Mathematics Glossary Web Client

MG supports its interoperability and exchangeability with other applications through the MG Web Service. It is used to retrieve mathematical contents in a structured fashion. MG Web Service provides a standard means of interoperable mathematics definitions, examples, images, links between different software applications, running on a variety of platforms and/or frameworks.

A client side JavaScript processor is used in the context of a regular Web browser for proper display and interactions between a client and the glossary Web Service. MgML processing cycles through the following steps:

• The Web browser makes an asynchronous call to the MG Web Service using the interface exposed by the service. It uses the XMLHttpRequest object to communicate with the service. Because of its asynchronous nature, it updates only portion of a page instead of refreshing the whole page.
  
  Figure 1: MgML Processing
• MG Web Service processes the request. It uses the glossary engine and remote WME Web Service to generate MgML. The content is then sent back to the client.
• The JavaScript processor is used in the context of the Web browser to parse and translate the MgML content to a regular XHTML page as the XHTML can be handled by the browser normally.
• The JavaScript processor performs MgML rendering using the given MgML schema and DTD . Figure 2 shows XHTML content converted from MgML by the JavaScript processor.
  
  Figure 2: Sample MgML Page