Actions

The Action templates give you a way to add interactivity to equations in some web browsers. The types of interactivity you can choose in response to a click are: toggle between two expressions, status line cue, highlight colors, URL links, mouseover and combination (nested) actions. These kinds of interactivity are encoded directly in the MathML. Design Science's MathPlayer for the Internet Explorer browser will render equations with actions interactively.

• Toggle -- Toggles are pairs of templates. Only one of the two toggle expressions shows at a time. When an equation with a toggle template is displayed with MathPlayer or the Viewer Control, clicking on the active toggle expression switches to the other one. This is useful for expanding ellipses, revealing answers, and so on.

  

  When you insert a toggle template, a Toggle Action Properties dialog opens, and two subexpression templates are inserted at the cursor location. They appear vertically stacked and bracketed in the editing pane. Using the buttons on the Toggle Action Properties dialog, you can switch between simultaneous viewing of the two subexpressions, or display of the active expression only, to preview how it will actually look. You can also use the "toggle the active expression" button to simulate a mouse click in the toggle expression.

  When you mouse over a toggle equation, you can optionally specify a prompt string that will appear in the browser status line. You can enter these two cues in the Toggle Action Properties dialog as well. The cue for the active expression is previewed in the status line at the bottom of MathFlow Editor.

• Statusline -- inserts a statusline template. By editing the value in the Statusline Action Properties dialog, you can set a prompt string for the browser status line that displays when the enclosed expression is moused over.
• Highlight -- inserts a highlight template. Enter the names of foreground and background highlight colors that will activate on mouseover (i.e., "green," "blue," "red," etc.). You can simulate a mouseover in a published equation by clicking the "Simulate mouseover" button in the Highlight Action Properties dialog.
• Link -- inserts a link template. By editing the value in the Link Action Properties dialog, you can set a URL that the equation template will link to when clicked in your browser.
• Mouseover -- inserts a mouseover template. You can set a foreground highlight color, background highlight color, and a prompt string for the browser status line. The highlighting and status line prompt are activated in the published equation when the reader mouses over the enclosed expression. You can simulate this by clicking the "Simulate Mouseover" button in the Mouseover Action Properties dialog.
• Nested Actions -- inserts a special template that combines the mouseover and link actions. You can simulate what will happen on a mouseover by clicking the "Simulate Mouseover" button in the Nested Actions Properties dialog.