Hello Inkscape Hackers!
I have a couple of questions:
In general: Does the planned plugin architechture of Inkscape allow for rendering plugins, i.e. plugins that render new/custom/other tags in the SVG document (embedded via the foreignObject tag)?
More specifically: I would really like a MathML rendering plugin. Does your (planned) plugin architechture allow for such a thing?
If it does, my suggestion is the following: GtkMathView [1] is a very mature MathML rendering engine which provides a) a GTK rendering widget, b) a C++ interface for rendering MathML and, most importantly, a Bonobo component. For details see [1]. It might be possible to use this to render MathML formulas inside pictures/diagramms created with Inkscape without too much implementation effort (?).
Rationale: Currently there is no modern visual software to create mathematical/technical drawings. The free software user who needs such drawings (i.e. drawings that contain formulas) is forced to use programms like Xfig or to hand-code these drawings in LaTeX. Neither approach suits me and most of the mathematicians I know rather stick to pen and paper because of that. Hence, I think there is a not-too-small community of people who would be interested in this feature.
If you think this is feasible with regard to Inkscape's plugin architechture, I might well take to the task of implementing the actual plugin. Please tell me what you think.
Regards, Felix