Re: chancery font

[Thomas A.Schmitz <thomas.schmitz@uni-bonn.de>]

On Apr 3, 2005, at 6:15 PM, Idris Samawi Hamid wrote:

> As Ciro suggested, what what would be useful is a gui that completely
> automates the process and that asks all relevant questions and 
> generates
> everything ConTeXt needs to install and run Latin fonts, including 
> expert
> fonts like Minion.**** (Maybe oneday the gui can be extended for 
> Chinese,
> Arabic, etc.)
>

Idris,

I disagree strongly. First: fonts are a complex business, and when you 
venture outside of the normal Western character range, things start to 
get really messy (I speak from experience, having just completed work 
on Greek Extended). I'm not saying a GUI will never be able to cope 
with all  this complicated stuff. But I do think that an extraordinary 
amount of work would be needed to catch all the exceptions, ifs and 
buts that would be involved. And I do think that this work could better 
be spent on other, much more important business. To be honest: in my 
personal opinion (and this is a very personal opinion), die-hard GUI 
users who just loathe the command line should not be using TeX.

I also think that despite all the efforts that ConTeXt makes, it would 
be rash to make inexperienced users believe that handling fonts in TeX 
is a simple matter of pointing and clicking. The frustration would be 
huge when things do not work out as expected - and they will. In a way, 
the current state puts a gentle, but firm sign on font handling saying 
"This might be a bit difficult. Be warned!" And I don't think this is a 
bad thing.

No offense, but that's what I think about this issue.

Best

Thomas