Re: Re: Fonts again in ConTeXt

[John Culleton <john@wexfordpress.com>]

On Thursday 13 March 2003 07:37 am, Hans Hagen wrote:

(snip)
Is it possible to take a deep breath and go back to the starting point, the 
TeX primitive \font? It allows one to name a specific font as listed in e.g.
psfonts.map or some other designated mapping file. Control is absolute. You 
specify the font and if it is listed and installed you get it, in the size 
you specify.  As a practical matter I seldom need a font in  more than two 
sizes, and if I do then I can just dupe the \font statement, change the name 
and change the size parameter. Unfortunately Context has a much more 
elaborate, indirect and confusing (to me at least) mechanism embedded. 

Now, starting from this \font base, how do we add features without losing 
simplicity and basic control?  Stated another way, how can one create 
\font statements and alias them into the Context font handling system without
too much grief?

Fonts are the most troublesome aspect of TeX in all versions, from plain 
TeX on forward.  The mission is not to add complexity, difficulty and 
confusion but to reduce them. We need a simpler way to install fonts and a
simpler and more direct way to call for them. 

IMHO of course.

John Culleton
Able Indexers and Typesetters