Initial support for OpenType MATH fonts

Dear all,

Today is the end of my crowdfunding project, so I'll have to find =

another job in May. However, we just landed the initial support for =

OpenType MATH fonts in time for Firefox 31 ESR (which moves to Aurora =

next week). Concretely, this means that you should be able to select =

different fonts in

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/MathML_Project/MathML_Tort=
ure_Test
http://fred-wang.github.io/TeXZilla/

and see the various math style (you need to have the fonts installed, =

but there is a version with Web fonts here: =

http://www.maths-informatique-jeux.com/ulule/mathml_torture_test/). Note =

that you now only need to specify a single OpenType MATH font-family on =

the <math> tag to choose a math font and maybe to specify fallback Web =

fonts, so that greatly simplifies the setup.

One important consequence is that this should solve the "missing math =

fonts" issue for Windows when Cambria Math is installed (that is Windows =

 >=3D 7 or Office installed). Also, I've been working with Apple to =

implement the MATH table in WebKit and asked them to investigate about =

pre-installed MATH fonts on Mac (I think STIX is already installed, not =

sure which version). For Linux, the installed fonts will be =

distribution-specific but the work I made on auto-installation is =

promising (see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3D467729). In =

general, if someone has a TeXLive distribution installed, he is likely =

to have some MATH fonts too (e.g. Latin Modern Math). So missing MATH =

fonts will be very unlikely on desktop.

For mobile platforms, I expect to get a FirefoxOS tablet soon and to try =

to make some MATH fonts pre-installed =

(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3D775060). It's not clear =

how to solve the problem for Android, I opened =

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3D36011 two years ago =

but never got any reply. Perhaps at least Mozilla can ensure =

availability of MATH fonts on Android devices that have Firefox =

pre-installed?
Otherwise, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mathml-fonts/ =

will still be the workaround.

In my opinion, the main remaining bugs to fix are:

1) Handling of italic/bold mathvariants =

(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3D930504) for which James =

submitted a patch but this is blocked by missing fonts on mobile devices =

and perhaps also by https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3D961482.

2) Improve default fonts and make them configurable =

(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3D947654).

3) Map some Open Type MATH constants, especially to get the correct =

linethickness for bars =

(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3D961365). This one will be =

easy.

4) Ascent/descent on Windows =

(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3D947650) although this =

could also be fixed by font designers.

For more examples of documents using OpenType MATH fonts, see the =

collection of math documents that I released today. Note that I modified =

ascent/descent of fonts to workaround 4).

http://www.maths-informatique-jeux.com/ulule/math-documents/xhtml/

Finally, note that the spec for the OpenType MATH table has just been =

published in the last working draft of the open font format:
http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-4/open-font-format/text-isoiec-=
cd-14496-22-3rd-edition

-- =

Fr=E9d=E9ric Wang