math issues

users
#21

This was one reason I wanted to assist in working on docs, but the
curve one needed to address in order to do that proved just too much. A
far cry from experience working on wiki based documentation.

What often is a problem in such areas is that those used to doing
something in a particular manner don't really understand where another
user may be coming from. When I talk of Math being universal and
transparent I mean that a user should not have to be bothered with
issues of entering and displaying Math.

Another issue is context - the cause for the start of this thread is one
example. A second is Regina's e-mail suggesting that I do a Save As ->
Flat XML though I have no such option in my save as dialog. As far as
exporting as xhtml, I have 4 different export to xhtml options (it took
me a while to figure out which one to use to obtain.) But, if I do
export as xhtml the LO default gives me an html doc that appears to be
an mathml xml document, which if I then try to import as a formula will
not work (though it appears to be identical to the file that does work),
even if I change the extension to mml or xml. I have tried checking
format to make sure it is plain text etc.

SO, if a tool can't be used simply and effectively, it won't be used.
And, of course, "it works for me" doesn't help. Typically the key to goo
documentation is identifying where users go off the rails.... I started
playing with this some 5 years ago because a fellow teacher wanted to be
able to mock up his math assignments in OOo and then convey them to the
web, without the math getting turned into images that had to be
separately maintained. I don't know that things would be any easier now
for him.......