MathML support in Konqueror and Java?

Christoph Steinbeck used ASCIIMathML to extend HTML Slidy (see previous blog), to embed mathematical equations in his slides.

And it works like a charm... in a MathML supporting web browser like Firefox. The trick that ASCIIMathML uses, is that it converts a LaTeX-like syntax to MathML and let the browser handle that. Actually, the website mentions a true LaTeX syntax to MathML version too.

Konqueror?

Now, Konqueror does not support MathML (yet), and, therefore, cannot be used. The Konqueror website does not even mention MathML, though there were rumours about MathML in KHTML quite some time ago. Alfredo Beaumont implemented better MathML support in KFormula during this summer's Google Summer of Code. Is anyone actually embedding that into KHTML?

JGecko?

Roman Kennke is a Classpath developer and is currently doing an excellent job extending it with HTML rendering support. Are there opensource Java MathML renderers at all? And what are the chances seeing that embedded in the free Java HTML renderers? That is, can I expect JGecko to support MathML any soon?

Technorati tags: HTML Slidy MathML Firefox Konqueror JGecko Classpath

Searching database from within Konqueror

Resal, who earlier released a KDE based GUI for GROMACS, described a recipe on how biochemical databases can be added to the search bar in Konqueror:

Click on the left side of Konq search box, a menu appears. At the bottom of this menu there is an option saying:
"Select search engines..." 
click it and when the search engine dialog appears, select "New" and enter:

Search Provider Name: PDB
Search URI: http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/search/navbarsearch.do?newSearch=yes&isAuthorSearch=no&radioset=All&inputQuickSearch=\{@}&image.x=10&image.y=6&image=Search
URI Shortcut: pdb

Press Ok and again click "New" and these :
Search Provider Name: Entrez
Search URI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gquery/gquery.fcgi?term=\{@}
URI Shortcut: ent

Press OK and then check the boxes at the right of PDB and Entrez in the search engine dialog to add them
to your Konq current list of search engines.

Hope to be useful
Reza Salari

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=search&term=1hhb

(These above bits are licensed GPL, with copyright by Reza Salari.)

An Alternative: Web Shortcuts

An alternative would be to use Konqueror's Web Shortcuts technology, to allow you to just type in the URL bar pdb:1CRN for the PDB database, or ent:1CRN for Entrez. To do this, click in Konqueror's menu Settings, and then Configure Konqueror.... Click the 'Web Shortcuts' icon in the left list, and click the New... button that then appears on the right. The shortcut is the 'pdb' or 'ent' used in the earlier crambin example. The URI is exactly the same as those given in Reza's write up.

Technorati tags: Konqueror search engine web shortcut PDB Entrez PubMed