Last modified: 2014-06-22 22:37:18 UTC
Using the italic text tag for symbols is semantically incorrect: it does not distinguish symbols from other uses of italic text. It would be better to replace it with the variable tag. That is, <math >X</math > thould transform to <span class="texform" ><var >X</var ></span > instead of merrie olde <i >X</i >.
Except for constants: log <i >e</i > = 1, sin <i >π</i > = 0, etc.
(In reply to comment #1) > Except for constants: log <i >e</i > = 1, sin <i >π</i > = 0, etc. No need to differ here: Constants like e, pi, i ... should never be italic in TeX. The user has to tell when it is a variable and when it is a constant.
Constants such as e and i are traditionally italicized in mathematical typesetting, same as variables. But I think <var> is appropriate for them anyway, even though they're not actually variables -- they're supposed to be presented the same as variables.
I belatedly concur with Aryeh. HTML's <var>...</var> isn't a declaration that something IS a variable, it's an instruction to the user agent to format it as one.
As HTML support was disabled by 09679f2f39e6c6c00e87757292421b26bfa7022a, closing as WONTFIX.
Tim Landscheidt, what does this mean?: > As HTML support was disabled by 09679f2f39e6c6c00e87757292421b26bfa7022a, closing as WONTFIX. The link that generated (to https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#q,09679f2f39e6c6c00e87757292421b26bfa7022a,n,z) doesn't provide any information. This bug is a bug, not a feature, and still needs to be fixed. The var element has certainly not been "disabled" (deprecated) in HTML5, if that's what this meant: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/text-level-semantics.html#the-var-element
I was referring to http://git.wikimedia.org/commit/mediawiki%2Fextensions%2FMath.git/09679f2f39e6c6c00e87757292421b26bfa7022a; with that commit, the support for HTML in Extension:Math was disabled, so no HTML is generated anymore. MediaWiki 1.19 was released after that commit, so there's nothing left to fix.
