TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Mojca Miklavec]

Hello,

just wondering: how many ConTeXt-ers depend on ligatures such as:
   '' (double quote) and '' (two single quotes) -> right double quote
  `` -> left double quote
  ,, -> DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK

or even more weird ones:
  !` -> inverted exclam
  ?` -> inverted question
  << -> LEFT POINTING GUILLEMET (never heard of that ligature)
  >> -> RIGHT POINTING GUILLEMET

Some ligatures are handy indeed:
  -- -> endash
  --- -> emdash
  ' -> right single quote (I'm, isn't etc.)

I'm posting that question to get some feedback about which ones are
expected to work/are fundamental for XeTeX & LuaTeX, so that others
might be dropped from default additional font features (for
third-party fonts). (I'm thinking about replacing tex-text in XeTeX
with something:
- more minimalistic
- compatible with mkiv.
Of course, users are still free to provide "tex-text" mapping
explicitely as it's probably going to hang aound forever, together
with XeTeX itself.)

Mojca
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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Aditya Mahajan]

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

> just wondering: how many ConTeXt-ers depend on ligatures such as:
>   '' (double quote) and '' (two single quotes) -> right double quote
>  `` -> left double quote

In some old documents. In newer documents I use \quote and \quotation. 
Then there are documents that need to move back and forth between latex 
and context but for them I can easily define appropriate macros in latex.

>  ,, -> DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK
>
> or even more weird ones:
>  !` -> inverted exclam
>  ?` -> inverted question
>  << -> LEFT POINTING GUILLEMET (never heard of that ligature)
>  >> -> RIGHT POINTING GUILLEMET

I have never used them.

> Some ligatures are handy indeed:
>  -- -> endash
>  --- -> emdash

I use them all the time. Even though the utf encoded values can work here, 
my editor (vim) using fixed width fonts, so it is easy to miss the 
difference between hypehn, endash, and emdash (in the markup). So, I would 
prefer them to be present.

>  ' -> right single quote (I'm, isn't etc.)

I can automate the conversion of ' to the corresponding utf character 
inside vim, so this is not really essential. However, IMO this should not 
change.

Aditya
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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Mojca Miklavec]

Hello Aditya,

thanks a lot for your opinion :)

On Dec 8, 2007 11:26 PM, Aditya Mahajan wrote:
> On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
>
> In some old documents. In newer documents I use \quote and \quotation.
> Then there are documents that need to move back and forth between latex
> and context but for them I can easily define appropriate macros in latex.

To be honest: I never had the slightest idea how to get proper
(Slovenian, "lower nine double quote") quotation marks in LaTeX (or
what's the suggested way to do it :). That's why I now use
\def\quotation#1{...} in LaTeX as well (in case I need to fix other
people's stuff).

> > Some ligatures are handy indeed:
> >  -- -> endash
> >  --- -> emdash
>
> I use them all the time. Even though the utf encoded values can work here,
> my editor (vim) using fixed width fonts, so it is easy to miss the
> difference between hypehn, endash, and emdash (in the markup). So, I would
> prefer them to be present.
>
> >  ' -> right single quote (I'm, isn't etc.)
>
> I can automate the conversion of ' to the corresponding utf character
> inside vim, so this is not really essential. However, IMO this should not
> change.

Sure. Those three replacements/ligatures were not under a question.
They should stay, IMO.

Mojca
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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Wolfgang Schuster]

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 17:26:48 -0500 (EST)
Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu> wrote:

> On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> 
> > just wondering: how many ConTeXt-ers depend on ligatures such as:
> >   '' (double quote) and '' (two single quotes) -> right double quote
> >  `` -> left double quote
> 
> In some old documents. In newer documents I use \quote and \quotation. 
> Then there are documents that need to move back and forth between latex 
> and context but for them I can easily define appropriate macros in latex.
> 
> >  ,, -> DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK

We should jeep them for old times sake although I prefer quote and
quotation in my document because this is more flexible (change with the
language and I can also change the quotation style).

> > or even more weird ones:
> >  !` -> inverted exclam
> >  ?` -> inverted question
> >  << -> LEFT POINTING GUILLEMET (never heard of that ligature)
> >  >> -> RIGHT POINTING GUILLEMET
> 
> I have never used them.

The two spain ligatures should vanish, I tried once to write [...]?`` in
one of my documents and hated this behaviour. The other two ligatures
for guillemets another odd things because I < in my document for every
< in my source not a replacement.

> > Some ligatures are handy indeed:
> >  -- -> endash
> >  --- -> emdash
> 
> I use them all the time. Even though the utf encoded values can work here, 
> my editor (vim) using fixed width fonts, so it is easy to miss the 
> difference between hypehn, endash, and emdash (in the markup). So, I would 
> prefer them to be present.

Keep them, they are to usefull. I could also agree to Aditya's
explanation.

> >  ' -> right single quote (I'm, isn't etc.)
> 
> I can automate the conversion of ' to the corresponding utf character 
> inside vim, so this is not really essential. However, IMO this should not 
> change.
> 
> Aditya

I nearly never need this in my documents but it is very usefull in I
don't want to select the right character. This is also on of the points
Word and Powerpoint users select the wrong character but TeX has
always the right character :-) 

Wolfgang
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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 2007-12-09 um 00:10 schrieb Mojca Miklavec:

>> In some old documents. In newer documents I use \quote and  
>> \quotation.
>> Then there are documents that need to move back and forth between  
>> latex
>> and context but for them I can easily define appropriate macros in  
>> latex.
>
> To be honest: I never had the slightest idea how to get proper
> (Slovenian, "lower nine double quote") quotation marks in LaTeX (or
> what's the suggested way to do it :). That's why I now use
> \def\quotation#1{...} in LaTeX as well (in case I need to fix other
> people's stuff).

Since I found ConTeXt (did only 1 LaTeX project before), I’m using  
\quote/\quotation

IMO we are allowed to force ConTeXt users to use that or proper  
characters.

>>> Some ligatures are handy indeed:
>>>  -- -> endash
>>>  --- -> emdash
>>
>>>  ' -> right single quote (I'm, isn't etc.)
>>
>> Sure. Those three replacements/ligatures were not under a question.
> They should stay, IMO.

+1 from me, there seems to be no alternative if your keyboard mapping  
doesn’t allow to input such directly.

(Even if I like to encourage people to write their own enhanced  
keymaps if theirs doesn’t contain what they need – my one gives me  
all European characters except Cyrillic ’cause I don’t need it...)


Greetlings from Lake Constance!
Hraban
---
http://www.fiee.net/texnique/
http://wiki.contextgarden.net
https://www.cacert.org (I’m an assurer)

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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Willi Egger]

Hi Mojca,

On Dec 8, 2007, at 11:04 PM, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

> Hello,
>
> just wondering: how many ConTeXt-ers depend on ligatures such as:
>    '' (double quote) and '' (two single quotes) -> right double quote
>   `` -> left double quote
>   ,, -> DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK

Handling different languages, so one needs a way to insert the ligs  
in the text. With UTF this is less of a problem
>
> or even more weird ones:
>   !` -> inverted exclam
>   ?` -> inverted question
>   << -> LEFT POINTING GUILLEMET (never heard of that ligature)
>>> -> RIGHT POINTING GUILLEMET

For Spanish this is definitevely necessary. Again if coded in UTF  
there is no problem.
>
> Some ligatures are handy indeed:
>   -- -> endash
>   --- -> emdash
>   ' -> right single quote (I'm, isn't etc.)

Sure this is important, I suggest to add the horizontal ellipsis
>
> I'm posting that question to get some feedback about which ones are
> expected to work/are fundamental for XeTeX & LuaTeX, so that others
> might be dropped from default additional font features (for
> third-party fonts). (I'm thinking about replacing tex-text in XeTeX
> with something:
> - more minimalistic
> - compatible with mkiv.
> Of course, users are still free to provide "tex-text" mapping
> explicitely as it's probably going to hang aound forever, together
> with XeTeX itself.)
>
> Mojca

Willi
> ______________________________________________________________________ 
> _____________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an  
> entry to the Wiki!
>
> 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/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
> ______________________________________________________________________ 
> _____________

BOEDE
Book and Electronic Document Engineering
Willi Egger
w.egger@boede.nl
KvK 17138708



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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Dec 9, 2007 5:07 PM, Willi Egger wrote:
> > or even more weird ones:
> >   !` -> inverted exclam
> >   ?` -> inverted question
>
> For Spanish this is definitevely necessary. Again if coded in UTF
> there is no problem.

Do Spansh users still key them in like that (apart from old TeX-ies
who have never heard abot anything beyond \v, \", \')? I mean: would
anyone miss those two ligatures? (I assume that people need to use
inverted quotation marks in Word as well ...)

Ono problem is that that's a "well known" TeX behaviour though
(documented in beginner's manual as well).

> > Some ligatures are handy indeed:
> >   -- -> endash
> >   --- -> emdash
> >   ' -> right single quote (I'm, isn't etc.)
>
> Sure this is important, I suggest to add the horizontal ellipsis

\dots? But what if one decides to use, say, 10 dots in a row? That
might lead to weird effects (non-evenly spaced dots). -- and --- have
been well established, so one would be careful enough before writing
"----------". And there's \dots, so that one could have been mapped to
ellipsis if needed.

Thanks,
    Mojca
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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Maurí­cio]

 > Hello,
 >
 > just wondering: how many ConTeXt-ers depend on ligatures such as:
 >    '' (double quote) and '' (two single quotes) -> right double quote
 >   `` -> left double quote
 >   ,, -> DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK
 > (...)

You got replies from experienced users, so I
thought you could use an answer from a
begginer; there are many of us out there!

Really, all of those are problems to me, even
-- and ---. If you have ligatures at all, you
have to take some (a lot) of time to learn
how they work, and which ones are available,
and how to avoid them when you need.

I would really like if we could replace
ligatures for a nice page, linked from the
"first steps" documentation, explaining the
most interesting Unicode characters and when
to use them properly. I've just read about
U+2010–2015 in wikipedia pages about hyphens
and dashes, and I wish I were directed to
those pages instead of everything I've read
about ligatures so far.

I'm not a professional user of Context, so of
course you'll take that into account as you
consider what I say.

Best,
Maurício

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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Hans Hagen]

Maurí­cio wrote:
>  > Hello,
>  >
>  > just wondering: how many ConTeXt-ers depend on ligatures such as:
>  >    '' (double quote) and '' (two single quotes) -> right double quote
>  >   `` -> left double quote
>  >   ,, -> DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK
>  > (...)
> 
> You got replies from experienced users, so I
> thought you could use an answer from a
> begginer; there are many of us out there!
> 
> Really, all of those are problems to me, even
> -- and ---. If you have ligatures at all, you
> have to take some (a lot) of time to learn
> how they work, and which ones are available,
> and how to avoid them when you need.
> 
> I would really like if we could replace
> ligatures for a nice page, linked from the
> "first steps" documentation, explaining the
> most interesting Unicode characters and when
> to use them properly. I've just read about
> U+2010–2015 in wikipedia pages about hyphens
> and dashes, and I wish I were directed to
> those pages instead of everything I've read
> about ligatures so far.
> 
> I'm not a professional user of Context, so of
> course you'll take that into account as you
> consider what I say.

actually, what is called ligatures here, are no ligatures in the real 
sense; they are tricks that use the tex ligature mechanism to achieve 
something (the fi ligature came out of f + i written in sequence but 
nobody in the past ever wrore, by pen, three -'s separated by a small 
space in a row, it's was just a longer rule)

by adding a hyphen+hyphen=endash and endash+hyphen=emdash rule in the 
(first) characters ligature table in the tfm file, one could save typing

this solution is a very english-language oriented one, because in quite 
some languages --- happens less often than characters with accents or 
whateve; i wonder what would have happened if tex had initially been 
written for another language because if the tfm file could have dealt 
with > 256 characters "u -> uumlaut would have made sense as pseudo 
ligature too ...

sometimes it's even hard to get rid of such pseudo ligs ... in documents 
coded in xml, --- really is --- and it' snear to impossible in 
traditional tex to selectively get rid of it ...

so, apart from remapping the weird single quote and the en/emdashes (too 
many docs around) is no real reason for the other ones ...

Hans


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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Wolfgang Schuster]

2007/12/9, Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com>:
> On Dec 9, 2007 5:07 PM, Willi Egger wrote:
> > > or even more weird ones:
> > >   !` -> inverted exclam
> > >   ?` -> inverted question
> >
> > For Spanish this is definitevely necessary. Again if coded in UTF
> > there is no problem.
>
> Do Spansh users still key them in like that (apart from old TeX-ies
> who have never heard abot anything beyond \v, \", \')? I mean: would
> anyone miss those two ligatures? (I assume that people need to use
> inverted quotation marks in Word as well ...)
>
> Ono problem is that that's a "well known" TeX behaviour though
> (documented in beginner's manual as well).
>
> > > Some ligatures are handy indeed:
> > >   -- -> endash
> > >   --- -> emdash
> > >   ' -> right single quote (I'm, isn't etc.)
> >
> > Sure this is important, I suggest to add the horizontal ellipsis
>
> \dots? But what if one decides to use, say, 10 dots in a row? That

\periods[10]

> might lead to weird effects (non-evenly spaced dots). -- and --- have
> been well established, so one would be careful enough before writing
> "----------". And there's \dots, so that one could have been mapped to
> ellipsis if needed.

10 periods in the file should give 3 ellipsis and 1 single dot.

> Thanks,
>     Mojca

Wolfgang
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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Willi Egger]

Hi Mojca,

On Dec 9, 2007, at 7:48 PM, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

> On Dec 9, 2007 5:07 PM, Willi Egger wrote:
>>> or even more weird ones:
>>>   !` -> inverted exclam
>>>   ?` -> inverted question
>>
>> For Spanish this is definitevely necessary. Again if coded in UTF
>> there is no problem.
>
> Do Spansh users still key them in like that (apart from old TeX-ies
> who have never heard abot anything beyond \v, \", \')? I mean: would
> anyone miss those two ligatures? (I assume that people need to use
> inverted quotation marks in Word as well ...)
>
I was not to the point on this and I misinterpreted your question.   
Sorry.
Indeed the well known coding of umlauts and alike with \"... should  
be there for sake of compatibility. - If those would vanish, this  
would mean for me to re-encode a couple of thousand pages ...
Coming back to the quotation-marks. IMHO one should stick to the  
\quote and \quotation constructs. This and only this allows you to  
change the appearance of the marks depending on a given language or  
adjust them to the style of a print-house/publisher. I would suggest  
not to make provisions in order to automatically convert ,, into „ .  
There will be consistency problems and the behaviour of Word i.e.  
that things happen while you have difficulty to control them.

> Ono problem is that that's a "well known" TeX behaviour though
> (documented in beginner's manual as well).
>
>>> Some ligatures are handy indeed:
>>>   -- -> endash
>>>   --- -> emdash
>>>   ' -> right single quote (I'm, isn't etc.)
>>
>> Sure this is important, I suggest to add the horizontal ellipsis
>
> \dots? But what if one decides to use, say, 10 dots in a row? That
> might lead to weird effects (non-evenly spaced dots). -- and --- have
> been well established, so one would be careful enough before writing
> "----------". And there's \dots, so that one could have been mapped to
> ellipsis if needed.
>
The ellipsis is typographically an important 'character'. So todays  
solution with \dots or \unknown is fine to me. When necessary one can  
adjust the kerning of the dots for style-purposes. Otherwise one  
could discuss to convert three consecutive dots (and only those) to  
the horizontal ellipsis in Unicode, which would look always better  
than three dots from the keyboard. Also here it is questionable  
whether to have automatic conversion. Again this is resembling Word  
and how to keep grip on what is happening.
IMHO the user who places an x-number of dots or dashes must know what  
he does. There might not be a generic solution for such cases.

Willi

> Thanks,
>     Mojca
> ______________________________________________________________________ 
> _____________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an  
> entry to the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ 
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> ______________________________________________________________________ 
> _____________




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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Maurí­cio]

 >>  > Hello,
 >>  >
 >>  > just wondering: how many ConTeXt-ers
 >>  > depend on ligatures such as:

 >>  >    '' (double quote) and '' (two single quotes) -> right double quote
 >>  >   `` -> left double quote
 >>  >   ,, -> DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK
 >>  > (...)
 >>
 >> You got replies from experienced users, so
 >> I thought you could use an answer from a
 >> begginer; there are many of us out there!
 >> (...)

 > actually, what is called ligatures here,
 > are no ligatures in the real sense; they
 > are tricks that use the tex ligature
 > mechanism to achieve something (the fi
 > ligature came out of f + i written in
 > sequence but nobody in the past ever wrore,
 > by pen, three -'s separated by a small
 > space in a row, it's was just a longer
 > rule) (...)

I see. I also read somewhere that some font
mechanisms (OpenType?) also handle what is
called ligatures by themselves, is that true?

What about math mode? I've not used it that
much, does it also have such kind of
'pseudo-ligatures'? I read that what I use in
my keyboard to type minus (-) is actually
just ascii minus/hyphen, but in Unicode
there's an actual minus symbol (U+2212). Does
that needs special handling? The ligature
trick could not be used here, I imagine.

Thanks,
Maurício

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Re: TeX ligatures in XeTeX/LuaTeX: ``who needs them''?

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Dec 10, 2007 1:24 PM, Maurí­cio wrote:
>
> What about math mode? I've not used it that
> much, does it also have such kind of
> 'pseudo-ligatures'? I read that what I use in
> my keyboard to type minus (-) is actually
> just ascii minus/hyphen, but in Unicode
> there's an actual minus symbol (U+2212). Does
> that needs special handling?

Yes, and it has been taken care for that since the beginning of TeX
existance (you don't need to worry about it).

Another side of the truth is that there are no TeX math OpenType fonts
yet (but they're on their way).

Mojca
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