Re: Extending metapost

[John Culleton <john@wexfordpress.com>]

On Monday 28 June 2004 04:40, Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> Hi Hans, group,
>
>
> I saw this passing by in another thread, and since I am myself currently
> working
>
> on a C port of metapost:
> > (and ... i also want to look into extending tex and metapost)
>
> What kind of extensions to metapost do you (or anyone else) have in mind?
>
> Progress update:
>
> Work on the C port of MP is coming along nicely. Work progress is fairly
> slow because I have to make change quite a lot of small changes to the
> code. I expect to have a 'working' test executable in about 3 or 4 weeks.
>
> libMP will have (at least) the following changes wrt. the Web source code:
>
> - C strings instead of a string pool ( and no pool file).
> - A "struct METAPOST" instance that gets moved around, instead of global
> variables (libMP will be thread-safe)
> - A namespace for all externally visible procedures and enums (prefix 'mp')
> - mp_initialize() and mp_finish() calls to allow clean restarts.
> - All file I/O will be configurable (through callbacks)
> - PostScript output will be isolated from the other output. (to allow other
>   output backends in the future).

A worthy project, but one beyond my ability, would be a version of Metafont 
that output PostScript instead of bitmapped fonts. It seems that the bulk of 
the necessary  labor was done in the creation of Metapost. All that is needed 
is the production of a pfb file and an afm file instead of individual 
graphics files. Does anyone else dream of such a project?
-- 
John Culleton

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