The Integre MathML Equation Editor comes in two major editions. The following paragraphs describe the component edition of Zed that allows the user to edit MathML expressions within other applications such as a web browser. The other major edition of the editor, the application edition, is described in the previous section. Both editions provide a common core framework for editing MathML expressions; the basic features of this framework are described in the Basic Use part of this Users Guide. As a result, much of what is described there is common to both editions, and so the following paragraphs focus on those features particular to the component edition.

The component edition of the editor provides an ActiveX control that can be embedded into any ActiveX container. Zed engages in only the minimum level of interaction with the user interface of the container, relying on context menus to provide access to much of its core functionality, as described in the following paragraphs. As a result, Zed may be embedded in a wide variety of containers, including Internet Explorer, PowerPoint, and Word. The manner in which Zed is embedded into a host container will of course vary according to the container; more information on how to work with certain common containers is described in the Examples section under Advanced Topics.

When a page containing an instance of the Zed component is first loaded and displayed within a container, the container is responsible for initializing the instance with the appropriate properties, and for controlling the activation of the component as appropriate. When a component is active, if the container is given the input focus, it hands it off to the active component being displayed. To manually activate an instance of the Zed component, click the left mouse button on the component and it will begin to receive keyboard and mouse events used to edit the expression contained in the component.

Since the component edition of the editor does not come with a visible frame menu as is present in the application edition, access to many of the features of the editor is provided through a collection of context menus that are activated by clicking the right mouse button within an instance of the component. The same context menus are available in both the component edition and the application edition, and in fact the menu items on the context menus are a subset of the menu items on the frame menu in the application edition.

The context menus can be activated and navigated using keyboard accelerators in much the same way as in the application edition, as described in the previous section. Typing Alt+Z while a Zed component has the focus raises the top-level context menu.

Each of the context menus is described in the Menus section, and where appropriate, elsewhere in the documentation in somewhat more detail. The File menu and the Edit menu are described in the Basic Editing section, and the Math menu and the Palette menu are described in the Inserting section. Information about the Source menu can be found in the Basic Viewing section, while the items on the Option menu are detailed in the Configuration section. Finally, the Help menu is mentioned in the Quick Start section, as allowing access to the documentation you are now reading.

For those containers such as web browsers that support scripting languages, the component edition of Zed provides a basic collection of properties, methods, and events that can be used by script writers to control many aspects of the behavior of the editor.

The properties provided by the component can be used to control aspects of how Zed is initialized, to get and set the MathML content or presentation, to get and set the Zed content or presentation internal form, and to get and set expressions specified by using a named identifier.

The methods provided by Zed allow script writers to customize the configuration options that control how the user interacts with mathematical operators, to create and use configuration files encapsulating these options, and to control the state of the template palettes.

The events provided by Zed allow script writers to synchronize actions with the completion of loading the Zed component, with any modification to the expression in the Zed document, or with a user-initiated action to submit the expression for further computation.

Examples describing how to use the interfaces provided by the component are collected in the Scripting section under Advanced Topics. Complete reference information on each of the properties, methods, and events provided by the component can be found in the Scripting section of the Reference part of the Users Guide.

Inside containers that support design-time insertion of ActiveX controls, Zed provides a collection of property pages that can be used to supply initial values for the various properties supported by the component. The process for accessing these property pages will vary depending on the particular container used to embed the component; some containers do not provide any access to these property pages. The property pages provided by Zed are similar in many ways to the dialog boxes associated with menu items on the Source menu and on the Option menu. The Source property page allows you to supply initial values for the expression being edited by the component in any one of the four input formats appearing on the Source menu. The Config property page allows you to customize any of the six configuration options that appear on the Option menu. The Other property page contains two check boxes that allow you to set or clear the boolean value of the AutoSize or GrabFocus properties. See the Scripting section of the Reference part of the Users Guide for more information on using the property pages.