Re: Reimplementing xspace

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

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At 07:03 AM 1/18/2002 +0000, Marco Kuhlmann wrote:
><file://f:\mail\eudora\attach\Re Reimplementing xspace.ems 
><0880.0002>>501f5.jpg<file://f:\mail\eudora\attach\Re Reimplementing 
>xspace.ems <0880.0002>> Re Reimplementing xspace.ems

^^^^ those pgp messages cannot be quoted, only painfully copied ^^^^

 >> so the problem is rather on how to integrate this with the rest of
 >> ConTeXt: there are some features of ConTeXt (e.g. logos,
 >> abbreviations) for which obeying spaces should be an option.
 >
 >I think this definitely needs consideration. It belongs to a
 >broader topic "programmable typography", to which I would add

programmable typo depends on extensive tagging; the outcome of minimal 
tagging as in the following items depends much on the availability of 
trigger points; complications arrise when content is hidden in capsules 
(macros, boxxes) since this breaks lookahead and lookback. As a result, 
having such features available will definitely lead to suboptimal output 
unless each instance is visually tested.

 >issues like
 >
 >  - dotted abbreviations (normally, you want a dot after them,
 >    but not at the end of a sentence),

can be a feature, but never be default; a user should turn it on thereby 
knowing that checking is needed; an important question to answer is: how 
does this relate to languages.

 >  - capitals (it would be great if ConTeXt could automatically
 >    detect sequences of capitals and optionally typeset them a
 >    little smaller than the rest of the text),

can only be done with active chars and fuzzy logic; can of worms; however, 
a macro based solution is already available in \Words; tricky point: there 
is no real watertight grabbing / mapping for arbitrary chars other than 
bytecoded ones.

 >  - hanging punctuation (does not work for all punctuation yet,
 >    and does not? work for left margins),

this is already there in protruding characters in pdftex, highy 
configurable for *all* characters, left and right

 >and some others.

[supp-box and syst-* and supp-fun already provide some trickery]

Hans

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