couldn't export to PDF or anything
>> else other than a webpage ( or some other container capable of loading
>> java applets ) ).
>>
>> I think I started a thread about this on the Fluid list a while back,
>> but we didn't really figure anything out. Whenever the Math community
>> does have an accessible approach though, it should be a pretty small
>> patch to include it and fix up the markup however. I'm pretty excited
>> for this, and will add it in whenever there is some sort of
>> recommendation. ( Let me know if there is something workable and at
>> least marginally supported, it's been about 4 months since I looked into
>> the accessiblity portion of it. )
>>
>> Accessible Cheers,
>> Steve
>>
>> > One of the whole points of MathML was to support a representation form
>> > of equations and mathematics in a manner that would be accessible to
>> > the bind and other disabled people.
>> >
>> > - Mark Norton
>> >
>> >
>> > Steven Githens wrote:
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> This is not the same product, but it's made by the same people...
>> >> (Design Science)
>> >>
>> >> In conjuction with Charles Sturt, I've been extending Rutgers WebEQ
>> >> plugin to have a server side component to render the MathML into
>> images
>> >> ( so you don't have to embed Applets in the output ), and allow the
>> >> equations to be re-editable.
>> >>
>> >> I'm working on fixing a few remaining bugs ( at this very moment
>> >> actually ), to prepare it for being vendor-droppable.
>> >>
>> >> https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
>> >>
>> >> There is a readme here:
>> >>
>> https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
>> >>
>> >> Slightly off-topic Cheers,
>> >> Steve
>> >>
>> >> Michael Korcuska wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Has anybody used this product with Sakai?
>> >> >
>> >> > http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >> > Michael Korcuska
>> >> > Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
>> >> > mkorcuska@...
>> <mailto:mkorcuska@...>
>> >> > phone: +1 510-931-6559
>> >> > mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
>> >> > mobile (FR): +33 (0)6 31 11 58 97
>> >> > skype: mkorcuska
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> >
>> >> > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>> >> > (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
>> Development /
>> >> > Building Sakai site.
>> >> > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>> >> > Preferences.
>> >>
>> >>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>> >> (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: Development /
>> >> Building Sakai site.
>> >> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
>> >> Preferences.
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
>> (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG: User / Using
>> Sakai site.
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>> Preferences.

Re: MathType

2009-02-16T06:45:40Z

Hi Steven--

I have some concerns about using this approach that may be easily
resolved. 1) How widespread is MathType? Despite its limitations,
MathML is a conventional approach and will be what users expect. 2)
How will user experience differ using MathType? Can users parse the
content of the description, or is there some way of identifying
different parts of a formula?I worry that a plain <alt> description
will be too "flat" for users to understand complex formulas. 3) Is
there a protocol for creating an appropriate description--or is there
a an editing tool?

We should be careful that we support well-known and truly accessible
methods in Sakai, especially given the unaddressed issues of FCKeditor.

Mike

On Feb 15, 2009, at 5:52 PM, Steven Githens <swgithen@...> wrote:

> Mark Norton wrote:
> > Is it accessible?
> I doubt it, but I'm guessing it's a step in the right direction
> ( having
> an image as well as the mathml on a tag of the <img/> ) vs. embedding
> applets in the output. (Where you couldn't export to PDF or anything
> else other than a webpage ( or some other container capable of loading
> java applets ) ).
>
> I think I started a thread about this on the Fluid list a while back,
> but we didn't really figure anything out. Whenever the Math community
> does have an accessible approach though, it should be a pretty small
> patch to include it and fix up the markup however. I'm pretty excited
> for this, and will add it in whenever there is some sort of
> recommendation. ( Let me know if there is something workable and at
> least marginally supported, it's been about 4 months since I looked
> into
> the accessiblity portion of it. )
>
> Accessible Cheers,
> Steve
>
> > One of the whole points of MathML was to support a representation
> form
> > of equations and mathematics in a manner that would be accessible to
> > the bind and other disabled people.
> >
> > - Mark Norton
> >
> >
> > Steven Githens wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> This is not the same product, but it's made by the same people...
> >> (Design Science)
> >>
> >> In conjuction with Charles Sturt, I've been extending Rutgers WebEQ
> >> plugin to have a server side component to render the MathML into
> images
> >> ( so you don't have to embed Applets in the output ), and allow the
> >> equations to be re-editable.
> >>
> >> I'm working on fixing a few remaining bugs ( at this very moment
> >> actually ), to prepare it for being vendor-droppable.
> >>
> >> https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sgithens/mathedit/trunk/
> >>
> >> There is a readme here:
> >> https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/sgithens/ONC-709/readme.html
> >>
> >> Slightly off-topic Cheers,
> >> Steve
> >>
> >> Michael Korcuska wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Has anybody used this product with Sakai?
> >> >
> >> > http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Michael Korcuska
> >> > Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
> >> > mkorcuska@...
> >> > phone: +1 510-931-6559
> >> > mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
> >> > mobile (FR): +33 (0)6 31 11 58 97
> >> > skype: mkorcuska
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> ---
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >
> >> > This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >> > (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
> Development /
> >> > Building Sakai site.
> >> > You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >
> >> > Preferences.
> >>
> >>
> ---
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab
> >> (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal) from the DG:
> Development /
> >> Building Sakai site.
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> >
>
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal
> ) from the DG: User / Using Sakai site.
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brand new problems with webDAV under XP

2009-02-16T05:05:51Z

Can anybody comment on this?

I have theory that one of the recent XP updates has broken aspects of webDAV
on windows XP.

webDAV under XP has always been a bit, how shall I put it, odd with repeated
requests for the same username and password ad nauseum.

Things have got a lot worse of late, as now it appears that one cannot
supply a username containing an @ (at} symbol when setting up (or using) a
mapped network connection under XP.

WebLearn Beta uses such usernames for webDAV connections and these no longer
work; usernames without the @ symbol still work as they always used to.

Using webDAV via the Internet Explorer interface (where one can click on a
'dav' URL to pop up a connection) still works ok but of course this method
creates a one-shot webDAV connection and does not set up a permanent
'Network Connection'.

Anybody noticed /heard anything about this ?

Adam

--
Adam Marshall: OUCS, 13, Banbury Rd. Oxford OX2 6NN.
The upcoming new WebLearn service: http://beta.weblearn.ox.ac.uk
Shameless plug: http://www.myspace.com/wheresthebeachmusic
Cheese of the month: Double Gloucester - shouldnt be overlooked!

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