RE: STIX fonts for clients

Although we don't have any side in this argument, I feel the need to
correct a misconception. While our MathPlayer plugin for Internet
Explorer does install its own fonts, it installs them into Windows
rather than keeping them private. In other words, its installer includes
a font installer. The same fonts are also installed with our MathType
product on both Mac and Windows and are installed into the system and
are available to all applications running on the machine. 

I can say from experience that installing fonts on both Mac and Windows
is not trivial. There are a number of issues on both platforms. I can't
say anything about Linux, etc. except to say that I've heard it is
difficult there also. The OS vendors do not make it easy. They seem to
brush a number of issues under the rug:

- They allow fonts to be installed in multiple directories but leave it
to developers to figure out what that means. If fonts with the same
names are in more than one, which takes precedence? If your installer
wants to delete old versions of a font and replace it with a new one,
how does it find all the versions?

- There is not much attention to versions in fonts. As with any
software, fonts are improved as time goes by. The various fonts
installers do contains versions but some contain more than one, so which
takes precedence. The answer is usually none of them. Installers
routinely ignore versions. OS documentation does not make it clear what
is supposed to happen.

Just thought you might want to know.

Paul Topping
Design Science, Inc.
www.dessci.com
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
[mailto:dev-tech-mathml-
> [email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected]
> Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2008 4:33 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: STIX fonts for clients
> 
> With the release of Mozilla's Firefox3-Candidate1, the release of the
> stable version is expected soon. I belong to the academic community
> that seeks the use of the native Firefox MathML support. There is a
> long debate between people with the same interest as mine and the
> developers of the Firefox browser, about delivering or not the STIX
> fonts to clients using MathML as one package together with the
> browser's download. References for this debate can be found in:
> 1. The bug report 295193 (
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=295193
> ).
> 2. The bug report 415223 (
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=415223
> ).
> 3. In the present list (
>
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.tech.mathml/browse_thread/thr
> ead/27000c43ddc95c12
> ).
> My argument is that there is a simple solution, which can satisfy both
> sides, and bring benefit to the spread of MathML.
> 
> I am trying to summarize the view for delivering the STIX fonts
> together with the browser's download:
> 
> The academic clients are not developers. They need the computer as a
> mean of helping them to meet the challenges of research and teaching.
> They need something simple that works, without following instructions
> that they don't understand, no matter how clear they are. A simple
> example is the use of MathML by Firefox2. The Window's installer of
> the fonts for MathML was straight-forward even for most of the
> academic clients. For Mac the instructions needed the help of a
> computer expert, and even he was warned about avoiding a bug that was
> explained elsewhere. For Linux it was catastrophic, even an expert
> could not always help. On top a person with the root password should
> also be called.  If Windows is the dominant platform, is it worth
> bothering with the others?
> 
> What was the result? Only Window's clients (and they are not too many
> in the academic community) could benefit. Mac and Linux clients had to
> give up. On the other hand the main purpose of MathML is to be used
> for mathematical expressions, and not too many people are using them,
> with the exception of some academic staff.
> 
> Now let's see what are the opposing arguments of the browser's
> developers, and they make sense:
> 
> If the browser delivers also the necessary fonts, the downloading time
> of the browser will increase substantially, discouraging that way
> people of using the Firefox browser. This argument is probably the
> most easy to overcome, by presenting to the users the choice of adding
> the fonts during the downloading of the browser. Furthermore the space
> of all the STIX fonts (not zipped) take is less than 1.2 MB , which is
> less than 16% of the space needed for downloading the browser today
> (7.5 MB). So far some of the browser's developers accept this
> solution.
> 
> The next argument is much heavier, but in my opinion there is a work-
> around. The argument says that downloading the fonts is not enough,
> one have to install them. The installation procedure differs from
> platform to platform and it is a very heavy task to be done by a
> browser. I agree, but why install the fonts in the system? Just put
> them somewhere in a directory of the browser's software. They don't
> have to be installed in the system. The browser should take care to
> look for these fonts in the appropriate directory, when a <math ..>
> element is encountered, instead of looking among the installed fonts
> in the system (as for now). If a developer wants to use the STIX fonts
> for another than math purpose, he has to install them in the system
> (in addition to the same - existing in the browser).
> 
> As an example of this work-around, the MathPlayer plug-in of Design
> Science for Internet Explorer uses math fonts, which are included in
> the plug-in itself. It does not require installing the fonts.
> 
> Hope that the just proposed solution can be easily implemented, and
> we'll witness soon Firefox3 free of installing separately the STIX
> fonts.
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