CSS Warrior

The purpose of CSS3 math module was to add "properties targeted at styling mathematical formulas, building on on the layout model of the 'presentational' elements of MathML". Unfortunately future of this module is quite vague, no working draft was published so far and from private discussion with one of the key members of WG we learned that working group encountered serious problems in their attempt to integrate MathML into CSS visual formatting model, so work on math module may be abandoned. From one hand CSS WG is not ready to make drastical changes in CSS and from another hand without such a changes it is nearly impossible to merge MathML into XML + CSS formatting scheme. Possible solution of the problem is to reform MathML itself and make it more CSS friendly (it is quite realistic proposal) however Math WG does not seem to plan such a reform, as a result MathML and CSS are unlikely to be integrated.

Hopefully lack of CSS3 math module will not harm XML MAIDEN project that aims create alternative mathematical markup, fully integrated with CSS. At the moment XML MAIDEN is practically completely merged into CSS2.1 formatting model so problems with CSS3 math module will not undermine project, in particular taking into account that general CSS3 modules like advanced layouts, generated content, line, box model etc will drastically increase both markup processing and formatting capabilities of CSS.