Re: asked Hans Hagen after VTeX drivers (etc)

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

At 09:51 PM 8/27/2001 -0400, MicroPress Inc. wrote:

>It is really all documented, albeit in different places. I do not have a clear

i didn't doubt that -)

>idea _which_ specials you need. If graphics, the easiest way to look at
>vtex.def for the graphicx package. If hyperstuff, see the links and the
>outline sections in the manual. If pdf-forms, it is in forms.pdf, or just use
>pdfmarks [the build-in PS interpreter does understand pdfmarks, so this
>is one way of doing everything.]

ok, and since it probably also understands the dvips / dvipsone ps 
specials, i guess that the driver is already there -)

currently i'm busy, but in a couple of months ... i would also perfer to 
test the win version [i did once but had to quit due to lack of disk space 
since vtex wanted to install fonts; i want to use the texmf tree -) ; also, 
i probably need to add a section to the context installation manual

>Ugghh, I'm not so sure this is the case. We did a number of high-level
>packages, like business charts of the function plot. But there is just
>no way to provide high level packages for everything a user may want
>to do, and it is unclear if programming some low-level (but std) postscript
>is really much worse than programming metapost.

sure, but connectivity to for instance context spacing and fonts as well as 
user interface aspects .... i can look into that later

>of MetaPost is specifically "inclusion"; MetaPost cannot change the
>material which comes from TeX (like some PSTricks intercepts do) or

i think that you underestimate metapost here

>from a non-MetaPost EPS data (like PSFrag does). There are situations
>when you may want MetaPost, and there are ones when you may want
>something else.

right, but i would always wrap the low level ps

> >some font trickery on the other hand looks interesting [and i
> >wonder how hard it would be to extend pdftex with it];
>
>Makes me wonder what that is exactly... there is quite a lot of font
>trickery there. If you are talking about MM support, then you really
>need a PS interpreter present for proper job. Some other things
>probably can be done on top of the pdftex framework.

no, i was more refering to the fact that vtex can do things like outline 
fonts etc using the \font specifier

> >another interesting
> >vtex feature is the html output but i never looked into that
>
>Hmm, not sure it is actually interesting. Mode 10 (HTML) output is almost
>entirely done by a macro package.

ah, then it's of no use to context users u fear, but berend is working on 
html anyway

Hans
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