Summer of Code Project

[Allan Sandfeld Jensen]

Hello Catalin

On Friday 13 March 2009, Catalin David wrote:
> My name is Catalin David and I am a second year undergraduate student at
> Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. I have recently contacted KDE.org
> because I want to do an internship this summer and Mr. David Faure told
> me that the only way to do an internship and actually get it
> acknowledged as an internship is through the "Summer of Code" Google
> program and that I should seek help on the webpage.
>
> Since the webpage here
> http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Summer_of_Code/2009/Ideas#Guidelines
> says that "If you are not a developer but have a good idea for a
> proposal, get in contact with relevant developers first.", I thought I'd
> give it a try here in order to find a support and, hopefully, a mentor.
>
I support the project, and would happily mentor it.


> So, my project regards the implementation of MathML standard for
> Konqueror ( https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30526 ). I am really
> interested in this because I have already worked in this domain for some
> time. Here, at the university, I am part of the arXMLiv research project
> ( http://kwarc.info/projects/arXMLiv/ ) which has the aim of
> transforming the entire database of articles at www.arxiv.org to XML and
> then, to XHTML + MathML using LaTeXML ( http://dlmf.nist.gov/LaTeXML/ ),
> with multiple purposes.
>
> Since the website requires this information:
>
> The expected end-product is a similar-to-Firefox MathML formula parser
> that is able to display MathML.
>
> The prerequisites for this are C++ and Qt (I assume).
>
I would propose that implementing the MathML engine is best done inside KHTML 
or WebKit. It has many of the needed components.

When displaying something in KHTML or WebKit what happens is:
Input is parsed into a DOM-Tree.
Any javascript is executed during parsing and modifies the DOM-tree.
The DOM-Tree is styled into a CSS-like Render-tree
The render-tree is layouted.
The render-tree is rendered.

- Since MathML is XML, the parsing is already fully supported. 
- If there is standard for how MathML DOM works, that has to be implmented in 
the DOM-part, otherwise nothing has to be done in DOM.
- There is no finished standard for CSS for MathML, so part if the project 
will be to invent some CSS-like extensions that are needed for us to style and 
layout MathML
- Layout algorithms operate on the same invented CSS, and has to match MathML 
spec.
- Last rendering will mostly reuse exiting KHTML components, but some things 
like stretching parentheses, integrals or squareroots will have to be 
implemented.

So what you need to do this, is a good understanding of both MathML and CSS.

Greetings
`Allan

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