MathPlayer enables Microsoft Internet Explorer to display mathematical notation in web pages.

MathPlayer is based on MathML technology and requires Internet Explorer for Windows version 6.0 and later. We make MathPlayer available for free in order to foster the adoption of MathML in the math, science, and education communities.

MathPlayer is a tool that was designed for enhancing the displaying of mathematical notation in Internet Explorer. Just as HTML is the computer language in which web pages are written, the math in a web page is written in the MathML language.

When you browse to a web page containing MathML, Internet Explorer gives it to MathPlayer to display as standard math notation such as you would find in a textbook.

Almost all of MathPlayer's special features are accessed by placing the mouse pointer over an equation and clicking the right mouse button. This brings up MathPlayer's menu. Most of the commands operate on the clicked-on equation. In addition, there are commands to find out MathPlayer's version and to visit the MathPlayer web site.

MathPlayer's right-click menu

Almost all of MathPlayer's special features are accessed by placing the mouse pointer over an equation and clicking the right mouse button. This brings up MathPlayer's menu. Most of the commands operate on the clicked-on equation. In addition, there are commands to find out MathPlayer's version and to visit the MathPlayer web site.

Copying equations into other programs
The Copy MathML command puts the MathML description of the equation on the clipboard. The MathML text can be pasted into a text editor (eg, Notepad), an HTML editor (eg, Dreamweaver, FrontPage), or computer algebra system (eg, Maple, Mathematica). If your favorite calculation or mathematical program doesn't accept MathML, contact the publisher of that software package and request that MathML support be added.

Opening an equation in MathType or WebEQ
The Open with MathType command on the Commands sub-menu will open the equation in a new MathType window. The command will be grayed out if MathType is not installed on your computer or if the equation does not contain MathType information. The Open with WebEQ command will open the equation in a new WebEQ window. The command will be grayed out if WebEQ is not installed on your computer.

MathZoom/Unzoom
Choose the MathZoom™ command to get a closer look at the equation. This can be handy to view small scripts and accents. To bring the equation back down to normal size, choose Unzoom (the MathZoom command changes to Unzoom on a zoomed equation). A single mouse click in an equation will toggle the zoomed state. Clicking in a zoomed equation while holding the Shift key down will unzoom all equations in the page. Warning: If the equation contains interactive parts that respond to mouse clicks, zoom/unzoom can only be performed using the menu commands.

Speak Expression
The Speak Expression command causes the equation to be spoken through your computer's sound system using Design Science's math-to-speech algorithms. This requires that you have a MathPlayer-compatible text-to-speech engine installed on your computer.

Requirements:

· Internet Explorer 6.0 and later

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, including support for Internet Explorer's security framework, Manage Add-ons feature, and Zoom feature.
· Speak Expression command now synchronously highlights the mathematics as it is spoken. Synchronized highlighting is a learning aid for all students, and has been shown to be particularly effective for people with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
· Support for DotsPlus, a Braille math format for use with Tiger Braille printers.
· Enhanced Clipboard Support. "Copy MathML to Clipboard" has been enhanced so that users can copy a MathML equation displayed by MathPlayer/Internet Explorer and paste it into Microsoft Office 2007, and other applications that support this new format for exchange of mathematics via the clipboard.
· Better Unicode support. MathPlayer has improved font and character knowledge which enable it to display many more characters, including recent additions to Unicode, plane 1 characters, and characters in large Unicode fonts, such as Code 2000.
· Expanded processing of XHTML documents, making it easier to publish web pages containing MathML that are compatible with other MathML-capable browsers. For documents served with MIME type application/xhtml xml, MathPlayer will now process documents with a MathML namespace declaration on the element, in addition to documents with an explicit MathML DOCTYPE declaration.
· Support for combining characters, such as vowels with accents common in European languages. The support includes both composition of combining characters such as diacritic marks, as well as decomposing "ugly" pre-combined characters for rendering using better-looking, uncombined glyphs.
· All attributes are supported for the MathML menclose element. The newly supported attributes are: box, roundedbox, circle, left, right, top, bottom, updiagonalstrike, downdiagonalstrike, verticalstrike, horizontalstrike.
· Enhanced PostScript printing support.
· Application developers should inquire at support@dessci.com for information on adding support for MathPlayer to their software.