"Modularize" MathCAT

[NSoiffer]

I think it would be useful to be able to build versions of MathCAT that contain only some components:

• Speech
• Braille
• Navigation

Within each component, excluding languages (speech or braille) is simple -- just remove the directories. However it isn't possible to exclude one of the above to shrink the size. As potential other features are added (braille -> MathML? TeX->MathML?), having examples of how one could make the component optional would lead to those features being optional modules in the future.

Navigation is probably the easiest to separate out.

Note: canonicalization and the rule engine are needed for both speech and braille.

[bhavyashah]

Just curious about the value of this. I understand the benefit of allowing users to not install components they may not use (a speech-only user may want to exclude Braille), and that is a good thing because it helps save file space. Would it also improve performance? Are there other benefits I'm missing?

[NSoiffer]

It is mostly about cutting down the size of MathCAT. There are projects like liblouis that MathCAT is too big for already. If the size can be cut some and they raise their size tolerance because the embedded hardware they run on gets more memory, then being able to produce a braille only version would be good.