Exposing Nemeth braille as text?

[Susan Jolly]

Is it possible to setup a webpage using MathJax that exposes Nemeth braille as text (for sighted use)  without using either a screenreader or a braille display?  If so is there a sample webpage showing how to do this? 

[Davide Cervone]

Do you mean that, instead of the typeset math, MathJax should insert the braille instead?  MathJax can already make the braille visible via the assistive explorer (by turning on braille output and braille subtitles in the Accessibility -> Speech submenu of the MathJax contextual menu).  Are you using version 3 or version 2?

Davide

On Jul 19, 2021, at 2:36 PM, Susan Jolly <susa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is it possible to setup a webpage using MathJax that exposes Nemeth braille as text (for sighted use)  without using either a screenreader or a braille display?  If so is there a sample webpage showing how to do this? 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MathJax Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mathjax-user...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/94dc231a-31af-4af1-8c6b-72dd97c8200cn%40googlegroups.com.

[Susan Jolly]

Hi Davide.  Thanks for answering me.  I just can't figure out how to set up the configuration file to get SRE to produce braille.  Probably something simple I'm doing wrong.

When I  view the MathML that has been generated I can see the correct Nemeth MathSpeak equivalent of the math but no actual braille.  If you have the time  set up a simple webpage with a very simple math expression where I can get braille subtitles that would be great.  I could then  copy the correct script. I am a retired computational scientist and  very knowledgeable in Nemeth and have just about finished a reverse translator  app from Nemeth math braille to MathML. Being able to view forward translations from MathJax would be very helpful for error checking.

[Rob Beezer]

Dear Susan,

PreTeXt has an intermediate step where we convert PreTeXt input into an XHTML
page with all of the LaTeX, and we then convert that with offline MathJax via a
node.js script Davide wrote for us. The result is a parallel XHTML page with
the Nemeth braille versions. Once setup, that is a single command-line and then
digging up two intermediate files. (I thought I was combining these two files,
and likely could easily do that.)

That way, you'd have a maintained tool for the MathJax work. You'd need to
convert your inputs to PreTeXt (or perhaps output them in that format) and do
some processing of the results to get what you want. But it'd all be working
with (simple) well-structured XML. And as suggested above, I could make the
results a bit friendlier.

Post on the "pretext-support" Google Group if you want samples or pointers to
getting started (or both!).

Rob

>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/94dc231a-31af-4af1-8c6b-72dd97c8200cn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "MathJax Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
> to mathjax-user...@googlegroups.com

> <mailto:mathjax-user...@googlegroups.com>.

> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/7b24ef13-7e67-4ab8-8560-cbc89d432481n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/7b24ef13-7e67-4ab8-8560-cbc89d432481n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Susan Jolly]

Hi Rob,

Thank you.  PreTeXt is such a great project. Best braille math advance in years!

Given the way I'm currently doing things, it would be a lot easier if I could just get a MathJax braille subtitle on the webpages I currently  generate from my reverse translator app.  Below is a plain text copy of he  link to  one t I did a while back.  I create the Nemeth input manually and then generate the corresponding MathMl  output automatically with my app.  The copy of the braille input displayed on the webpages is in ASCII Braille  (like a .brf file) but it would be easy to display the input as Braille Patterns on the webpages.  (This example page will show dots if you happen to have SimBraille installed.)

I've played with newer MathJax options  than  currently used on this page but still can't get braille subtitles. 

.http://www.dotlessbraille.org/mmlfrac.htm 

Susan

[Rob Beezer]

Thanks, Susan, for the reply (and the kind words).

Understood, and I suspect the script we use might not be of any real help to
your use case, since you have the Nemeth *somewhere* and just need to raise it
to the surface.

Good luck with BackNem. Maybe there is a future where PreTeXt documents can be
authored using Nemeth as the math input...

Rob

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/94dc231a-31af-4af1-8c6b-72dd97c8200cn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/94dc231a-31af-4af1-8c6b-72dd97c8200cn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.
>
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "MathJax Users" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email
> > to mathjax-user...@googlegroups.com
> > <mailto:mathjax-user...@googlegroups.com>.
> > To view this discussion on the web visit
> >
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/7b24ef13-7e67-4ab8-8560-cbc89d432481n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/7b24ef13-7e67-4ab8-8560-cbc89d432481n%40googlegroups.com>
>
> >

> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/7b24ef13-7e67-4ab8-8560-cbc89d432481n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/7b24ef13-7e67-4ab8-8560-cbc89d432481n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>>.

>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "MathJax Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
> to mathjax-user...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:mathjax-user...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/46abeb2d-151e-40af-b210-c27f1f0ad2d5n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mathjax-users/46abeb2d-151e-40af-b210-c27f1f0ad2d5n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Volker Sorge]

Hi Davide.  Thanks for answering me.  I just can't figure out how to set up the configuration file to get SRE to produce braille.  Probably something simple I'm doing wrong.

You can put the following configuration in a script tag at the beginning of you HTML file:

MathJax = {

    a11y: {

      braille: true,

      viewBraille: true

  }

};

That should make sure that braille is always generated and also viewed as a subtitle. You still need to tab to the math expression in question and hit <enter> to start exploring it, which should bring up the subtitles (for both speech and braille). You can swap various speech options with < and > keys. Have a look at some more of the command keys here: 

https://docs.mathjax.org/en/latest/basic/explorer-commands.html

Also you can explore what MathJax produces here: 

https://mathjax.github.io/MathJax-demos-web/speech-generator/convert-with-speech.html

It's mainly geared towards speech but will also provide  you the Nemeth output.

 

When I  view the MathML that has been generated I can see the correct Nemeth MathSpeak equivalent of the math but no actual braille.  If you have the time  set up a simple webpage with a very simple math expression where I can get braille subtitles that would be great.  I could then  copy the correct script. I am a retired computational scientist and  very knowledgeable in Nemeth and have just about finished a reverse translator  app from Nemeth math braille to MathML. Being able to view forward translations from MathJax would be very helpful for error checking.

If you just want to build a testing environment it might be easier to use SRE directly as that is the system that does all the a11y output for MathJax:

https://github.com/zorkow/speech-rule-engine/

How are you handling  2D Nemeth layout for back translation?

Volker

[Susan Jolly]

HI Volker,

Thanks for all the info.  Turns out I had the configuration correct but didn't know about pressing Enter to view the braille so it was actually a simple problem. However I can't yet  figure out how to get braille from the convert-with-speech demo.

I had looked at possibly building SRE directly some time back but given that I don't know JavaScript or even any of the tools you mentioned I decided not to try.  At my age (80) it takes a lot more time to learn something new than it used to. so I think it's better to spend my time on perfecting my reverse translators.  

You asked  about Nemeth 2D layout which is of course what I saved for last.  This is only  partly done so I will have to wait to give you an answer. I 'm still working on matrices, not yet arithmetic. My ANTLR 4 lexer can of recognize the enlarged grouping symbols at the start and end of a row of a matrix. And so far the parser can make a "sentence" out of a row including the space-delimited expressions in the row .  But of course it's the surprises that make programming fun!  The reason this isn't finished is that I had temporarily stopped working on the Nemeth math reverse translator  in order to finish the UEB literary backtranslator.

Susan

[Volker Sorge]

> However I can't yet  figure out how to get braille from the convert-with-speech demo.

There is a locale selector button on the left hand side, centred below the input text area. By default it is set to EN (English), but Nemeth is also available. The 2D output is brand new and not yet stable, so it is not yet available on the site.

Volker