Available from: MathType. Cost US$495.00 (or US$99.00 to Academic Institutions) System requirements: Browser, Internet access Note: This review itself makes use of WebEQ applets. In order to speed up downloading of the interactive portions of this page, you make like to download the free WebEQ Browser Controls . Click on the icon to do so.

According to its publishers in the USA, WebEQ Developers Suite, Version 3, a significant upgrading from version 2.5, is "a collection of tools for putting dynamic math on the Web. The Developers Suite contains three programs, two applets, templates, sample scripts and extensive documentation. By using the programs and applets in different combinations, it is possible to create a wide variety of math and science related documents and interactive Web sites."

This review is written from my standpoint as a fulltime teacher in an English comprehensive school, and part-time web developer. (Don't ask where that part-time comes from!). It is being written over a number of weeks rather than all at once.

The entire 8.14 MB of the product is available for download from the MathType website. Once downloaded, a setup program creates all the files required and (if you request it) puts icons for a documentation file (HTML format), Editor, Publisher and uninstaller on your desktop. The documentation file is essential reading and is comprehensive, giving immediate access to introductory descriptions of the programs and applets and crash courses in "MathML" and "WebTeX", which are two methods of scripting mathematical symbols so that they appear correctly on-screen. The amount of information provided is indeed daunting, and in order for this review to avoid being little more than a summary of that documentation, I will base it on a number of key objectives.

Figure 1

Of course, if you are reading this now on the Internet, the problem has clearly been solved already. I did it by using MathType 5 to both create this statement and convert it to a "gif" image file. But can I do the same thing just as easily using the WebEQ editor? On my first attempt, I loaded the editor and began using the templates. I could not find the symbol for infinity, and when I tried to extend the toolbar to include extra symbols, WebEQ crashed! A second attempt was more successful and I was able to create the statement and save it in "jpeg" format:

Figure 2

WebEQ Editor also allows you to Save As HTML Applet. Guessing what this was about I followed the prompts and created a file of HTML. This file has been pasted below:

Figure 3 shows the output from a WebEQ applet, based on MathML coding. You may notice slight differences in appearance between the above three figures, which may or may not bother you. The "stretchy" brackets in Fig. 2 and 3 can in fact be tweaked by using WebEQ to make them more like those in Fig.1. You can go on to adjust in small detail many aspects of the look of these mathematical expressions. This may not be necessary for most mathematics teachers but could be very useful if preparing a precise document for print publication. As Figure 3 is not a graphic image but the outcome of some MathML coding, this coding can be edited within the HTML page to change the mathematical statement to something else. Figure 4 shows a possible outcome. In fact the expression in Figure 4 has been produced by WebTex instead, also shown, which I find a fair more teacher friendly coding system.

It may be apparent to you by now that this product is not for the faint-hearted! To summarise this section, if you want to produce mathematical equations for display within HTML pages, and MathType is not available, then WebEQ supplies two methods of doing so - either as a static image or as code which can then be edited.

Objective 2: I want to produce interactive mathematical equations
Not satisfied with obtaining mathematics that looks right, I want to be able to do something with it. The WebEQ programs and Java applets do provide ways of adding interactivity such as various "mouseover" actions. A knowledge of JavaScript will be essential here to do anything more adventurous than the examples included in the Developer's suite.

Much of what you can see is the result of Javascript being linking in with MathML coding. The trigonometrical equations are MathML codes whereas the buttons "Check your answer" and "New Problem", together with the dropdown box in Step 1, use JavaScript. Step 2 makes use of the WebEQ Input control applet. Here you can select options from the toolbar and create mathematical expressions with correct format. The toolbar is itself configurable so that a whole range of mathematical functions can be chosen by the author of the page. This applet may offer teachers a whole range of possibilities when explaining to students the way mathematical language works.
The following figures show something of what can be done.

Each set of menu options and icons is determined within the HTML page. Thus the teacher can create a customised webpage enabling them to present precisely the mathematic expression that they require for their students. A computer projector and/or interactive whiteboard would be advantageous here.
Figure 11 shows how a WebEQ Input control can be linked to JavaScript to enable checking of students work.

If you have the requisite JavaScript skills and can manage Java applets (though no Java programming skills are needed) then you can get a lot from the WebEQ Developer's suite. I hope the above examples will inspire teachers to develop these skills, though I wonder how many have the time to do this. I suspect very few. This, then, is the major problem with the software. It requires more expertise than your average teacher posseses - or has time to learn.
Maybe it should be targetted not at teachers at all but - as the title clearly suggests - developers.

To be continued...