One very silly question

One very silly question

[Yue Wang]

Hi,

I read the manual, and it said:

rm, ss,tt,hw,cg are styles, bf,it,bi,sl,bs, sc, os, tf are alternatives.
one can use one alternative in one style like \rm\bf.
However, I think we should add more alternatives like boldsmallcaps or
bold old style number?

in opentype, smcp, onum are just features, and every alternatives
(like bold, bold italic) have them.

btw, I think there should be a (fontconfig like) mechanism for setting
up opentype fonts easier?

Yue Wang
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Re: One very silly question

[Hans Hagen]

Yue Wang wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I read the manual, and it said:
> 
> rm, ss,tt,hw,cg are styles, bf,it,bi,sl,bs, sc, os, tf are alternatives.
> one can use one alternative in one style like \rm\bf.
> However, I think we should add more alternatives like boldsmallcaps or
> bold old style number?

no, in such cases, just create another typeface with relevant fonts 
using smallcaps and then switch to that typeface

> in opentype, smcp, onum are just features, and every alternatives
> (like bold, bold italic) have them.
> 
> btw, I think there should be a (fontconfig like) mechanism for setting
> up opentype fonts easier?

hm, it's nbot that complex, just define a featureset and use it; one can 
even adapt features in between if needed (dynamic features)

you can be pretty sure that whatever you 'predefine' 
(font-blabla-using-oldstyle-and-smallcaps) will have exceptions and then 
we end up with n! possible combinations

Hans

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                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
      tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
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Re: One very silly question

[Yue Wang]

Hi, Hans:

> no, in such cases, just create another typeface with relevant fonts
> using smallcaps and then switch to that typeface

OK. I see. Thanks.

> hm, it's nbot that complex, just define a featureset and use it; one can
> even adapt features in between if needed (dynamic features)

How to use dynamic features? it is not documented in co-typography and co-fonts.
is there such interface like:

\definefeature[onum][onum=yes]
\definefeature[smcp][smcp=yes]
{\rm\bf\onum\smcp Hello 2008!}

>
> you can be pretty sure that whatever you 'predefine'
> (font-blabla-using-oldstyle-and-smallcaps) will have exceptions and then
> we end up with n! possible combinations

not n!, but 2^n.

last question: is it possible to add fontconfig-like interface? if I
define to use minion famaily, then all the alternatives are
automatically defined like xetex?

Yue Wang
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Re: One very silly question

[Wolfgang Schuster]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 8:13 AM, Yue Wang <yuleopen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, Hans:
>
>> no, in such cases, just create another typeface with relevant fonts
>> using smallcaps and then switch to that typeface
>
> OK. I see. Thanks.
>
>> hm, it's nbot that complex, just define a featureset and use it; one can
>> even adapt features in between if needed (dynamic features)
>
> How to use dynamic features? it is not documented in co-typography and co-fonts.
> is there such interface like:
>
> \definefeature[onum][onum=yes]
> \definefeature[smcp][smcp=yes]

\def\onum{\setfontfeature{onum}}

> {\rm\bf\onum\smcp Hello 2008!}

Don't do this, this has nothing to do with logical markup and the
better way is to
write {\definedfont[SerifBold*onum]Hello 2008!} ...

>> you can be pretty sure that whatever you 'predefine'
>> (font-blabla-using-oldstyle-and-smallcaps) will have exceptions and then
>> we end up with n! possible combinations
>
> not n!, but 2^n.
>
> last question: is it possible to add fontconfig-like interface? if I
> define to use minion famaily, then all the alternatives are
> automatically defined like xetex?

Hans need fonts to test this but I could provide you a typescript
based solution,
it's not so elegant as the XeTeX method but it works.

Wolfgang
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Re: One very silly question

[Hans Hagen]

Yue Wang wrote:

> last question: is it possible to add fontconfig-like interface? if I
> define to use minion famaily, then all the alternatives are
> automatically defined like xetex?

i never looked into that interface so i cannot comment on it, but i've 
learned my lessons with fonts ... they are all different and any 'clever 
automated mechanism' will at some point fail, so then one ends up with 
exeptions; when defining a document style one needs to know the font, 
its usage (what variants, styles, etc) and often also it slimitations 
(font feature are not that well defined and fonts might have incomplete 
implementations)

the best one can do is make a typescript (or a collection, as with tex 
gyre which tries to be consistent over the whole range) that implements 
a definition and even then, a different version of a font (i mostly use 
commercial fonts and font ABC may have different implementations) may 
hav edifferent properties; also, there is not one good usage (typescript 
combination) of a specific font, esp now that we have many features

actually, talking about features, you need to keep in mind that even 
when you define a specific instance, applying such an instance to a 
whole document might fail because some features may not cover the whole 
possible set of combinations of characters (take frac as an example) and 
so usage demands knowlegde

eventually we may have a set of predefined typescripts that cover most 
system fonts

Hans



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                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
      tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
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